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Meredith Nicholson
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Title: The Lords of High Decision
Author: Meredith Nicholson
Illustrator: Arthur I. Keller
Release Date: October 2, 2021 [eBook #66455]
Language: English
Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LORDS OF HIGH
DECISION ***
THE LORDS OF HIGH DECISION
OTHER BOOKS BY
MEREDITH NICHOLSON
The Main Chance
Zelda Dameron
The House of a Thousand Candles
Poems
The Port of Missing Men
Rosalind at Red Gate
The Little Brown Jug at Kildare
The Hoosiers (Historical. In National Studies in American Letters)
[Illustration: JEAN MORLEY]
The
Lords of High Decision
By
MEREDITH NICHOLSON
_Illustrated by_
_ARTHUR I. KELLER_
[Illustration]
New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1909
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
PUBLISHED, OCTOBER, 1909
TO BOWMAN ELDER AND EDWARD ROBINETTE
IN REMEMBRANCE OF OUR CANOE FLIGHT THROUGH THE
MAINE WOODS, WITH A BACKWARD GLANCE
AT INDIAN JOE
WHO FAILED TO FIND THE MOOSE
_Mackinac Island,
September 20, 1909._
And the Fourth Kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron
breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh
all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.
And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and
part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it
of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed
with miry clay.
And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so
the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken.
_The Book of Daniel._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Face in the Locket 3
II. The Lady of Difficult Occasions 21
III. A Letter, a Bottle and an Old Friend 28
IV. The Ways of Wayne Craighill 42
V. A Child of the Iron City 59
VI. Before a Portrait by Sargent 73
VII. Wayne Counsels his Sister 86
VIII. The Coming of Mrs. Craighill 101
IX. “Help Me to be a Good Woman” 114
X. Mr. Walsh Meets Mrs. Craighill 126
XI. Paddock Delivers an Invitation 144
XII. The Shadows Against the Flame 155
XIII. Jean Morley 160
XIV. A Light Supper for Two 175
XV. Mrs. Blair is Displeased 190
XVI. The Trip to Boston 206
XVII. Mrs. Craighill Bides at Home 224
XVIII. The Snow-storm at Rosedale 240
XIX. Mr. Wingfield Calls on Mr. Walsh 262
XX. Evening at the Craighills’ 274
XXI. Soundings in Deep Waters 292
XXII. A Conference at the Allequippa 299
XXIII. The End of a Sleigh-ride 307
XXIV. Jean Answers a Question 317
XXV. Colonel Craighill is Annoyed 327
XXVI. Colonel Craighill Scores a Point 335
XXVII. “I’m Going Back to Joe” 344
XXVIII. Closed Doors 355
XXIX. “You Love Another Man, Jean” 368
XXX. The House of Peace 378
XXXI. Wayne Sees Jean Again 397
XXXII. An Angry Encounter 408
XXXIII. The High Moment of Their Lives 416
XXXIV. The Heart of the Bugle 428
XXXV. Golden Bridge 446
XXXVI. Two Old Friends Seek Wayne 460
XXXVII. Wayne Visits His Father’s House 467
XXXVIII. “They’re Callin’ Strikes on Me” 475
XXXIX. We See Walsh Again 487
XL. The Belated Appearance of John McCandless Blair 493
XLI. “My City--Our City” 498
ILLUSTRATIONS
Jean Morley _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
“Men who work with their hands--these things!” 322
“There was a dull sound as of a blow struck” 422
“Ghosts, the ghosts of dead soldiers” 442
THE LORDS OF HIGH DECISION
The Lords of High Decision
CHAPTER I
THE FACE IN THE LOCKET
As Mrs. John McCandless Blair entered the house her brother, Wayne
Craighill, met her in the hall. The clock on the stair landing was
striking seven.
“On time, Fanny? How did it ever happen?” he demanded as she caught
his hands and peered into his face. He blinked under her scrutiny; she
always gave him this sharp glance when they met,--and its significance
was not wasted on him; but she was satisfied and kissed him, and then,
as he took her wrap:
“For heaven’s sake what’s up, Wayne? Father was ominously solemn in
telephoning me to come over. John’s dining at the Club--I think father
wants to see us alone.”
“It rather looks that way, Fanny,” replied Wayne, laughing at his
sister’s earnestness.
“Well, is he going to do it at last?”
“There’s no use kicking if he is, so be prepared for the worst.”
“Well, if it’s that Baltimore woman----”
“Or that Philadelphia woman, or the person he met in Berlin--the one
from nowhere----”
Their voices had reached Colonel Craighill and he came into the hall
and greeted his daughter affectionately.
“Give me credit, papa! I was on time to-night!”
“We will give John credit for sending you. How’s the new car working?”
“Oh, more or less the usual way!”
Dinner was announced and they went out at once, Mrs. Blair taking a
place opposite her father at the round table, with Wayne between them.
Roger Craighill was an old citizen; it may be questioned whether he
was not, by severe standards, the first citizen of Pittsburg. There
were, to be sure, richer men, but his identification with the soberer
past of the City of the Iron Heart--before the Greater City had planted
its guidons as far as now along the rivers and over the hills--gave
indubitable value and dignity to his name. He was interested in many
philanthropies and reforms, and he had just returned from Washington
where he had attended a conference of the American Reform Federation,
of which he was a prominent and influential member. Colonel Craighill,
like his son, dressed with care and followed the fashion, and to-night
in his evening clothes his daughter thought him unusually handsome
and distinguished. He had kept his figure, and his fine colouring had
prompted Mr. Richard Wingfield, the cynic of the Allequippa Club, to
bestow upon him the soubriquet of Rosy Roger, a pleasantry for which
Wingfield had been censured by the governors. But Colonel Craighill’s
fine height and his noble head with its crown of white hair, set him
apart for admiration in any gathering. He walked a mile a day and
otherwise safeguarded his health, which an eminent New York physician
assured him once a year was perfect.
Roger Craighill was by all tests the most eligible widower in western
Pennsylvania, and gossip had striven for years to marry him to any one
of a dozen women imaginably his equals. When the local possibilities
were exhausted attention shifted to women of becoming age and social
standing in other cities--New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore--Colonel
Craighill’s frequent absences from home lending faint colour of truth
to these speculations. His daughter, Mrs. John McCandless Blair, had
often discussed the matter with her brother, but without resentment,
save occasionally when some woman known to them and distasteful or
particularly unsuitable from their standpoint was suggested. It was
indicative of the difference in character and temperament between
brother and sister that Wayne was more captious in his criticisms of
the presumptive candidates for their mother’s place in the old home
than his sister. When, shortly after Mrs. Craighill’s death, Wayne’s
dissolute habits became a town scandal there were many who said that
things would have gone differently if his mother had lived; that Mrs.
Craighill had understood Wayne, but that his father was wholly out of
sympathy with him.
Mrs. John McCandless Blair was immensely aroused now by the suspicion
that her father was about to bring home a second wife, and she steeled
her heart against the unknown woman. She was not in the least abashed
by her father, who never took her seriously. He began describing his
visit to Washington, to cover the four courses of the family dinner
that must be eaten before--with proper deliberation and the room freed
of the waitress--he apprised his children of the particular purpose of
this family gathering.
Colonel Craighill was a capital talker and he gave an intimate turn
to his account of the Washington meeting, uttering the names of his
distinguished associates in the Federation with frank pride in their
acquaintance. A Southern bishop, far-famed as a story-teller, was a
member and Colonel Craighill repeated several anecdotes with which the
clergyman had enlivened the conferences. He quoted one or two periods
from his own speech at the dinner, and paused for Mrs. Blair and Wayne
to admire their aptness. With a nice sense of climax he mentioned last
his invitation to luncheon at the White House, where there was only one
other guest--a famous English statesman and man of letters.
“It was really quite _en famille_. My impression of the President was
delightful; I confess that I had wholly misjudged him. He addressed
many questions to me directly--asking about political conditions
here at home in such a way that I had to do a good deal of talking.
As I was leaving he detained me a moment and asked my opinion of
the business outlook. I was amazed to see how familiar he appeared
to be with the range of my own interests. He told me that if I had
suggestions at any time as to financial policies he wished I would come
down and talk to him personally. But the published reports of my visit
to the White House annoyed me greatly. I thought it only just to myself
to write him a line to repudiate the interview attributed to me. There
have, of course, been rumours of cabinet changes, but I don’t want
office--all I ask is to be of some service to my fellow-men in the rôle
of a private citizen.”
Mrs. Blair murmured sympathetic responses through this recital. Wayne
ate his salad in silence. He knew that his father enjoyed nothing so
much as these conferences in behalf of good causes; they required a
great deal of time, but Colonel Craighill had reached an age at which
he could afford to indulge himself. If he enjoyed delivering addresses
and making after-dinner speeches it was none of Wayne’s affair. Their
natures were antipodal. Wayne cared little what his father did, one way
or another.
Mrs. Blair fell to chaffing her father about the work of the
Federation. Her curiosity as to the nature of the announcement he had
said he wished to make grew more acute as the minutes passed, and she
talked with rather more than her usual nervous volubility.
“Just think,” she exclaimed, “of drinking champagne over the building
of schools for poor negroes! If you would send them the champagne how
much more sensible it would be! There’s a beautiful idea. Why not found
a society for providing free champagne for the poor and needy!”
“It’s not for you to deride, Fanny. Only a little while ago you were
raising a fund for the restoration of a Buddhist temple somewhere in
darkest Japan--the merest fad. I remember that Doctor McAllister wrote
me a letter expressing surprise that a daughter of mine should be
aiding a heathen enterprise.”
“It _was_ too bad, papa! But the temple is all restored now, and we
had a little fund left over after the work was done--I was treasurer
and didn’t know what else to do with it--so I gave it to help build an
Episcopal parish house at Ironstead. And to-day I was out there in the
machine and behold! Jimmy Paddock is running that parish house and a
mission and is no end of a power in the place.”
“Paddock? What Paddock?” asked Wayne.
“Why, Jimmy Paddock. Don’t you remember him? You knew him in your prep.
school, and he was on the eleven at Harvard while you were at the
‘Tech.’”
“Not the same man,” declared Wayne. “I knew my Jimmy like a top; he was
no monk--not by a long shot. Besides, his family had money to burn. No
parish house larks for Jim. He knew how to order a dinner!”
“It just happens,” replied Mrs. Blair, “that I knew Jimmy, too, back
in your college days and I declare that I saw him this afternoon
at Ironstead. I was out there looking for a maid who used to work
for us and I met Jimmy Paddock in the street--a very disagreeable
street it was, too. You know he was always shy and he seemed terribly
embarrassed. It was hard work getting anything out of him; but he’s
our old Jimmy and he’s a regular minister--went off and did it all by
himself and has been out there at Ironstead for six months--all through
the hot weather.”
“Does he wear a becoming habit and hold quiet days for women?” asked
Wayne. “I remember that you affected the Episcopalians for a while--for
about half of one Lent! That was just before those table-tippers
buncoed you into introducing them to our first families.”
“That is unworthy of you, Wayne!” and Mrs. Blair frowned at her brother
with mock indignation. “Nobody ever really explained some of the things
those mediums did. They certainly told _me_ things----!”
“I’ll wager they did,” laughed Wayne. “But go on about Jimmy.”
“He’s just a plain little minister--no habit or anything like that.
He’s wonderful with men and boys. He thanked me for helping with the
parish house, and when candour compelled me to tell him that I didn’t
know it was his enterprise and that he had got what was left after
restoring a Buddhist temple, he smiled in just his old boyish way,
and I made him get in the machine and take me to see the place, which
is the simplest. There was a sign on the door of the parish house that
said, ‘Boxing Lessons Tuesday Night, by a Competent Instructor. All
Welcome.’ And it was signed ‘J. Paddock, Rector.’”
“If this minister is the boy we knew when Wayne was at St. John’s I
should think he would have come to see us,” remarked Colonel Craighill.
“We used to meet his family now and then.”
“I scolded him for not telling us he’s here; and he said he had been
too busy. He asked all about you, Wayne--said he was going to look you
up; but when I asked him to come and dine with us he was so unhappy in
trying to get out of it that I told him not to bother. He’s perfectly
devoted to his work, and they say the people out there are crazy about
him.”
“Dear old Jimmy!” mused Wayne. “I wonder how he’s kept it so dark. You
never can tell! Jimmy used to exhaust his chapel cuts the first week
every term. If he’s taken to saving souls, though, he’ll do it; he
hangs on like a bull pup. I can see him now at that last Thanksgiving
game going down the field with the ball under his arm--he was as fast
as lightning. I’d like to take a few boxing lessons from Jimmy myself,
if he’s in the business.”
Coffee was served; Mrs. Blair dropped the Reverend James Paddock and
watched her father choose his single lump of sugar. He refused a cigar
but waited until Wayne had lighted a cigarette before he dismissed the
waitress and began.
“It must have occurred to you both that I might at some time marry
again.”
“Yes, father; I suppose that possibility has occurred to many people,”
replied his daughter, feeling that something was required at once.
Wayne said nothing, but drew his chair back from the table and crossed
his legs.
“I want you to understand that your dead mother’s life is a precious--a
very precious memory. My determination to marry means no disloyalty to
her.”
He bowed his head and drew one hand lightly across the table.
“I have been lonely at times; the management of the house in itself has
been a burden, but I have not liked to give it up. I might have gone to
live with you, Fanny,--you and John have been kind in urging me--but
you have your own family; and as long as Wayne is unmarried the old
place must be his home. The change I propose making will have no effect
on your status in my house, Wayne--none whatever!”
“Thank you; I appreciate that, sir.”
“In fact,” continued Colonel Craighill, addressing his son, “you both
understand that the house is really yours--I have only a life tenancy
here--that was your mother’s wish and she so made her will. Maybe you
don’t remember that this property was never mine. Your mother inherited
a large tract of land up here from her father, and after I built the
house the title remained in her name--the homestead will be yours,
Wayne; your mother made it up to Fanny in other ways.”
“I understand--but wouldn’t it be better for me to leave--for a time at
least--after your marriage?”
“No; I couldn’t think of that, and I’m sure Adelaide would be very
uncomfortable if she felt you were being driven from home. And,
moreover, you know how prone people are to gossip. It must not be said
that my son left his father’s house through any act of mine.”
“The old story of the cruel stepmother!” smiled Wayne; but his father
went on gravely, as though to rebuke this levity.
“There are ways in which you have been a great grief to me; I had not
meant to speak of that, but Fanny has been a good sister to you and she
knows the whole story. I should like you to remember--to remember that
you are my son!”
Wayne nodded, but did not speak. After a moment his father resumed,
addressing them both.
“I have known the lady I am to marry a comparatively short time, but I
have become deeply attached to her. She is young, but that is not her
fault”--and Colonel Craighill smiled--“or mine! Her father died when
she was still a child, and she has lived abroad with her mother much
of the time. She is of an old Vermont family. The marriage is to take
place in a fortnight and by our own wish will be altogether simple and
quiet. Please do not mention this; I have to go to Cleveland to-morrow
for a day or two and I shall make the announcement when I return. I
have thought to save your feelings and to prevent embarrassment all
round by not asking either of you to the ceremony. We shall meet in
New York and go quietly to Doctor McAllister’s residence--he is an old
friend whom I have known long in church affairs--and we shall come
home immediately. The name of the lady is Allen--Miss Adelaide Allen.
I am sure you will learn to like her--that you and Fanny will see and
appreciate the fine qualities in Miss Allen that have won my admiration
and affection.”
There was a moment’s silence when he concluded. The candle nearest him
sputtered and he adjusted it carefully. Then Mrs. Blair rose and kissed
him.
“You sly old daddy!” she broke out; “and you never told a soul!
Well”--and she seated herself again at the table and nibbled a
bonbon--“tell us what she’s like, and her ways and her manners. I
suppose, of course, she’s a teacher in one of your negro schools,
or a foreign missionary or something noble like that! Tell us
everything--everything----” and Mrs. Blair, elbows on table, denoted
the breadth of her demand by an outward sweep of her hands from the
wrists.
Colonel Craighill smiled indulgently in the enjoyment of his daughter’s
eagerness.
“Tell us everything--her just being from Vermont doesn’t mean much. Is
she a blonde?”
“Well,” replied Colonel Craighill, colouring slightly, “Now that I
think of it, I believe she is!”
“I knew it!” exclaimed Mrs. Blair; “they’re always blondes! What are
her eyes?”
“Blue.”
“Stout or thin?”
“I think her proportions are about right for her age.”
“Which is----?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Are you sure about that, papa? You know they sometimes forget to count
their birthdays.”
“Whom do you mean by _they_?” asked Colonel Craighill guardedly.
“I mean the members of my delightful sex. Let me see, you are
sixty-five, if I remember right. Twice twenty-nine is”--she made the
computation on her slim, supple fingers--“fifty-eight: you’re rather
more than twice her age.”
“It would be more polite, to say that she’s rather less than half mine.”
“Oh, it all gets to the same place! It will have the advantage of
making me appear young to have a stepmother a few years my junior. But
what a blow to these old dowagers who have been suspected of having
designs on you! They little knew that all the time they were pursuing
you to consult about their investments or church or charity schemes,
you were casting about for some lovely young thing still in the lawful
possession of her own hair and teeth. Why, if I’d known that was your
idea there are lots of nice girls here in town that I should love to
have in the family. Wayne, you will be careful not to flirt with her!”
“Fanny!”
Colonel Craighill struck the table so sharply that the candlesticks
jumped. He was angry, and the colour deepened in his face.
“Please, papa,--I didn’t mean to be rude!”
Mrs. Blair touched her father’s coat-sleeve lightly with her hand.
She loved her brother very dearly, and the effect upon him of this
marriage was already, in her vivid imagination, the chief thing in it.
She had long felt that her father had given Wayne up; that he believed
the passion for drink that took hold of his son at times was in the
nature of a disease, to be suffered patiently and borne with Christian
fortitude.
Wayne was vexed at his sister’s manner; he disliked contention and
there was nothing to be gained by being disagreeable over their
father’s marriage. He left the room to find fresh cigarettes and
when he came back the air had cleared. Colonel Craighill, anxious on
his part to be conciliatory, was laughing at a renewal of Fanny’s
cross-questioning.
“Where did Miss Allen attend school?” she was asking.
“I believe she had private teachers,” replied Colonel Craighill, though
not positively.
“And she isn’t a teacher herself or a philanthropist? Has she money?”
“She and her mother are, I believe, in comfortable circumstances. I
hope that you and Wayne will appreciate the difficulties before this
lady in becoming my wife--that she is stepping into a place where she
will be criticized unkindly from the very fact of my position here and
the disparity in our years and fortunes. I appeal to you, Fanny, as to
one woman on behalf of another. You can make her way easy if you will.”
He had, with the best intentions in the world, struck the wrong
note. In so many words, he was asking mercy where there had been no
accusation. Mrs. Blair had not the slightest intention of committing
herself to any policy toward her father’s new wife. So far as the
public was concerned she would carry off the situation with outward
acceptance and approval; but just now she declined to consider the
question in the key her father had sounded. To him she was a frivolous
person with unaccountably erratic ways, and with nothing of his own
measure or sobriety. She made no reply whatever to his appeal, but
chose another bonbon and ate it with exasperating slowness. Wayne
saw--as her father did not--that she was angry; but Mrs. Blair fell
back upon the half-mocking mood with which she had begun, demanding:
“Is she modish? Does she wear her clothes with an air?”
“I hope,” said Colonel Craighill, betrayed into the least show of
resentment by her refusal to meet his question--“I hope, Fanny, that
she dresses like a lady.”
“So do I, papa, if it comes to that! You haven’t told us yet how you
came to meet Miss Allen.”
“It was last spring when I went to Bermuda. She and her mother were on
the steamer. I saw a good deal of them then; and I have since seen them
in New York, which is now really their home.”
“Have they ever been here?--I have known Allens.”
“I’m quite sure you have never met them, Fanny. Since Adelaide’s father
died they have travelled much of the time.”
“So your frequent trips to New York haven’t been wholly philanthropy
and business! You speak her name as though you had got well used to
it. It’s funny, but I’ve never known Adelaides. Have you ever known an
Adelaide, Wayne?”
“A lot of them; so have you if you will think of it,” answered her
brother. He saw that his father was growing restive and he knew that
Fanny was going too far. There was a point at which she could vex those
who loved her most, but being wiser than she seemed she usually knew it
herself. She pushed away the bonbon dish and slapped her hands together
lightly.
“Wayne,” she cried, “what are we thinking of? We must see her picture!
Now, papa! you know you have it in your pocket!”
“Certainly, we must see Miss Allen’s picture,” echoed Wayne, relieved
at his sister’s change of tone.
“Later--later!” but Colonel Craighill’s annoyance passed and he smiled
again.
“It isn’t dignified in you to invite teasing, papa. You know you have
her photograph. Out with it, please!”
She bent toward him as though threatening his pockets. He laughed, but
coloured deeply; then he drew from his waistcoat a thin silver case a
trifle larger than a silver dollar, and suffered Fanny to take it.
“Now,” said Colonel Craighill, settling himself in his chair, “you see
I am not afraid, Fanny, of even your severe judgment.”
She weighed the unopened trinket in her palm as though taunting her
curiosity. Wayne lighted a fresh cigarette and turned toward his
sister. He was surprised at his own indifference; but he feigned
curiosity to please his father, who naturally wished his children to
be interested and pleased. Fanny opened the locket and studied it
carefully for an instant.
“Charming! Perfectly charming!” she exclaimed; and then, holding it
close and turning her head and pursing her lips as she studied the
face, “but I thought you didn’t like such fussy hair dressing--you
always told me so. I don’t like the ultra-marcelling; but it’s well
done--and if it’s all hers and she can manage it without a rat she’s
a wonder. You’ve always decried the artificial, but I see you’re
finding that Nature has her weak points. Those eyes are just a trifle
inscrutable, a little heavy-lidded and dreamy--but we’ll have to see
the original. Her nose seems regular enough, and her mouth--well, I
wouldn’t trust any photograph to tell the truth about a mouth. She’s
young--my own lost youth smites me! Here, Wayne, behold her counterfeit
presentment!”
Wayne inhaled a last deep draught of his cigarette and dropped it into
the ash tray. He took the case into his fingers and bent over it, a
slight smile on his lips.
“Be careful! Be careful!” ejaculated his sister. “This is a crucial
moment.”
Wayne’s empty hand that lay on the table slowly opened and shut; the
smile left his lips, but he continued to study the picture.
“Well, Wayne! Are you having so much trouble to make up your mind?”
demanded Mrs. Blair, her keen sensibilities aroused by the fixedness
of Wayne’s stare at the likeness before him and the resulting interval
of suspense. There was something here that she did not grasp, and she
was a woman who resented being left in the dark. This interview with
her father had been trying enough, but her brother’s manner struck her
ominously. Colonel Craighill smiled urbanely, undisturbed by his son’s
prolonged scrutiny of the face in the locket; he attached no great
importance to Wayne’s opinions on any subject. To Mrs. Blair, however,
the silence became intolerable and she demanded:
“Are you hypnotized--or what has struck you, Wayne?”
“Nothing at all!” he laughed, closing the locket and handing it
back. “I have no criticism--most certainly none. Father, I offer my
congratulations.”
And this happened midway of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen
hundred and seven.
CHAPTER II
THE LADY OF DIFFICULT OCCASIONS
The Lady of Difficult Occasions--such was the title conferred upon
Mrs. John McCandless Blair by Dick Wingfield--looked less than her
thirty-two years. A slender, nervous woman, Mrs. Blair had contributed
from early girlhood to the picturesqueness of life in her city.
Her interests were many and varied; she did what she liked and was
supremely indifferent to criticism. She wore colours that no other
woman would have dared; for colour, she maintained, possesses the
strongest psychical significance, and to keep in tune with things
infinite one’s wardrobe must reflect the rainbow. She had tried all
extant religions and had revived a number long considered obsolete;
her garret was a valhalla of discarded gods. One day the scent of
joss-sticks clung to the draperies of her library, the next she dipped
her finger boldly in the holy water font at the door of the Catholic
cathedral and sent a subscription to the Little Sisters of the Poor.
She appeared fitfully in the Blair pew at Memorial Presbyterian Church,
where her father was ruling elder and her husband passed the plate;
and Memorial, we may say, was the most fashionable house of prayer
and worship in town, frowning down severely upon the Allequippa Club
over the way. “Fanny Blair is sure of heaven,” Dick Wingfield said,
“for she has tickets to all the gates.” Mrs. Blair was generous in
her quixotic fashion; her husband had inherited wealth, and he was,
moreover, a successful lawyer, who admired her immensely and encouraged
her foibles. She dressed her twin boys after portraits of the Stuart
princes, and their velvet and long curls caused many riots at the
public school they attended--sent there, she said, that they might grow
up strong in the democratic spirit.
When they had adjourned to the library Mrs. Blair spoke in practical
ways of the new wife’s home-coming. She tendered her own services
in any changes her father wished in the house. Some of her mother’s
personal belongings she frankly stated her purpose to remove. They
were things that did not, to Colonel Craighill’s masculine mind, seem
particularly interesting or valuable. Wayne grew restless as his father
and sister considered these matters. He moved about idly, throwing in
a word now and then when Mrs. Blair appealed to him directly. Evenings
at home had become unusual events, and domestic affairs bored him.
Mrs. Blair was, however, sensitive to his moods and she continued her
efforts to hold him within the circle of their talk.
“Don’t you think a reception--something large and general--would be a
good thing at the start, Wayne?”
“Yes; oh, yes, by all means,” he replied, looking up from a publisher’s
advertisement that he had been reading.
He left the room unnoticed a few minutes later and wandered into the
wide hall, feeling the atmosphere of the house flow around him. It
was the local custom, in our ready American fashion of conferring
antiquity, to speak of the mansion as the old Craighill place. The
house, built originally in the early seventies, had recently been
remodelled and enlarged. It occupied half a block, and the grounds were
beautifully kept, faithful to traditions of Mrs. Craighill’s taste.
The full force of the impending change in his father’s life now struck
Wayne for the first time. There is no eloquence like that of absence.
He stood by the open drawing room door with his childhood and youth
calling to all his senses. The thought of his mother stole across his
memory--a gentle, bright, smiling spirit. The pictures on the walls;
the familiar furniture; the broad fireplace; the tall bronze vases that
guarded the glass doors of the conservatory, whose greenery showed at
the end of the long room--those things cried to him now with a new
appeal. A great bowl of yellow chrysanthemums, glowing in a far corner,
struck upon his sight like flame. He walked the length of the room and
gazed up at a portrait of his mother, painted in Paris by a famous
artist. Its vitality had in some way vanished; the figure no longer
seemed poised, ready to step down into the room. The luminous quality
of the face was gone; the eyes were not so brightly responsive as of
old--he was so sure of these differences that he flashed off the frame
lights with a half-conscious feeling that a shadow had fallen upon
the spirit represented there, and that it was kinder to leave it in
darkness.
His sister called him on some pretext--he was very dear to her and the
fact that he and his father were so utterly unsympathetic increased her
tenderness--and repeated the programme of entertainments which she had
proposed.
“It’s quite ample. There’s never any question about your doing enough,
Fanny,” he remarked indifferently.
Colonel Craighill announced that he must go down to the Club to a
meeting of the Executive Committee of the Greater City Improvement
League, in which his son-in-law was interested.
“Wayne, you will take Fanny home in your own car, won’t you? Or maybe
you’ll wait for John to stop?”
“I must go soon; Wayne will look after me,” she said, and they both
went to the door to see their father off.
“It’s like old times,” she sighed, as the motor moved away; “but those
times won’t come any more.”
Then with a change of manner she turned upon Wayne and seized his hands.
“Wayne, have you ever seen that woman before?”
He shook himself free with a roughness that was unlike him.
“Don’t be silly: of course not. I never heard of her. How did you get
that idea?”
“You looked as though you were seeing a ghost when you looked at her
picture.”
“I was thinking of ghosts, Fanny, but I wasn’t seeing one.” He lighted
a cigar. “I must say that your tact sometimes leaves you at fatal
moments. The Colonel was almost at the point of getting mad. He wanted
to be jollied--and you did all you could to irritate him.”
“I had a perfect right to say what I pleased to him. How do you suppose
he came to walk into this adventuress’s trap? A girl of twenty-nine!
The hunt will be up as soon as he makes the announcement and the whole
town will join the pack.”
“The town will have to stand it if we can.”
“It’s the loss of his own dignity, it’s the affront to mother’s
memory--this young thing with her pretty marcelled head! There are
some things that ought to be sacred in this world, and father ought to
remember what our mother was--how noble and beautiful!”
“Well, we know it, Fanny; she’s our memory now--not his,” said Wayne
gently; and upon this they were silent for a time, and Fanny wept
softly. When Wayne spoke again it was in a different key.
“Well, father has his nerve to be getting married right on the verge
of a panic. Perhaps he is doing it merely to reassure the public, to
steady the market, so to speak.”
“But papa says there will be no panic. The _Star_ printed a long
interview with him only yesterday. He says there must be a readjustment
of values, that’s all; he must be right about it.”
“Bless you, yes, Fanny. If father says there won’t be any panic, why,
there won’t! What does John say?”
“Well, John is always cautioning me about our expenses,” she admitted
ruefully, so that he laughed at her. “But great heavens, Wayne!” she
exclaimed.
“Well, what’s the matter now?”
“Why, he never told us a thing about her. Who do you suppose introduced
him to her?”
“My dear Fanny,” began Wayne, thrusting his long legs out at
comfortable ease, “can you imagine our father dear being worked? He
backed off and sparred for time when you wanted to marry John, though
John belongs to our old Scotch-Irish Brahmin caste, because a Blair
once owned a distillery back in the dark ages, and there was no telling
but the sins of the rye juice might be visited on your children to the
third and fourth generation if you married John. And if I had craved
the Colonel’s permission to marry some girl in another town--some girl,
let us say, that _I_ had met on a steamer going to Bermuda--you may be
dead sure he would have put detectives on her family and had a careful
assay made of her moral character. Trust the Colonel, Fanny, for
caution in such matters! Don’t you think for a minute that he hasn’t
investigated Miss Adelaide Allen’s family into its most obscure and
inaccessible recesses! Our father was not born yesterday; our father is
the great Colonel Roger Craighill, a prophet honoured even on his own
Monongahela. Father never makes mistakes, Fanny. I’m his only mistake.
I’m a great grief to father. He has frequently admitted it. He begs
me please not to forget that I am his son. I am beyond any question
a bad lot; I have raised no end of hell; I have frequently been
drunk--beastly, fighting drunk. And father will go to his dear pastor
and ask him to pray for me, and he will admit to old sympathizing
friends that I’m an awful disappointment to him. That’s the reason he
stopped lecturing me long ago; he doesn’t want me to keep sober; when I
get drunk and smash bread wagons in the dewy dawn with my machine after
a night among the ungodly he puts on his martyr’s halo and asks his
pastor to plead with God for me!”
“Wayne! Wayne! What’s the matter with you?”
He had spoken rapidly and with a bitterness that utterly confounded
her; and he laughed now mirthlessly.
“It’s all right, Fanny. I’m a rotten bad lot. No wonder the Colonel
has given me up; but I have the advantage of him there: I’ve given
myself up! Yes, I’ve given myself up,” he repeated, and nodded his head
several times as though he found pleasure in the thought.
CHAPTER III
A LETTER, A BOTTLE AND AN OLD FRIEND
When Wayne had taken Mrs. Blair to her own home and had promised on
her doorstep to be “good” and to come to her house soon for a further
discussion of family affairs, he told Joe, the chauffeur, that he
wished to drive the machine, and was soon running toward town at
maximum speed.
Joe, huddled in an old ulster, watched the car’s flight with
misgivings, for this mad race preluded one of Wayne’s outbreaks; and
Joe was no mere hireling, but a devoted slave who grieved when Wayne,
as Joe put it, “scorched the toboggan.”
Joe Denny’s status at the Craighill house was not clearly defined. He
lodged in the garage and appeared irregularly in the servants’ dining
room with the recognized chauffeur who drove the senior Craighill
in his big car. It had been suggested in some quarters that Colonel
Craighill employed Joe Denny to keep track of Wayne and to take care
of him when he was tearing things loose; but this was not only untrue
but unjust to Joe. Joe had been a coal miner before he became the
“star” player of the Pennsylvania State League, and Wayne had marked
his pitching one day while killing time between trains at Altoona.
His _sang froid_--an essential of the successful pitcher, and the
ease with which he baffled the batters of the opposing nine, aroused
Wayne’s interest. Joe Denny enjoyed at this time a considerable
reputation, his fame penetrating even to the discriminating circles
of the National League, with the result that “scouts” had been sent
to study his performances. When a fall from an omnibus interrupted
Joe’s professional career, Wayne, who had kept track of him, paid his
hospital charges, and Joe thereupon moved his “glass” arm to Pittsburg.
By shrewd observation he learned the management of a motor car, and
attached himself without formality to the person of Wayne Craighill.
For more than a year he had thus been half guardian, half protégé.
Wayne’s friends had learned to know him; they even sent for him on
occasions to take Wayne home when he was getting beyond control;
and Wayne himself had grown to depend upon the young fellow. It was
something to have a follower whom one could abuse at will without
having to apologize afterward. Besides, Joe was wise and keen. He
knew all the inner workings of the Craighill household; he advised
the Scotch gardener in matters pertaining to horticulture, to the
infinite disgust of that person; he adorned the barn with portraits of
leading ball players, cut from sporting supplements, and this gallery
of famous men was a source of great irritation to Colonel Craighill’s
solemn German chauffeur, who had not the slightest interest in, or
acquaintance with, the American national game. Joe’s fidelity to
Wayne’s interests was so unobtrusive and intelligent that Wayne himself
was hardly conscious of it. Such items of news as the prospective
arrival or departure of Colonel Craighill; the fact that he was trading
his old machine for a new one; or that Walsh, Colonel Craighill’s
trusted lieutenant, had bought a new team of Kentucky roadsters for
his daily drive in the park--or that John McCandless Blair, Wayne’s
brother-in-law, was threatened with a nomination for mayor on a Reform
ticket--such items as these Joe collected through agencies of his own
and imparted to Wayne for his better instruction.
To-night the lust for drink had laid hold upon Wayne and his rapid
flight through the cool air sharpened the edge of his craving in
every tingling, excited nerve. His body swayed over the wheel; he
passed other vehicles by narrow margins that caused Joe to shudder;
and policemen, looking after him, swore quietly and telephoned to
headquarters that young Craighill was running wild again. He had
started for the Allequippa Club, but, remembering that his father was
there, changed his mind. The governors of the Penn, the most sedate and
exclusive of the Greater City’s clubs, had lately sent a polite threat
of expulsion for an abuse of its privileges during a spree, and that
door was shut in his face. The thought of this enraged him now as he
spun through the narrow streets in the business district. Very likely
all the clubs in town would be closed against him before long. Then
with increased speed he drove the car to the Craighill building, told
Joe to wait, passed the watchman on duty at the door and ascended to
the Craighill offices.
A lone book-keeper was at work, and Wayne spoke to him and passed on to
his own room.
He turned on the lights and began pulling out the drawers of his desk,
turning over their contents with a feverish haste that increased their
disorder. Presently he found what he sought: a large envelope marked
“Private, W. C.” in his own hand. He slapped it on the desk to free it
of dust, then tore it open and drew out a number of letters, addressed
in a woman’s hand to himself, and a photograph, which he held up and
scrutinized with eyes that were disagreeably hard and bright. It was
not the same photograph that his father had shown at the dinner table,
but it represented another view of the same head--there was no doubt of
that. He studied it carefully; it seemed, indeed, to exercise a spell
upon him. He recalled what Mrs. Blair had said about the eyes; but in
this picture they seemed to conspire with a smile on the girl’s lips to
tease and tantalize.
A number of letters that had been placed on his desk after he left the
office caught his eye. One or two invitations to large social affairs
he tossed into the waste-paper basket; he was only bidden now to the
most general functions. He caught up an envelope bearing the legend of
a New York hotel and a typewritten superscription. He tore this open,
still muttering his wrath at the discarded invitations, and then sat
down and read eagerly a letter in a woman’s irregular hand dated two
days earlier:
“MY DEAR WAYNE:
“You wouldn’t believe I could do it, and I am not sure of it yet
myself; but I wanted to prepare you before _he_ breaks the news.
There’s a whole lot to tell that I won’t bore you with--for you do
hate to be bored, you crazy boy. Wayne, I’m going to marry your
father! Don’t be angry--please! I know everything that you will think
when you read this--but mama has driven me to it. She never forgave
me for letting you go, and life with her has become intolerable. And
please believe this, Wayne. I really respect and admire your father
more than any man I have met, and can’t you see what it will mean
to me to get away from this hideous life I have been leading? Why,
Wayne, I’d rather die than go on as we have lived all these years,
knocking around the world and mama raising money to keep us going in
ways I can’t speak of. You know the whole story of _that_. I let mama
think I am doing this to please her, but I am not. I am doing it to
get away from her. I have made her promise to let me alone, and I
will do all I can for her. She’s going abroad right after my marriage
and I hate to say it of my own mother, but I hope never to see her
again.
“Of course you could probably stop the marriage by telling your
father how near _we_ came to hitting it off. I have always felt
that you were unjust to me in that--I really cared more for you
than I knew--but that’s all over now. That was another of mama’s
mistakes. She let her greed get the better of her and I suffered.
But let us be good friends--shan’t we? You know more about me than
anybody, Wayne--how ignorant I am, and all that. Why, I had to
study hard--mama suggested it, that’s the kind of thing she _can_
do--to learn to talk to your father about politics and philanthropy
and those things. If anything should happen--if you should spoil
it all, I don’t know what mama would do; but it would be something
unpleasant, be sure of that. She sold everything we had to follow
your father about to those small, select places he loves so well.
“I am going to try to live up to your father’s good name. I don’t
believe I’m bad. I’m just a kind of featherweight; and you will
be nice to me, won’t you, when I come? Your father has told me
everything--about the old house and how it belongs to you. Of course
you won’t run away and leave me and you will help me to hit it off
with your sister, too. He says she’s a little difficult, but I know
she must be interesting. As you see, I’ve taken mama’s name by her
second marriage since _our_ little affair. Explanations had grown
tiresome and mama enjoys playing to the refined sensibilities of
those nice people who think three marriages are not quite respectable
for one woman....”
He read on to the end, through more in the same strain. He flinched
at the reference to the home and to his sister, but at the close he
lighted a cigarette and re-read the whole calmly.
“It was your dear mother that caught the Colonel, Addie; you are pretty
and you like clothes and you know how to wear them, but you haven’t
your dear mother’s strategic mind. Oh, _you_ were a sucker, Colonel,
and they took you in! You are so satisfied with your own virtue, and
you are so pained by my degradation! Let’s see where you come out.”
He continued to mutter to himself as he re-folded the letter. He
grinned his appreciation of the care which had caused its author to
avoid the placing of any tell-tale handwriting on the envelope. “I’m a
bad, bad lot, Colonel, but there are traps my poor wandering feet have
not stumbled into.”
He glanced hurriedly at the packet of letters that he had found with
the photograph and then thrust this latest letter in with the others
and locked them all in a tin box he found in one of the drawers. When
this had been disposed of he pulled the desk out from the wall and drew
from a hidden cupboard in the back of it a quart bottle of whiskey
and a glass. The sight of the liquor caused the craving of an hour
before to seize upon him with renewed fury. He felt himself suddenly
detached, alone, with nothing else in the world but himself and this
bright fluid. It flashed and sparkled alluringly, causing all his
senses to leap. At a gulp his blood would run with fire, and the little
devils would begin to dance in his brain, and he could plan a thousand
evil deeds that he was resolved to do. He was the Blotter, and a
blotter was a worthless thing to be used and tossed aside by everyone
as worthless. He would accept the world’s low appraisement without
question, but he would take vengeance in his own fashion. He grasped
the bottle, filled the glass to the brim and was about to carry it to
his lips when the clerk whom he had passed in the outer office knocked
sharply, and, without waiting, flung open the door.
“Beg pardon, but here’s a gentleman to see you, Mr. Craighill.”
With the glass half raised, Wayne turned impatiently to greet a short
man who stood smiling at the door.
“Hello, Craighill!”
“Jimmy Paddock!” blurted Wayne.
The odour of whiskey was keen on the air and Wayne’s hand shook with
the eagerness of his appetite; but the fool of a clerk had surprised
him at a singularly inopportune moment. He slowly lowered the glass to
the desk, his eyes upon his caller, who paused on the threshold for an
instant, then strode in with outstretched hand.
“That delightful chauffeur of yours told me you were here and I thought
I wouldn’t wait for a better chance to look you up. Had to come into
town on an errand--was waiting for the trolley--recognized your man and
here I am! Well!”
The glass was at last safe on the desk and Wayne, still dazed by the
suddenness with which his thirst had been defrauded, turned his back
upon it and greeted Paddock coldly. The Reverend James Paddock had
already taken a chair, with his face turned away from the bottle, and
he plunged into lively talk to cover Craighill’s embarrassment. They
had not met for five years, and then it had been by mere chance in
Boston, when they were both running for trains that carried one to the
mountains and the other to the sea. Their ways had parted definitely
when they left their preparatory school, Wayne to enter the “Tech,”
Paddock to go to Harvard. Wayne was not in the least pleased to see
this old comrade of his youth: there was a wide gulf of time to bridge
and Wayne shrank from the effort of flinging his memory across it. As
Paddock unbuttoned his topcoat, Wayne noted the clerical collar--noted
it, it must be confessed, with contempt. He remembered Paddock as a
rather silent boy, but the young minister talked eagerly with infinite
good spirits, chuckling now and then in a way that Wayne remembered.
As his resentment of the intrusion passed, some reference to their old
days at St. John’s awakened his curiosity as to one or two of their
classmates and certain of the masters, and Wayne began to take part in
the talk.
Jimmy Paddock had been a homely boy, and the years had not improved his
looks. His skin was very dark, and his hair black, but his eyes were a
deep, unusual blue. A sad smile somehow emphasized the plainness of his
clean-shaven face. He spoke with a curious rapidity, the words jumbling
at times, and after trying vaguely to recall some idiosyncrasy that
had set the boy apart, Wayne remembered that Paddock had stammered,
and this swift utterance with its occasional abrupt pauses was due to
his method of conquering the difficulty. Behind the short, well-knit
figure Wayne saw outlined the youngster who had been the wonder of
the preparatory school football team for two years, and later at
Harvard the hero of the ’Varsity eleven. There was no question of
identification as to the physical man; but the boy he had known had
led in the wildest mischief of the school. He distinctly recollected
occasions on which Jimmy Paddock had been caned, in spite of the
fact that he belonged to a New England family of wealth and social
distinction. Paddock, with his chair tipped back and his hands thrust
into his pockets, volunteered answers to some of the questions that
were in Wayne’s mind.
“You see, Craighill, when I got out of college my father wanted me
to go into the law, but I tried the law school for about a month and
it was no good, so I chucked it. The fact is, I didn’t want to do
anything, and I used to hit it up occasionally and paint things to
assert my independence of public opinion. It was no use; couldn’t
get famous that way; only invited the parental wrath. Then a yellow
newspaper printed a whole page of pictures of American degenerates,
sons of rich families, and would you believe it, there I was, like Abou
Ben Adhem, leading all the rest! It almost broke my mother’s heart, and
my father stopped speaking to me. It struck in on me, too, to find
myself heralded as a common blackguard, so I went into exile--way up in
the Maine woods and lived with the lumber-jacks. Up there I met Paul
Stoddard. He’s the head of the Brothers of Bethlehem who have a house
over here in Virginia. The brothers work principally among men--miners,
sailors, lumbermen. It’s a great work and Stoddard’s a big chap, as
strong as a bull, who knows how to get close to all kinds of people.
I learned all I know from Stoddard. One night as I lay there in my
shanty it occurred to me that never in my whole stupid life had I done
anything for anybody. Do you see? I wasn’t converted, in the usual
sense”--his manner was wholly serious now, and he bent toward Wayne
with the sad little smile about his lips--“I didn’t feel that God was
calling me or anything of that kind; I felt that Man was calling me: I
used to go to bed and lie awake up there in the woods and hear the wind
howling and the snow sifting in through the logs, and that idea kept
worrying me. A lot of the jacks got typhoid fever, and there wasn’t a
doctor within reach anywhere, so I did the best I could for them. For
the first time in my life I really felt that here was something worth
doing, and it was fun, too. Stoddard went from there down to New York
to spend a month in the East Side and I hung on to him--I was afraid
to let go of him. He gave me things to do, and he suggested that I
go into the ministry--said my work would be more effective with an
organization behind me--but I ducked and ducked hard. I told him the
truth, about what I didn’t believe, this and that and so on; but he put
the thing to me in a new way. He said nobody could believe in man who
didn’t believe in God, too! Do you get the idea? Well, I was a long
time coming to see it that way.
“It was no good going home to knock around and no use discussing such a
thing with my family, and I knew people would think me crazy. Stoddard
was going West, to do missionary stunts in Michigan, where there
were more lumber camps, so I went along. I used to help him with the
lumber-jacks, and try to keep the booze out of them; and first thing I
knew he had me reading and getting ready for orders; he said I’d better
keep clear of divinity schools; and I guess he had figured it out that
if I got too much divinity I would get scared and back water. Then I
went home and broke the news to the family. They didn’t take much stock
in it; they thought I would take a tumble and be a worse disgrace than
ever. But there was plenty of money and I had no head for business,
anyhow, and there was a chance that I might become respectable, so I
got ordained very quietly three years ago at a mission away up on Lake
Superior where a bishop had taken an interest in me--and here I am.”
The minister drew a pipe from his pocket, filled and lighted it,
shaking his head at Craighill’s offer of a cigar.
“Thanks; I prefer this. Hope the smoke won’t be painful to you; it’s a
brand they affect out in my suburb, but it’s better than what we used
to have up in the lumber camps. I still take the comfort of a pipe,
but the drink I cut out and the swearing. As I remember, it was you
who taught me to cuss in school because my stammering made it sound so
funny.”
Wayne had recalled a good many things about Paddock but the mood he
had brought from his father’s house did not yield readily to the
confessions of this boyhood friend who had reappeared in the livery
of the Christian ministry. The new status was difficult for Craighill
to accept and, conscious of the antagonism his recital had awakened,
Paddock regretted that he had volunteered his story. The Craighill
whom he had known was a big, generous, outspoken fellow whom everybody
liked; the man before him was morose and obstinately resentful: and
the fact that he had caught him in his own office at an unusual hour,
about to indulge his notorious appetite for drink, was in itself an
unhappy circumstance. The bottle and the glass were, to say the least,
an unfortunate background for reunion. Paddock touched Wayne’s knee
lightly; he wished to regain the ground he had lost by his frankness,
which had so signally failed of response.
“You have certainly deviated considerably,” remarked Wayne without
humour. “I believe they call your kind of thing Christian sociology,
and it’s all right. I congratulate you on having struck something
interesting in this life. It’s more than I’ve been able to do. Your
story is romantic and beautiful; mine had better not be told, Jimmy.
I’m as bad as they’re made; I’ve hit the bottom hard. When you came in
I had just reached an important conclusion, and was going to empty a
quart to celebrate the event.”
“Well?” inquired the minister, studying anew the fine head; the eyes
with their hard glitter; the lips that twitched slightly; the fingers
whose trembling he had noted in the lighting of repeated cigarettes.
“Be sure I shall value your confidence, old man,” said the minister
encouragingly, smiling his sad little smile.
“I’m glad you’re interested, Jimmy, but we’ve chosen different routes.
Mine, I guess, has scenic advantages over yours and the pace is faster.
You’re headed for the heavenly kingdom. I’m going to hell.”
CHAPTER IV
THE WAYS OF WAYNE CRAIGHILL
Four days passed. Wayne Craighill ceased twirling and knotting the
curtain cord and held his right hand against the strong light of the
office window to test his nerves. The fingers twitched and trembled,
and he turned away impatiently and flung himself into a chair by his
desk, hiding his hands and their tell-tale testimony deep in his
pockets. Half a dozen times he shook himself petulantly and attacked
his work with frenzied eagerness, as though to be rid of it in a
single spurt; but after an hour thus futilely spent he threw himself
back and glared at a large etching, depicting a storm-driven galleon
riding wildly under a frightened moon, that hung against the dark-olive
cartridge paper on the wall above his desk. Shadows appeared now and
then on the ground-glass outer door, and lingered several times,
testifying to their physical embodiment by violently seizing and
rattling the knob. Craighill scowled at every assault, and presently
when some importunate visitor had both shaken and kicked the door, he
yawned and sought the window again, looking moodily down, as from a
hill-top, upon the city of his birth, where practically all his life
had been spent, the City of the Iron Heart, lying like a wedge at the
confluence of the two broad rivers.
Wayne had used himself hard, as the lines in his smooth-shaven face
testified; but the vigour of the Scotch-Irish stock survived in him,
and even to-day he carried his tall frame erectly. His head covered
with brown hair in which there was a reddish glint, was really fine and
his blue eyes, not just now at their clearest, had in them the least
hint of the dreamer. His suit of brown--a solid colour--became him: he
was dressed with an added scrupulousness as though in conformity to
an inner contrition and rehabilitation. He was in his thirtieth year
but appeared older to-day as his gaze lay upon the drifting, shifting
smoke-cloud that hung above the Greater City.
The son of Colonel Roger Craighill was inevitably a conspicuous
person in his native city and his dissipated habits had long been the
subject of despairing comment by his fellow-citizens, and the text of
occasional lightly veiled sermons in press and pulpit. Dick Wingfield
had once remarked that is was too bad that there were only ten
commandments, as this small number painfully limited Wayne Craighill’s
possible infractions. It was Wingfield who named Wayne Craighill the
Blotter, in appreciation of Wayne’s amazing capacity for drink; and
it was he who said that Wayne’s sins were merely an expression of the
law of compensation and were thrown into the scale to offset Colonel
Craighill’s nobility and virtue. Whatever truth may lie in this, it is
indisputable that the elder Craighill’s rectitude tended to heighten
the colour of his son’s iniquities.
The Blotter had been drunk again. This is what would be said all over
the Greater City. At the clubs it would be remarked that he had also
had a fight with two policemen, and that he had been put in pickle at
the Country Club and then smuggled to his office to await the arrival
of Colonel Craighill, who had been to Cleveland to address something
or other. The nobler his father’s errands abroad, the wickeder were
the Blotter’s diversions in his absences. The last time that Roger
Craighill had attended the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church Wayne had amused himself by violating all the city ordinances
that interposed the slightest barriers to the enjoyment of life as
he understood it. But the Blotter, it is only just to say, was still
capable of shame. His physical and moral reaction to-day were acute;
and he shrank from facing the world again. More than all, the thought
of meeting his father face to face sent the hot blood surging to his
head, intensifying its dull ache. His sister Fanny would be likely to
show her sympathy and confidence by promptly giving a tea or a dinner
to which he would be specially bidden, to demonstrate to the world
that in spite of his derelictions his family still stood by him. The
remembrance of past offenses, and of the definite routine that his
restorations followed, only increased his misery. The usual interview
with his father, with whose mild, martyr-like forbearance he had long
been familiar, rose before him intolerably.
A light tap at the inner door of Wayne’s room caused him to leap to his
feet and stand staring for a moment at a shadow on the ground glass.
The door led into Roger Craighill’s room, and as he had been thinking
of his father, the knock struck upon his senses ominously. He hesitated
an instant, curbing an impulse to fly; then the door opened cautiously,
and Joe Denny slipped in, seated himself carelessly on a table in the
centre of the room, and nursed his knee.
Consider Joe a moment; he is not the humblest figure in this chronicle:
a tall, lithe young fellow, unmistakably Irish-American, with a bang
of black hair across his forehead, and a humorous light in his dark
eyes. His grin is captivating but we are conscious also of shrewdness
in his face. (It took sharp sprinting to steal second when Joe had the
ball in his hand!) He is trimly dressed in ready-made exaggeration of
last year’s style. His red cravat is fastened with a gold pin in the
similitude of crossed bats supporting a tiny ball, symbol of our later
Olympian nine. You may, if you like, look up Joe Denny’s batting record
for the time he pitched in the Pennsylvania State League, and you
will thereby gauge the extent of New York’s loss in having bought his
“release” only a week before he broke his wizard’s arm.
Joe, at ease on the table, viewed Mr. Wayne Craighill critically, but
with respect. In his more tranquil moments Joe spoke a fairly reputable
English derived from the public schools of his native hills, but his
narrative style frequently took colour of the idiom of the diamond,
and under stress of emotion he departed widely from the instruction
imparted by the State of Pennsylvania on the upper waters of the
Susquehanna.
“Say, the Colonel’s due on the 4:30.”
Wayne straightened himself unconsciously and his glance fell upon the
desk on which lay an accumulation of papers awaiting his inspection and
signature.
“Who said so? I thought he wasn’t due till to-morrow.”
“I was up at the house when Walsh telephoned for the machine to go to
the station. I guess the Colonel wired Walsh.”
“I’d like to know why Walsh couldn’t have done me the honour to tell
me,” said Wayne sourly.
“I guess Walsh don’t know you’re back. They asked me in the front
office a while ago and I told ’em I guessed you were up at the Club;
and then I came in here through the Colonel’s room to see if you had
stayed put.”
Craighill was silent for a moment, then he asked:
“How long was I gone this time, Joe?”
He addressed young Denny without condescension, in a tone of kindness
that minimized the obvious differences between them.
“It was Wednesday night you broke loose, and this is Saturday all
right.”
“I must have bumped some of the high places--my head feels like it. How
about the newspapers?”
“Nothing doing! Walsh fixed that up all right. You see it was like
this: you made a row on the steps of the Allequippa Club when I was
trying to steer you home. I’d been waiting on the curb with a machine
till about 1 A. M., and some of the gents followed you out of the Club
and wanted you to come back and go to bed; and when a couple of cops
came along, properly not seeing anything, and not letting on, you must
up and jump on one of ’em and pound his head. Then the other cop broke
into the fuss, and there was a good deal doing and I got you into the
machine and slid for the Country Club and got a chauffeur’s bed in the
garage and sat on you till you went to sleep.”
Wayne shrugged his shoulders.
“Was that all I did? It sounds pretty tame; I must be getting
better--or worse.”
He drew a cigarette from his case and struck a match before he
remembered a rule that forbade smoking in office hours; then he found a
cigar and chewed it unlighted. Joe eyed the littered desk reflectively.
“Say, you’d better brush that off before the Colonel comes.”
“Put that stuff out of sight,” commanded Wayne and tossed him his keys.
“See here, Joe, I started Wednesday night and Thursday night I made a
row on the Club steps, and you took me out to Rosedale in the machine
and kept me there till you smuggled me in here this afternoon. That’s
all right enough, but there was another chap in the row at the Club--I
thought I was fighting the whole force, and you say there were two
policemen there. There was another fellow besides the policemen.”
“Forget it! Forget it!” grinned Denny, waving his hand airily. “The
bases were full for a few minutes and a young gent came along and took
our side against the cops, see? The two cops had us going some and this
little chap blowing in out of a minor league rapped a two-bagger on the
biggest cop’s chin. ‘You Mr. Craighill’s chauffeur?’ he says to me,
sweet and gentle-like; and between us we picked you up and threw you
into the machine and I cut for the tall, green hills. As the coal-oil
lit up and she got in motion, I looked back, and our little friend that
hit the cop was a handin’ the cop his card.”
Craighill frowned fiercely with the effort of memory.
“Who was this man that took my part? He must have followed me out of
the Club.”
“Nit; he was new talent; and listen--he was a Bible-barker.”
“A minister?”
“Sure. He wore his collar buttoned behind and a three-story vest. He
wasn’t as tall as you or me but he was good and husky and he lined out
three on the cop’s mug, snappy and zippy, like a triple-play in a tied
game.”
“A priest? It wasn’t Father Ryan?”
“It wasn’t the father; it was new talent, I tell you. The gent who came
up here to see you the night you broke loose. He was out looking for
you Thursday night; guess he heard you were going some. And after he
spiked the cop and we got off in the machine there he stood bowing and
tipping his dice to the cops and handing ’em his card.”
Light suddenly dawned upon Wayne.
“Paddock; O Lord!” he ejaculated.
A clock tinkled five on the mantel and Wayne’s manner changed. He
pointed to the outer door.
“You’d better clear out. Stop in the front office and tell Mr. Walsh
I’m here, do you understand?”
“Say, Mrs. Blair’s been lookin’ for you; she’s had the ’phone goin’ for
two days. She flew in her machine to Rosedale to look for you but they
were on and didn’t give it away. You better call her up.”
“Yes, I’ll attend to it; clear out.”
Already Colonel Craighill had quietly entered the adjoining room
followed by an office boy bearing a travelling bag. On his desk lay a
dozen sheets of paper, hardly larger than a playing card, and these he
examined with the swift ease of habit. They were reports, condensed to
the smallest compass, and expressed in bald dollars and tons all the
Craighill enterprises. It was thus that Roger Craighill, like a great
commander, viewed the broad field of his operations through the eyes
of others. Bank balances; totals of bills payable and receivable; so
much coal mined at one point; so many tons of coke ready for shipment
at another; the visible tonnage in the general market; the day’s
prices--these bare data were communicated to the chief daily at the
close of business, and in his frequent absences were sent to him by
wire. He summoned a boy.
“Please say to Mr. Walsh that I’m ready to see him.”
Walsh appeared instantly: he had, indeed, been awaiting the summons,
and was prepared for it. A definite routine attended every return of
the chief to his headquarters. He invariably called Walsh, his chief
of staff; and thereafter was ready to see his son. In every business
office the high powers are merely tolerated by the subordinates, to
whom the senior partner or the president is usually “the boss” or “the
old man.” Roger Craighill was not to be so apostrophized even behind
his back: he was “the Colonel” to everyone. To a few contemporaries
only was Craighill “Roger” and these were citizens bound together by
memories of the old city, who as young men had cheered Kossuth through
the streets in 1851, and who a decade later had met in the Committee of
Safety or marched South with musket or sword in hand.
“Ah, Walsh, how is everything going? I see that the pumps at No. 18 are
out of order again. I think I’d better go after the Watkins people
personally about that; we’ve been patient enough with them.”
Walsh nodded. He was short and thick and quite bald. He had formerly
been the “credit man” of one of the Craighill enterprises, which, it
happened, was a wholesale grocery; but he had grown into the confidence
of Roger Craighill and when Craighill organized the grocery business
into a corporation and began directing it from the fourteenth story of
the Craighill building, Walsh became Craighill’s confidential man of
affairs, with broad administrative powers.
Walsh thrust his hands into the pockets of his office coat and began
talking at once of several matters of importance connected with the
Craighill interests. Craighill nodded oftener than he spoke as Walsh
made his succinct statements. There was no sentiment in Walsh; his
voice was as dry and hard as his facts. He had studied credits so long
that his life’s chief concern was solvency. He could tell you any day
in the week the amount of bituminous coal in the bins at Cincinnati or
Louisville; or whether the corner grocers of Johnstown or Youngstown
had paid for their last purchases from the Wayne-Craighill Company.
Craighill’s inquiries were largely perfunctory, a fact not lost upon
Walsh, who fidgeted in his chair.
“Everything seems all right,” said Craighill, turning round and facing
Walsh. “By the way, did the home papers report my address before
the Western Reserve Society? Here’s a very fair account of it from
the Cleveland papers. I’d be glad if you’d look it over. I’m often
troubled, Walsh, by the amount of time these public and semi-public
matters take, but in one way and another I am well repaid. They inject
a certain variety into my life, and the acquaintances and friendships I
have made among statesmen, educators, financiers and men of affairs are
really of great value to me.”
“Um.”
Walsh twirled the clipping in his fingers. The discussion of anything
outside the range of business embarrassed him. It was perfectly proper
for Roger Craighill to spend his time with other gentlemen of wealth
and influence in making after-dinner speeches and in seeking ways and
means of ameliorating the condition of the poor whites or the poor
blacks of the South, or in stimulating interest in the merit system, or
in reforming the currency. Walsh thought favourably of these things,
though he did not think of them deeply or often.
“Ah, Wayne!”
The moment had arrived for the son to show himself and Wayne Craighill
entered from his own room and walked quickly to his father’s desk.
Walsh rose and examined the young man critically with his small, shrewd
eyes, then left with an abrupt good night. Father and son greeted each
other cordially; the father held the young man’s hand a moment as they
stood by the desk.
“Wayne, my boy!” said the elder warmly, “sit down. How’s Fanny? She
came home from York Harbour rather early this year.”
“Oh, she’s all right,” replied Wayne, though he had not seen his
sister during his father’s absence. He assumed that the fact of his
latest escapade was known to his father. Everyone always seemed to
know, though for several years Roger Craighill had suspended the
rebukes, threats and expostulations with which he had met Wayne’s
earlier lapses. His father’s cordiality put Wayne on guard at once: he
suspected that he was to be taken to task for his sins with a severity
that had drawn interest during his immunity.
“I am sorry to see that you have overdrawn your account somewhat,”
remarked Colonel Craighill, holding up one of the papers and examining
it through his eye-glasses. His manner was now that of a teacher who
has summoned an erring student for reproof. The mildness of his manner
irritated Wayne, who was, moreover, honestly surprised by his father’s
statement.
“I didn’t know that; in fact I don’t believe that can be right, sir.
What’s the amount?”
“Four thousand dollars.”
Wayne’s surprise increased.
“It’s an error. I have overdrawn no such amount; I’m sure of that.” But
his head still ached and he sought vainly for an explanation of the
item on the sheet his father passed over to him.
“Wayne,” began Colonel Craighill, “I simply cannot have you do this
sort of thing. It’s bad for you, for you can have no need of any such
sum of money in addition to your regular income and your salary; and
it’s bad for the office discipline. I have prided myself that some of
the foremost men of the country have placed their sons in my care.
Think of the effect on these young men out there,”--he waved his hand
toward the outer offices--“of your extravagant, wasteful ways.”
Wayne was familiar enough with the black depths of his infamy and he
knew his value as an example; but he groped blindly for an explanation
of the overdraft. Suddenly the knowledge flashed upon him that it
represented the price of some shares in a coal-mining company in
which his father was interested. They had been offered for sale in
the settlement of an estate and as he supposed that the Craighill
interests already controlled the property he had purchased them on
his own account a few days before, with a view to turning them over
to his father on his return if he wished them. The amount was small
as such transactions go, and as he had not the required sum in bank
he overdrew his account in the office. His own income from various
sources--real estate, bonds and shares representing his half of the
considerable fortune left by Mrs. Craighill--was collected through
the office, where he kept an open account. His father’s readiness to
pillory him increased the irritability left by his latest dissipation.
A four-year-old child will not brook injustice; there is nothing a
man resents more. He could very quickly turn his father’s criticism
by an explanation; but just now in his bitterness he shrank from
commendation. The gravamen of his offense was trifling; he had been
misjudged; his pride had been touched; he refused to justify himself.
He returned to his own room where a little later Walsh found him.
Walsh, having tapped on the outer door, was admitted in sulky silence
and squeezed his fat bulk into a chair by Wayne’s desk. He gazed at the
son of his chief with what, for Walsh, approximated benevolence.
“I’ve been drunk,” remarked Wayne, with an air of suggesting an
inevitable topic of conversation.
“Um,” growled Walsh. “I had heard something of it.”
“I suppose everybody has heard it. My sprees seem to lack a decent
cloistral quiet some way. Joe told me you had shut up the newspapers.
When my head stops aching I’ll try to thank you in proper language.”
“I’ll tell you how you can avoid getting drunk in the future if you are
interested,” remarked Walsh.
“If you mean burning down the distilleries I’d like you to know that
I’m not in a mood for joking.”
“Um. I was not going to advise you to commit arson. I have never
offered you any advice before; I’m going to give you some now. You’ve
got about all there is out of drink and you’d better get interested in
something else. The only way to stop is to quit, and you can do it.
I’ve a notion that you and I are going to be better acquainted in the
future. Such being the idea I’d like to be sure that you are going to
keep straight. You make me tired.”
Wayne was not sure that he understood. No one, least of all his
father’s grim, silent lieutenant, had ever spoken to him in just this
tone, and he was surprised to find that Walsh’s method of attack
interested him. He was humble before the old fellow in the linen coat.
“What’s the use, Tom? I’m well headed for the bottom; better let me go
on down.”
“The top is less crowded and more comfortable than the bottom. Just as
a matter of my own dignity I’d stay up as high as I could if I were
you. I had a good chance to go down myself once, but I took a dip or
two and it didn’t look good down below--too many bones. Um. That’s all
of that.”
He chewed an unlighted cigar ruminantly until Wayne spoke.
“The Colonel’s going to get married.”
“Um,” Walsh nodded. His emotions were always under control and Wayne
did not know whether he had imparted fresh information or not. He
imagined he had, for it was not likely that his father would make a
confidant of Walsh in any social matter.
“The Colonel knows his own business.”
“As a matter of fact, does he?”
“Um.”
Walsh’s cigar pointed to a remote corner of the ceiling, but his eyes
were fixed on Wayne. He had apparently no intention of discussing
Colonel Craighill’s marriage and he abruptly changed the subject.
“You bought fifty shares of Sand Creek stock the other day from the
Moore estate.”
Wayne scowled; these were the shares he had overdrawn his office
account to buy, with the intention of turning them over to his father,
and his father’s criticism of the overdraft rankled afresh.
“Yes; I bought fifty shares. How did you find it out?”
“Tried to buy ’em myself and found you had beat me to ’em.”
“I overdrew my office account to buy them. I thought father would want
them; but now he can’t have them.”
“Why?”
“Because in a fit of righteousness he jumped me for my overdraft. It
was the first time I was ever over; you know that, and it would have
squared itself in a few days anyhow. But if you want those shares----”
“I don’t want ’em. The Colonel wants ’em. He told me to get ’em but I
didn’t know there was any great rush about it. The Colonel’s friends in
New York, that he got into the Sand Creek Company, asked him to pick up
those shares; their control is by a narrow margin, and they wanted to
fortify themselves. They’d looked to the Colonel to take care of this
little bunch. Does he know you’ve got ’em?”
“Oh, no; not on your life! After jumping me for buying them? My dear
Tom Walsh, there _are_ moments when the worm will turn!”
This was the first occasion on which Wayne had ever spoken of his
father to Walsh except in terms of respect, and Walsh was perfectly
aware of it.
“If I were you I’d turn those shares over to the Colonel.”
“If it’s anything to you--if you’re going to be criticized for failing
to get them, I’ll give them to him--or I’ll sell them to you.”
“No, you don’t have to worry about me, my boy; I can take care of
myself, but I don’t want you to feel that way toward your father. It
ain’t healthy; it ain’t right.”
“Please don’t do that, Tom. My head aches, and you’re too good a fellow
to preach. I didn’t know those shares were so valuable; it was just a
piece of fool luck that I got them. I suppose they thought letting me
have them was the same as passing them over to father.”
“That’s the way it ought to be.”
“But, dear old Tom,” and he laid his hand on Walsh’s thick knee, “dear
old Tom, it isn’t, it isn’t, it ain’t!”
CHAPTER V
A CHILD OF THE IRON CITY
Wayne and his father met the next morning at breakfast, a function at
which, when Wayne appeared, the senior Craighill discussed the day’s
news in his large way as a student of affairs. This morning he had
brought the newspapers to the table and they were piled by his plate.
“I sent out notice of my engagement to all the papers last night.
I suppose it was to be expected that they would treat the matter
sensationally. They have spared nothing.”
Colonel Craighill deplored the pernicious tendencies of the American
press generally and of the local newspapers particularly. They made
light work of reputations, he declared; they were bitterly partisan
in politics; and Colonel Craighill believed thoroughly that in an
independent and courageous press lay the hope of the Republic. He
pushed the papers toward his son with the tips of his fingers.
“They insisted on my portrait and had to have Miss Allen’s also. If I
had refused they would probably have substituted something even worse
than you see there. A picture like that is bound to awaken prejudice.
It’s an outrage on public decency!” he ended indignantly.
Wayne eyed the papers critically. There was no lack of respect in
the text which was spread across two columns at the top of the page
beneath the joined portraits; he even caught the flavour of some of
his father’s own phrases, though they were not directly quoted, and as
for the illustrations, they were not better or worse than the average
newspaper pictures. One journal presented a sketch of the Craighill
family, with generous reference to Wayne’s mother and her high place
among the women who had contributed to the city’s better life. Miss
Allen was a woman of unusual charm, of an old New England family, who
had lived much abroad, and her coming would be an event of interest and
importance in the Greater City. Mrs. Blair and Wayne were mentioned in
all these recitals to complete the family history.
“You get off easy,” remarked Wayne, carelessly, scanning the column of
condensed news.
“The _Star_ has an editorial on some of the points I made in my
Cleveland speech. I suppose Bixby had that done. Bixby’s a good enough
fellow, but why he should own a newspaper as vile as the _Star_ I don’t
know.”
“I guess men don’t own newspapers for fun,” remarked Wayne. “Bixby
bought the _Star_ to use as a club in his other businesses. It would
help us if we had a sheet to fight back with.”
“I had a chance to buy the _Star_ when Bixby took it, but I had too
many cares already.”
“Well, you might have made a decent paper of it. That’s what you’ve
always said we need in this town; but nobody wants to sink money in a
daily Sunday-school organ.”
“If I had my life to live over again I should go into journalism; its
opportunities for public service are limitless and I don’t believe
the people really want these indecent things that are thrown on our
doorsteps to-day.”
The decline of the American press was a familiar topic of conversation
at the Craighill breakfast table, but to-day it served to divert
attention from the great issue of the hour. When Wayne had finished
with the papers he told the maid to take them away and addressed
himself to the simple breakfast.
“They talk of running John for mayor,” remarked Colonel Craighill, “and
I hope he’ll consent to be the Municipal League’s candidate. He’d have
the support of the best element beyond a doubt.”
“Beyond a doubt,” Wayne repeated, not particularly interested in his
brother-in-law’s political ambitions; “but that wouldn’t elect him.
We’ve had reform candidates before who were just as good as John. They
start all right, but they don’t finish.”
“All we can do in such matters is to keep up the fight. The powers of
evil can’t prevail forever.”
“No; but they work with the boys in the trenches while the rest of us
abuse them over expensive dinners. There’s a practical difference. This
town’s all right. If we’d stop abusing it and suppress the muck-rakers
we might get somewhere.”
“I’m glad Fanny takes my marriage in good part,” remarked Colonel
Craighill, to whom Wayne’s political views were not important. Wayne
answered cheerfully for his sister’s acceptance of the new situation in
family affairs.
“Oh, Fanny’s all right! You can always be sure she’ll rise to an
occasion.”
“Fanny is a fine woman,” declared Colonel Craighill.
“She is all of that,” replied Wayne.
“I used to fear, in her young girlhood, that she was a trifle flighty;
but marriage settled her wonderfully.”
“There’s a prevailing impression that it will do that,” retorted Wayne.
“What a happy future would be yours, my son, if you would take life a
little more seriously,” sighed Colonel Craighill. “I’ve spoken of you
very little to Adelaide; but you must consider her hereafter. I hope
that her coming may mark a new era for you. I cannot but think that her
influence will be for good in the family.”
“I dare say it will,” assented Wayne. “You need have no fears about
Fanny and me and our treatment of your wife. You know--about my habits
and all that--I think I’m ready to quit. I’ve decided that there’s
nothing in drink, and I’ve given it up.”
“God grant that it may be so!”
Colonel Craighill spoke with deep emotion. Wayne had, in the old times
when his father used to pray over him, often promised under pressure:
this morning he had voluntarily announced his intention to reform. It
was in Colonel Craighill’s mind at once that already good was coming of
the marriage; that Wayne’s pride was aroused; that he wished thus to
mark the coming of the new wife. Wayne was pouring himself a third cup
of coffee, and this unusual indulgence he associated with some method
which his son had adopted for breaking down the baser appetite.
“I have given up drink,” repeated Wayne, helping himself to sugar;
“there’s nothing in it”; and while his words and tone were not quite
what Roger Craighill would have liked, he could not quibble over
phrases or question the sincerity of this voluntary declaration. He had
long ago ceased trying to understand Wayne’s moods; his son’s state of
mind this morning was unusually baffling.
“That you should be an honourable man has been the great prayer of my
life, Wayne,” he said, with feeling.
“I’m afraid you’ve been praying in the wrong place. If God never helped
me, maybe the devil will; he knows me better!” Wayne dropped his spoon
into his saucer and laughed. “That’s almost blasphemy, isn’t it? The
car’s at the door and whenever you’re ready----”
They rode into town together, each in his own corner of the tonneau as
was the morning habit, and Colonel Craighill spoke only once or twice.
In the lobby of the building that bore his name the day’s sensation
was already in the air. One or two friends, tenants of his building,
greeted Colonel Craighill cordially as the elevator shot them skyward
and congratulated him with warmth; and every clerk in the Craighill
offices, where the announcement had already been freely discussed,
watched father and son pass on to their own rooms with a newly awakened
curiosity.
“Oh, Wayne,” said Colonel Craighill, as they separated, “I should like
you to lunch with me at the Club to-day--the Allequippa--about one.
We’ll walk over together.”
Wayne pondered this when he had settled himself at his own desk. In
normal circumstances he saw little of his father during the day.
Colonel Craighill usually took luncheon with half a dozen men of his
own age who represented the solid interests of Pittsburg. He prided
himself on his knowledge of the general business conditions; he liked,
as he put it, to keep in touch with the life of the city, and he so
managed his hour and a half at the Allequippa as to gain information
from authoritative sources on all manner of subjects. He was more or
less conscious of the fact that he touched life on more sides than
the majority of his fellows. They talked of iron and coal because
they were, like himself, interested in forges and mines; but he could
discuss cotton with knowledge of the conditions in India, or wheat,
with the Argentine forecast in his mind. He subscribed for English
reviews which he occasionally passed on to business friends whose
narrower horizons were otherwise amply illuminated by the newspapers.
The Allequippa Club, at the luncheon hour, became a seething board
of trade whose unrecorded transactions ran to large figures. Stock
subscription papers were handed from table to table as carelessly as
the wine card. Through these years of the Great Prosperity it was
as easy to count millions as to count heads. In fact, Mr. Richard
Wingfield, watching and listening in his corner, announced that a
million had become a contemptible sum that hardly assured one’s daily
bread.
Wayne Craighill was, in the fullest sense, a child of the city. Its
oldest blood was in his veins. His mother had been a Wayne, the
daughter of a merchant whose great-grandfather had fought in the
Continental army, and whose grandfather had shared Perry’s glory
on Lake Erie. The Craighills were not so old on this soil, but the
name was not a negligible one in local history. Wayne’s grandfather
Craighill had sat in the State Legislature and in Congress, and when
Roger Craighill married the only daughter of the house of Wayne and
the last of the family, the best blood of the State was united. The
Craighill building, rising tower-like in the steep, narrow street of
this many-towered Babel, spoke not merely for present affluence, but
for the prescience that had secured and held the iron hills surrounding.
Eastern Pennsylvania is better known in song, story and history
than the state’s western hills, but the Greater City, big, brawny,
powerful, sprawled over valley and hill where the broad rivers gather
new courage for their adventure seaward, hides in its iron heart many
and sonorous Iliads. It may fairly be said that Pennsylvania is our
most typical state and Pittsburg our most typical city, for here the
weakness and strength of the democracy wage daily war. Here political
corruption has been venomously manifested. Those who seek to account
for the unaccountable ask whether the old Scotch clan-instinct has
not reasserted itself in the politics of the state. The question is
suggestive; but it may not be discussed in these pages. The spirit of
Democracy, brooding upon the hills, and looking down upon the City of
the Iron Heart, must smile often, wondering that a people so highly
favoured and with antecedents so honourable, tamely submit to plunder
and bend their necks so meekly to the spoilsman. But a new era was even
now at hand. “There shall be an highway for the remnant of his people,”
declared Isaiah, prophet of the day of kings, but a higher light was
already stealing into the Iron City. The “remnant” was proving its own
quality by searching out the squalor of its back doors and “runs” where
wan spectres of Decadence elbowed ill-begotten, helpless, staring-eyed
Defectives and Dependents.
It may be said that at Pittsburg the East ends and the West begins.
The division is in nothing more pronounced than in the speech of the
native. In the noonday throng of the Allequippa Club it puzzles
the stranger. It is not the lazy drawl that crept into the Central
West from the Southeast with the early migration, and that is still
discernible wherever the old stock has held its own, but a hybrid
wrought of Scotch-Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch influences. It is less
interesting for elisions and the flattening of vowels than for its
cadences. In familiar dialogue these are marked and weave a spell upon
the unfamiliar ear. They are not peculiar to the man in the street,
but flavour in the polite babble of drawing rooms. They lure the ear
of strangers, and newcomers unconsciously adopt them. The operators
at the telephone exchange teach the most common and the most readily
communicable of these cadences daily. In repeating a number of four
figures the voice invariably rises on the next to the last syllable
to fall again at the end. The native tongue, long attuned to this
practice, adds a word to short sentences so that the intonation may not
fail to scan and thus miss its effect. For example: “Did he get it?”
does not quite lend itself to the usage; but if we prefix _And_: (And
did he _get_ it?) the speaker satisfies his own ear. Those who are keen
for controversy in such matters may gnaw this bone all they like. Some
will trace it to Scotch, others to Irish influences; but from the lips
of the pretty girls of the Greater City, whether behind shop counters
or tea tables, it is melodious and haunting. To some shrewder pen than
this must be left a prediction as to the ultimate fate of our language
at this great Western gateway, where the mingling of dialects spoken
under all the flags of Europe is bound to exert in time new influences
on the common speech.
As Colonel Craighill and his son entered the Club to-day commerce
seemed less insistently dominant. Their names had been on many lips;
and they were at once the centre of attraction. The ticker curled
its tape unnoticed in the basket while the Craighill marriage was
discussed. As the two checked their coats the congratulations began,
and in the lounging room they were immediately the centre of a group of
friends. Wayne, it seemed, was the object of more attention than his
father; the “Colonel,” as nearly everyone called him would of course
beam in his characteristic way; but Wayne, in his own relation to the
matter, was to be viewed in a fresh aspect. There were those among
his intimates who chaffed him about his new stepmother. She would,
they hinted, undoubtedly visit upon him the traditional contumely of
stepmothership. Others re-appraised the Craighill millions with a view
of determining just how much the new wife’s advent would cut into the
expectations of Mrs. Blair and Wayne. Roger Craighill’s first wife,
everyone remembered, had brought him a considerable fortune, and many
were now trying to recall how much of this had reposed in him, and how
much had passed direct to the children.
Dick Wingfield, who crystalized in his own person the Greater City’s
aspirations in art and music, declared as he surveyed the large
dining room and contemplated the two Craighills in their unusual
intimacy, that for the hour Pig Iron had yielded the centre of the
stage to Cupid. Many gentlemen left their tables, napkin in hand, to
congratulate the Colonel; and Wayne, too, submitted his hand to many
grasps, some of them lingeringly sympathetic, others expressive of a
general friendliness and liking. The Colonel was a shrewd one, so many
remarked; it was a real stroke to present himself to the eye of the
Greater City in company with his son on this memorable day. It was
not like Colonel Craighill to make a marriage that would estrange his
children; the outward and visible acceptance by them of the impending
union was indubitably presented in the corner where father and son ate
their luncheon together. When there came a lull in the visits to the
Craighill table Wingfield lounged thither, and drew up his chair for
a chat with Wayne. Not being a hypocrite, Wingfield shook hands with
the Colonel but did not refer to the topic of the hour. He addressed
himself to Wayne on the prospects of the Greater City’s orchestra for
the winter and called his attention to some new pictures at the Art
Institute. He mentioned the presence in America of a great French
portrait painter with whose work Mr. Craighill was familiar.
“You should certainly have him paint you, Colonel. This is the best
place in the world for the assembling of works of art; the grime soon
makes old masters of them all. The orchestra trustees meet at three
this afternoon in the board room of the Fine Arts building. Your check
was generous, Colonel; but Wayne will have to work. Don’t forget the
meeting, Wayne. We count on him, Colonel Craighill. By the way, Wayne,
an old friend of ours has turned up here--Paddock of agile legs and
stammering tongue. What profits it, may I ask, for any man to lay up
store of wealth for his children when they’re likely to scorn the
fleshpots for locusts and wild honey? One might expect Paddock to come
here to study the iron business, but bless me! he’s come to save our
souls.”
“Yes; I’ve seen Jimmy.”
“I thought you hadn’t seen him,” remarked Colonel Craighill in surprise.
“Oh, yes; I ran into him the other night by chance,” replied Wayne,
“just after we had been talking about him. He’s the same chap. Our
meeting wasn’t very fortunate--in fact, we didn’t seem to hit it off.”
“He always was modest about himself, you remember,” said Wingfield.
“I wanted to give him a dinner at the Club to interest people in his
missionary schemes, but he wouldn’t have it.”
“He’s doing a noble work, I hear,” said Colonel Craighill. “It’s
unfortunate that he won’t accept help from those among us who know the
local conditions.”
“Well, it’s a relief that philanthropy can enter this town just once
without preluding itself with a lot of bombast and brag,” sighed
Wingfield. “I’m for Paddock; in fact, I have every honourable intention
of placing my soul at his disposal. It’s only decent to patronize new
home industries.”
Colonel Craighill had not known of Wayne’s election to the orchestra
board, and as Wingfield left he said:
“That’s the kind of thing I like our name to be identified with--the
best aims and endeavours of the city. I’m deeply gratified to know that
you are interested in the orchestra. We older men have our hands full.
It’s for your generation to build upon our foundations.”
“They put me on the board, I guess, because I used to play the fiddle!”
“So you did! That was your dear mother’s idea--that you should take
violin lessons. As I remember, you showed considerable aptitude.”
“I believe I rather liked it.”
And Wayne saw himself again in knickerbockers standing at his mother’s
side by the piano, in the half-remembered days of his happy childhood.
He was thrown back upon the mood of four nights before, when he had
stood before his mother’s portrait and felt the call of memory. There
was in his heart a turbulent rebellion against this impeccable father,
who faced him as always, bland, poised, assured. Imaginary wrongs grew
real; slight injuries and injustices, long forgotten, cried fiercely in
their recrudescence for vengeance.
And conscious of its foulness he had planned an evil thing. It had
crossed his mind like a dark shadow, obscuring the fair horizon of
his better nature the moment he looked upon the face of the woman
his father was about to marry. He had known her first, that was the
beautiful irony of it; and he was keeping silent because in her,
installed as his father’s wife, he saw a means of retaliation. His
hatred of his father was no growth of a day, and the face in the
locket, the letter from the woman herself that he had read the night he
began his latest debauch, had hardened it into a fixed idea.
The knowledge that his father had brought him here to-day merely to
advertise the perfect amity of their relationship angered him; and now
Colonel Craighill dismissed him urbanely, saying that he would take his
cigar with Fraser, the short, grave, round-faced corporation lawyer,
who was soon, it appeared, to accept the nation for his client.
Wingfield, with his eye on the situation, carried Wayne below for a
game of billiards.
CHAPTER VI
BEFORE A PORTRAIT BY SARGENT
Wayne Craighill’s education had been planned by his father on broad
lines. The Craighills had of old been Presbyterians, but Colonel
Craighill was no bigot; therefore, in keeping with his generous
attitude in such matters, Wayne was sent to a preparatory school in
Vermont conducted under Episcopalian auspices. Moreover, the head of
St. John’s was a personal friend, whom Colonel Craighill knew well.
Nothing could be better for the boy than a few years spent under the
eye of the famous master. The transition from the Presbyterianism
in which he was born to the High Church school was abrupt. The very
vocabulary of worship was different; the choral services in the
beautiful chapel appealed to his emotional nature, and he found a
quiet joy in his own participation in the singing when he attained
in due course to a place in the orderly offices of the choir. From
the preparatory school Wayne went to the Institute of Technology. His
mother had pleaded for the law; but Colonel Craighill pointed out the
superiority of scientific education in a day when science guarded so
many of the approaches to success. And Wayne, born among the iron
hills, was persuaded that his best course lay in fitting himself for
a career in keeping with the greatest interests of his native state,
and so his father prevailed, and Wayne had, not without much stress
and resistance of spirit, taken his degree in science. Certain aspects
of mining, and of the chemistry of the forge had appealed to him, but
rather to his strong imagination than to any practical use he saw in
his knowledge. He had spent a summer in a large colliery, obedient
to his father’s wish that the young man should apply and test theory
before he had a chance to forget the teaching of the schools; and Wayne
had entered into this with relish. But while he had taken into his own
strong hands every tool used in mine labour, and fed boiler furnaces
and sat by the scales in weigh houses, he had shared also the social
life of the world of coal. He had spent his evenings in the saloons
of the mine village, talking and drinking with the miners in a spirit
of democracy that won their affections. His violence when drunk had
first manifested itself at this period. He was so big and powerful that
the fierce reinforcement of his natural strength by drink made him a
terror. He had once run wild through the long black lane of a mine,
driving an electric motor and train of wallowing mine cars, captured
after a fight from their lawful conductors, smashing finally a line of
coal pillars with a force that might have shaken the huge cave down
upon him.
So far as his own aptitude and taste were concerned his education went
for naught. The Homeric, picturesque side of industrial Pennsylvania
appealed to him. The wresting of the enormous latent power from the
hills; the sky lighted by the glow of multitudinous ovens and furnaces;
the roar and shriek of machinery; the grimy toilers at their moulding
and tempering--these and like phenomena touched his imagination, and
he cared little for their practical side while they were so much more
captivating as panorama than as trade. We need not deal in unprofitable
speculations as to what a different education might have made of Wayne
Craighill; for an intelligent appreciation of books and pictures and
a love of music are too easily confused with genius. Let it suffice
that some playful god had injected into his blood a drop of the divine
essence, enough merely to visit upon him the fleeting moods of the
dreamer and the restless longings of those who seek the light that
never was.
His nature was compounded of many elements of good and evil. Taste,
delicacy, fine feeling, he had in abundance; he was sensitive to
the appeal of beautiful things. In fits of solitude and industry he
would read voraciously; many subjects awakened his curiosity. But
his passions were strong and deep, and they had their way with him.
Again, his restraint and measure were surprising. Wingfield, who knew
him best of all, was amazed at times by the sobriety and wisdom of
Wayne’s judgments. We have said that he was the child of his city; more
than this, he not unfitly expressed its genius, its confused aims,
its weaknesses and its aspirations. The iron of the hills was in his
blood; and iron, let us remember, has the merit as well as the defects
of its qualities!
Joe drove Wayne to the Modern Art Institute in the machine. He went
early to have a glimpse of several recent additions to the collection
before the meeting of the orchestra committee, and later he was to go
to his sister’s.
The peace of the quiet gallery enfolded him gratefully. He paid his
respects to old favourites, saving a half-hour for the new arrivals.
Dick Wingfield’s mother, convoying two girls, was among the other
visitors. He had reached a point at which, half-unconsciously, he gave
the women he knew an opportunity to cut him if they wished. The two
girls became rather obviously intent upon the upper line of canvasses
as he passed them. They were the daughters of his father’s neighbours;
they had known him all their lives, and yet they deliberately turned
their backs upon him. He had paused, a little resentful, a little
ashamed, in a farther corner, when Mrs. Wingfield drew near and spoke
to him. She had been one of his mother’s intimate friends and she
touched him gently on the arm.
“I am glad to see you, Wayne. We very rarely meet any more. I wish you
would come to see me.”
She was so gentle, the meaning of her kindness struck so deep that he
flushed as he took her hand.
“I have never lost faith in you, Wayne.”
“Thank you; you’re the only one, then, Mrs. Wingfield. You and Dick are
about all I have left.”
“Who is this woman your father is marrying?” she demanded with sudden
asperity.
“A lady, of course. What would you expect of my father?”
“I would expect him to be like all the other old fools,” she declared.
“A woman like your mother, Wayne Craighill, can have no successor.”
She still clasped his hand lightly, and he bent over her with
deferential courtesy.
“I hope he is marrying a good woman for your sake--and Fanny’s.”
“Father wouldn’t marry any other kind; you may be sure of that,”
laughed Wayne.
“I don’t know anything of the kind. I have waited a good many years
to see your father do something outrageous and now I’m going to be
satisfied. Who is this person, anyhow?”
“I positively decline to hear my future stepmother spoken of as a
person!”
“I dare say the word flatters her. I’m telling all your mother’s old
friends that we’ve got to cut the woman on principle.”
“The town will sit at her feet. You will yourself call upon her the day
of her arrival.”
“Not unless I’m insane, Wayne Craighill! The newspapers everywhere
are making us out the wickedest city in the world, and between stock
gambling and poker and divorces and worse we’re undoubtedly going to
the bad. It’s time for us old settlers to assert ourselves. This woman
your father is going to marry _may_ be perfectly respectable, but I
decline to know her.”
With this declaration Mrs. Wingfield rejoined her charges who hovered
discreetly in a far corner in the belief that she was lecturing Wayne
Craighill upon his sins. Wayne had been touched by her kindness in
speaking to him when other women in her own circle were cutting him;
and the encounter left him brooding upon his father’s marriage.
He wondered whether his mother’s friends would really show any
resentment at the coming of his father’s new wife. He had watched such
cases before and was skeptical. His father was a man of far-reaching
business interests, and while there were women like Mrs. Wingfield
who were courageous enough themselves to support a sentiment, their
husbands would counsel caution and advise against incurring the
ill-will of a man of Colonel Craighill’s wealth and influence. He had
the gallery to himself for a few minutes and sat down before one of the
more important new portraits that he had particularly wished to see. He
could not fix his mind upon it, but sat staring at the canvas.
A young woman had entered the hall and was moving slowly along the line
studying the pictures with the greatest intentness. She was without hat
or coat and carried in her hand a tablet and pencil. She quite obscured
now the portrait at which he had been staring vacantly; it seemed, for
an instant, before his eyes accommodated themselves to the intrusion
of her interposed figure, that she had slipped into the canvas itself.
The lady of the portrait, in her sumptuous evening toilet, was not,
however, long to be confused with this girl in her plain cloth skirt
and simple shirt-waist. She was studying the portrait critically, her
head tilting now to one side, now to another, as she surveyed the great
artist’s work. Her movements were swift and eager, and she made, he
thought, an obeisance of reverence before the lady’s portrait; but she
remained crouched upon one knee and upon the other held her tablet
and sketched rapidly with her pencil. He had at first thought her an
attachée of the gallery, but now he surmised that she was a student
of the art school, rendering homage before a picture whose charm and
technical perfection commanded her admiration. It was a worthy object
for anyone’s homage, Wayne knew, as he surveyed it over the girl’s dark
head. He sat very quiet, fearing that he might disturb her, glancing
from the richly clad lady in the frame to her kneeling figure. Her
shirt-waist was plain and of cheap material; the skirt disclosed a
coarse shoe that had clearly been bought for service. Poor girls with
ambitions in the arts did not appeal to him abstractly; there was never
any chance of their getting anywhere. But he was, it cannot be denied,
a man who rarely missed an opportunity where women are concerned. His
adventures had been many and discreditable. He had tried his powers
often and had the conceit of his successes. He was already seeking some
excuse for addressing her.
Suddenly she rose, with a little hopeless sigh, crumpling the sketch in
her fingers.
“Sargent didn’t do it either, the first time,” remarked Wayne.
“No,” she replied, her eyes wistfully upon the picture, “I suppose he
didn’t.”
She did not look at him; but he was studying her face, which was
still rounded in girlish lines. She was wonderfully fair, of the
type distinguished by close texture of skin and faintest colour
beneath,--the merest hint of colour, subdued, half-revealed, vague,
like the pink shadow in white roses. Her eyes at once arrested and held
his attention. They were blue--the indefinable blue of sun-flooded
mid-sea--and her dark head had not prepared him for this. She looked
at him gravely once, but, with the portrait still in her eyes, only
half seeing him. The dejection of the young aspirant who gazes upon
an achievement he feels to be immeasurably beyond his own powers
was written upon her face. Wayne had expected that she would show
embarrassment when he revealed himself, but her indifference piqued
him. Here, clearly, was no subject for easy conquest. She seemed
sincerely interested in the beautiful painting before which they stood,
and perhaps, after all, she was not the usual paint-smearing trifler,
but a serious student. She spoke further of the portrait, and he had
now a half-amused sense that she was speaking to herself rather than
to him. He was, in a way, a lay figure, to be suffered for a moment as
though he were as wooden as the bench from which he had risen.
“I was trying to copy the hand--the fifth time to-day--and I simply
can’t do it. As it rests on the arm of the chair--there--it is
perfectly natural; but I can’t get it; I simply can’t.”
She uncrumpled her sketch and glanced at it again; then with fresh
disdain she shut her hand upon it. Her pencil dropped and he picked it
up. The point was broken. She put out her hand for it but he looked at
it ruefully.
“If you can wait a moment I will sharpen it for you.”
“No, thank you. I must get my things and go.”
“But to leave the gallery with a spoiled sketch and a broken point to
your pencil would be most unfortunate. If you will hold the paper to
catch the shavings I’ll sharpen it in a jiffy. Then you can go away
armed for another day’s attack. To retreat now, discouraged, with a
pointless pencil would never do in the world.”
He laughed his pleasure in the encounter. She carried her dark head
a little high; and now that he looked directly into her eyes there
hovered in them the faintest hint of gray that further strengthened the
suggestion of the sea.
“I am not the least superstitious,” she said.
“But I am! As a friend of art I could not think of allowing you to
leave with a broken pencil. Something would undoubtedly happen to you
on the way home.”
He had caught her attention; his manner was half mocking, half serious;
and he drew out his knife to prolong the interview. Flattery spoke in
his words and manner: Wayne Craighill was not ignorant of the way of a
man with a maid. The girl held the paper while he sharpened the pencil
deliberately, and she took careful note of him and his belongings.
“We must be very careful not to drop the shavings. The curator would
make a terrible row about it. Now that we seem to be alone, with a
knife in our possession, we might cut this portrait out of its frame
and you could take it home to study at your leisure. Rolled up, you
could carry it right out of the front door, and the newspapers would
have a seven days’ wonder, the stolen Sargent! There! Not a bad job if
I do say it myself.”
He handed her the pencil and took from her the paper with its shavings
and lead dust.
“Now, it’s only fair that I should have your sketch for my trouble!
I shall keep it as a slight souvenir--of the beginning--of our
acquaintance----”
He was folding it carefully to hold the litter, and he glanced up to
find that she had flushed angrily.
“Give it to me, please.”
“But really----”
“Give it to me!”
“I beg your pardon.”
She held out her hand and he placed the little packet in her palm. It
was, he saw, a hand that had known labour. It was a long hand and a
hand of strength, and as he was mindful of such matters, it impressed
itself upon his memory.
“Thank you,” she said, and turned away.
“I am sorry I made you angry. I did not mean to do that. I come here
quite often. I hope I shall see you again. Some day you will catch the
trick of the lady’s hand. I’m sure of that.”
His tone was kind, his manner ingratiating; the meeting was altogether
to his liking--from such a beginning he had often gone far. This girl
bore the marks of cultivation; it was in her voice, her manner, the
poise of her splendid head. She was poor--that was evident--but this
was no barrier; her poverty presented, in fact, an avenue of access.
It had been his experience that the bold approach was the surest. She
was already moving away, carrying her head high, the anger still in her
face, and he followed her.
“Please don’t be too hard on me,” he begged; and she stopped and looked
at him, looked at him with frank curiosity that turned, as their eyes
met, to a scorn not less frank.
“I don’t care for your acquaintance, Mr. Wayne Craighill,” she said
with all composure, and walked hurriedly from the room.
He was fully sensible of the contempt with which she had spoken his
name, a name that was odious to clean women in this city of his
birth. He mused upon this fact as he started toward the door through
which she had vanished; he was a notorious character whom people
of all classes knew by sight and reputation. She had, he imagined,
suffered him to speak to her only that she might see for herself
how contemptible man might become. The girl’s scorn emphasized his
degradation. She was unknown and poor, but he had sunk so low that even
poverty and obscurity shrank from him. Those simpering young things who
had cut him a little while before, those bread and butter misses who
reflected merely the meticulous virtue of their own social order, did
not matter. But this young woman with her labour-roughened hands had
widened the gulf between him and decency with a glance, a turn of the
head, a word. Her words continued to mock him as he left the gallery
and descended the stairway to the orchestra board’s room below. He kept
wondering what musical instrument her voice suggested and the thought
of her was so enthralling that he passed the committee room and did not
come to himself until a guard touched his cap and pointed him to the
door.
He and Wingfield were the only members of the board who appeared
to-day, as frequently happened. Wayne sat down at a window to discuss
the programmes that had been submitted by the orchestra director, which
Wingfield now proceeded to tear to pieces.
“That Dutchman’s idea of popular music is certainly exquisite. We’re
not going to appeal to the primitive tastes of our dear fellow-citizens
by larding a Wagnerian programme with the Blue Danube waltz and the
Bon-Ton two-step. And Mendelssohn’s Spring Song as a harp solo is too
stale. We’re going to keep on shoving symphonies into the people of our
dear city this winter as you shovel coal into a furnace. Well, what
now?”
Wayne’s glance, straying to the street through the window by which they
sat, had fallen upon the girl whom he had left in the gallery a moment
before. She had emerged from the main entrance of the building and was
moving off briskly. But what had drawn an exclamation from Craighill
was the appearance upon the scene of a man who seemed to have been
waiting and who now followed the girl at a discreet distance. It was,
beyond question, Joe, Wayne’s chauffeur, whom he had dismissed for the
day an hour before.
Wingfield, following Wayne’s glance, saw only the girl, now passing
rapidly out of sight.
“Who’s your Diana, Wayne? She has the stride of a goddess and carries
her head as though she had just brushed the rest of the deities off
Olympus.”
“I don’t know her,” said Craighill, and changed the subject.
CHAPTER VII
WAYNE COUNSELS HIS SISTER
Mr. Richard Wingfield, unjustly called the Cynic, was suspected of
literary ambitions; but the suspicion was based upon nothing weightier
than a brochure on golf which he had printed at his own expense for
private circulation, and a study of the Greater City, abounding in sly
ironies, which had appeared with illustrations in a popular periodical.
Wingfield, if we may enter briefly into particulars, was tall and thin,
with a close-cropped beard and dark hair combed to the smoothness of
onion-skin. He was near-sighted, and his twinkling eye-glasses were
protected by a slight gold chain. His aspect was severe, his manner
disconcertingly serious. He carried, in all weathers, an umbrella
whose handle bore on a silver plate the anticipatory legend, “Stolen
from Richard Wingfield.” He was on many committees; he gave luncheons
for actors, lecturers and other distinguished visitors; he attended
the opera in New York and was reported now and then to be engaged to
a prima donna. He patronized a private gymnasium and was a capital
fencer. He cultivated the society of physicians, discussing the latest
discoveries of Vienna and Paris in sophisticated terminology; he sat
in the amphitheatre at surgical clinics, inscrutable and grave. His
interest in medicine gave rise to the belief about the Club that he
suffered from an incurable malady; but his medical cronies declared
that he was as sound as wheat and would live forever. He affected an
air of not caring greatly; he uttered paradoxes and enjoyed mystifying
people; he quizzed likely subjects and had never been known to laugh
aloud. It was he who first announced that five generations constitute
an old family in Pittsburg. Practical men called Wingfield a loafer;
others insinuated that his private life would not bear scrutiny. (A man
who drinks nothing but koumiss in a club famed for its rye essences is
sure to be the victim of calumny.) There was a particular little table
in the corner of the Allequippa Club’s smoking-room--a room where all
branches of human endeavour were represented at five o’clock every
afternoon, from the twisting of stogies up through the professions
to the canning of entrées--there, at his own little table, sat Mr.
Wingfield, watching, as he said, the best men of the Greater City at
the light-hearted occupation of hardening their arteries.
There was no telling what might happen; it was never safe to leave
town, and having spent two years abroad in his young manhood, Wingfield
abstained from further foreign travel. One must pick up gossip when it
is fresh. Nothing, he said, is so discouraging as to miss the prologue;
and so he spent most of his time at home. “But for the invention
of sleeping-cars, and the fact of our being only one night from New
York we should be the most moral city in the world,” he averred.
Wingfield was a University of Pennsylvania man, and spoke in bitter
contumeliousness of Yale and Harvard, which are, as all Pennsylvania
men are able to demonstrate, grossly inferior institutions. Princeton,
to all such, is only a blot on the Mosquito Strip and the seat of
ignorance. His mother was a Philadelphian, and Dick’s two aunts were
still residents of that city, where, through much careful instruction
on their part, he knew Chestnut Street’s meridional importance and the
sacred names one must whisper and those one must not utter at all. His
income was derived from coke ovens situated in three districts, and
these it pleased his humour to call Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
Wingfield walked to Mrs. Blair’s gate with Wayne talking of pictures
and music. He was a diligent collector of anecdotes of the brief
sort that end with abrupt and unforeseen climaxes, and he recounted
a number for Wayne’s amusement. He carefully avoided any reference
to Colonel Craighill’s marriage, though he knew Wayne better than
anyone else and might have spoken his mind without offense. Wayne had
appeared unusually dull and depressed, a mood that frequently followed
a debauch, and Wingfield, familiar with his latest escapade, wished to
lift his friend’s spirits if he could. At the Blairs’ gate he declined
Wayne’s invitation to enter; but before they parted he made a point of
suggesting that they have luncheon together the next day. He was wiser
and kinder than most people gave him credit for being, and here, it had
occurred to him, he might do a little good.
Wayne entered his sister’s house with a latch-key which it had been her
own idea that he should carry. Mrs. Blair came out of the reception
room while he was hanging up his hat and coat and asked him to go into
the parlour for a few minutes.
“I have a caller--a matter of business--I’ll be with you in a minute,
Wayne. Find something to read, won’t you?”
He bade her take her time and sought a table covered with magazines
in three languages which gave to her library a rather club-like air.
Mrs. Blair believed in self-culture and practised it _à la carte_, not
overlooking the hors d’œuvres and desserts. He lighted a cigarette and
turned over the periodicals until he found one that interested him.
The murmur of voices reached him from the room across the hall; and
he argued that the caller was no one he knew, or he should have been
asked to come in and speak to her, such being Mrs. Blair’s way. In a
few minutes she carried the conversation to what appeared from her
tone to be a satisfactory conclusion. It had grown dark and a servant
brightened the hall and adjoining rooms with the mild electric glow
that was Mrs. Blair’s ideal of house lighting. Wayne, lifting his eyes
at the soft flooding of his page, saw that his sister’s caller was
the girl he had met in the art gallery. Her long coat made her appear
taller as she stood against the background of the reception room
portières. She was laughing happily at some remark of Mrs. Blair’s. She
murmured something that did not reach him, but Mrs. Blair caught her
hands exclaiming:
“Don’t trouble about it; it will soon begin to come easier. You are
going to do something really worth while; remember, I have faith in you
and you’re bound to arrive. No one ever disappoints me!”
“I certainly hope I shan’t be a disappointment to you, Mrs. Blair. I
can never thank you enough for what you are doing for me.”
As the outer door closed, Mrs. Blair appeared before Wayne.
“Well, what are they saying? Is the male population taking it calmly?
Is there rebellion anywhere?”
Wayne tossed his magazine aside as his sister bent over and kissed him.
She curled up in a big chair, while he brought his mind to bear upon
her question.
“My dear Fanny, why do you ask anything so preposterous? Do you suppose
anybody is going to tell our father that he ought to consider well the
seriousness of a second marriage, his duty to his children, his duty
to their mother and all that kind of rot? Not on your life, my dearest
sister! Nor is our father’s pastor going to ask him for the credentials
of the lady he proposes to honour. Everybody downtown is delighted.
He got a jolly from every man he saw at the Club to-day where, by the
way, I was taken to show our delight in the prospect of seeing a new
face at the ancestral dinner table. So much for us males; how about the
women? Are there any signs of revolt? I met Dick’s mother a while ago,
and she had her knife sharpened.”
“Many people are still away, but my telephone has rung all day and the
town’s buzzing.”
“It’s a good thing for the town to have something that it can
concentrate on for a few days. Dick Wingfield says the trouble with us
here is our lack of social unification. Our approaching stepmother’s
advent may have the effect of concentrating social influences.”
“The older women resent it; they declare they will have nothing to do
with her.”
“Those estimable ladies whose husbands have paper in banks where father
is a director will sing a different tune this evening.”
“Men don’t know how we women feel about such matters; if mama had not
been the woman she was it wouldn’t be so hard.”
“Oh, yes, it would, Fanny! Besides you don’t know what sort of a woman
father’s going to bring home to fill our Christmas stockings.”
“Please don’t make it all more horrible than necessary,” she cried.
“It’s that sort of thing, Wayne, the Christmas and the birthdays and
the Sunday evenings at the piano, when she taught us to sing songs
together--it’s all that that hurts me.”
Her eyes were bright with tears. Wayne rose and walked the length of
the room.
“For God’s sake, Fanny, cut all that out.”
“That’s what it means to me and it means even more to you. I think we
made a mistake in not showing resentment when father told us. But we
took it as calmly as though he had told us he had bought a new chair or
a hat rack.”
“You’re rating the lady as a piece of furniture, which is putting it
pretty high. You mustn’t let Mrs. Wingfield and these other old ladies
give you nervous prostration over this business. As I’ve already
reminded you, father wasn’t born yesterday; you may be sure that he
is making no mistake. Very likely she has a few millions in bank for
spending money. For myself, I await her coming with the liveliest
anticipations.”
A shadow crossed his sister’s face as she listened. He had spoken
harshly and she did not like the look in his eyes. She knew that he
would care, but she did not know that he would care so much. He took a
cigar from the tabarette at his elbow and lighted it. She studied him
carefully as the match flamed. His hands were quite steady to-day, and
there was an air of assurance about him that puzzled her deeply. He
blew a smoke-ring and threw out his arms to shake down his cuffs.
“Does anyone know a thing about the woman? Have you found out anything?”
“That question, my dear sister, has been asked many times in the
Greater City to-day, and the answer has been, so far as I know, an
emphatic negative. But so much the better. If the gossips have nothing
to work on they can’t do much. The fact of the woman being unknown
is nothing; it’s all in her favour. Mrs. Craighill, with her faint
background of New Hampshire--or is it Vermont?--her long sojourns
abroad and all that, will strike town with a clean bill of health. I
tell you father is wise in his generation. No old bones to pick. The
woman will come into camp as fresh and new as her trousseau.”
“I couldn’t say anything the other night when father told us, but now
that the newspapers have done their worst it seems like the end of
everything,” sighed Mrs. Blair.
“To me,” said Wayne musingly, “it is only the beginning. We had been
travelling in a hard rut. I had become immensely bored with the family
life. Now we shall see the vista broaden and lengthen. My curiosity is
on edge. My father’s wife--ah, the thought of it! I am at her feet; I
crave her blessing! Your point of view is all wrong, dear sister. We
must put such feelings aside; our duty, Fanny, is not to the dead but
to the living.”
“Wayne! Wayne! Will you stop? You are not yourself; it’s not like you
to talk so.”
“My dear Fanny,” he persisted, flicking the ash from his cigar, “if in
intimating that I am not myself you imply that I have been drinking I
will say to you that you never did me a greater wrong. Not only have
I had no form of drink to-day but our own chaste river water, but it
may interest you to know that I have cut out the whiskey when it is
red altogether. I scorn it; I put it away forever. I signalize our
father’s marriage by renouncing drink. Will you not congratulate me?”
“I don’t understand you. It is not like you to talk this way.”
She was mystified, and stared at him with dry eyes, wondering.
“You don’t seem impressed by my reformation; maybe you don’t believe I
can quit! I tell you, Fanny, the Blotter will soak up the blithesome
cocktail no more. When the new Mrs. Roger Craighill comes she shall
find me the most abstemious person in town. My friends--and I still
have one or two--will be incredulous and amazed; my enemies will
express regret; the kind who have robbed me when I’ve been loaded will
miss an income that has been as sure as taxes. I have already committed
myself to father, and he expressed himself with his habitual reserve as
delighted.”
Mrs. Blair rose and changed her seat to get nearer him; her
mystification grew. There was a bitter undernote that belied his
surface lightness.
“Wayne, there is something I want you to do: I want you to move out of
father’s house; I don’t want you to stay after this woman comes.”
“But, Fanny, I’ve promised father to remain! Can’t you see what a lot
of gossip would be caused by my leaving? Think of the embarrassment
and annoyance to father! Here we should have a realization of the old
joke about the cruel stepmother and the incorrigible, brow-beaten son,
driven from home! I tell you, father is no child; he has foreseen
exactly that possibility, as he foresees all possibilities. He is vain
of his prophetic vision; you can’t lose father, I tell you!”
“But after a few weeks,” she pleaded, “when the town has got used to
her being here, you will have settled all that and you can make some
plausible excuse for leaving. You can come here and live with us. John
would be only too glad.”
“To leave after a few months would certainly look bad; and it’s the
look of the thing that interests father. No; he has asked me to stay,
and I’m going to stay. Besides, my dear Fanny, shall I kick myself
from my own doorstep? You must remember that the house is mine. Mother
wanted it that way; she had a sentiment about it.”
“Yes; the house will be yours when father dies; but while he lives it
is his. I wish you hadn’t mentioned that; it makes the whole matter
more hideous. The very ground was dear to mother; the coming of this
other woman is a profanation.”
Wayne put down his cigar and stood before his sister, who sat crumpled
in her seat playing nervously with her handkerchief.
“See here, Fanny; there’s no use in being hysterical about this
business. We’d better grin and accept the situation. Believe the worst:
that father has been trapped by an adventuress; we’ve got a little
pride of our own, I hope! On the other hand, she may prove a perfectly
delightful person.”
“I don’t see how you can say such things,” she moaned.
“It’s remarkable how much faith you women have in one another. You
trust one another about as far as you could push a mountain in a
wheel-barrow. Why should you condemn her before she has a chance to
speak for herself? Put yourself in her place!”
He smiled at his own nobility. His sister was not heeding him, but
Wayne had really a great deal of influence with her; and he went on
to discuss the matter in its more practical aspects, which had been
the object of his coming and her own intention. He defended his father
for excluding them from the ceremony itself; he persuaded her that it
was better so, just as his father had said. Fanny Blair did not often
strike her colours, but the strain of the day, with its incessant
telephoning, and the daring of intimate friends who had sought her out
with the effect, at least, of bringing the daily newspapers in their
hands for confirmation, had told upon her. When Wayne pleased he could
be helpful; and they were soon discussing quite calmly the series of
entertainments which Mrs. Blair had already planned. She even laughed
at Wayne’s comments on some of the combinations she proposed for two
or three dinners which were designed to give the older friends of the
family an opportunity to inspect the bride immediately.
“Get the old stagers first; that’s the card to play, for we are an old
and conservative family. Your dance, reception and tea will bring in
the other elements; but the dinner is more intimate, and offers better
hypnotic possibilities.”
“She’s more likely to paralyze than hypnotize. Her face in that picture
has haunted me, Wayne.”
“Ah! I knew it would come! You already feel her spell. So do I!”
She rose and peered into his face searchingly, laying her hands on his
shoulders.
“Wayne, I believe you know that woman! Play fair with me about this;
have you ever seen her? Have you ever heard of her before?”
“Fanny, how absurd you are! You asked me that question before and I
answered no. Do you imagine I have seen her to-day? Come now, please
be the reasonable little sister you always have been. You are the
brightest, cleverest, dearest girl in the world. That gown is a dream,
if you ask me; you should be painted by Alexander for the family
portrait gallery. Dick Wingfield suggested to father to-day his own
duty in the matter and I see the finished product--father full-length
in a frock coat, with his hand resting lightly on a volume of his own
speeches.”
Mrs. Blair’s eyes filled with tears.
“Poor mama!” she mourned. “I’m glad _her_ portrait was painted just
when it was--the picture is so dear. I’m going to get it out of the
house before that creature comes if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Please, Fanny, don’t do that,” he pleaded, touched in his own heart
more than he wished her to know. “Come, now, cheer up, for I must trot
if I get home for dinner. I promised father to be there; it’s close
upon our last tête-à-tête. Count on me for all your functions. I’ll
get Wingfield to support me at the teas and so on. If you want me to
come to your antiquarians’ dinner I shall be here and you may place me
next the solemnest dowager you invite to the banquet. You needn’t go on
a cold-water basis for the occasion either; my glasses shall be turned
down; remember that!”
“I’m glad, oh, so glad, Wayne! I can’t tell you what that means to me.”
She stood in the doorway and watched him slip into his topcoat. He
moved with the athlete’s ease; there was a real grace in him. He had
never been so dear to her sisterly heart as now, in the light of this
new event before which they waited. For sister-love goes far and deep.
Like charity, it suffereth long and is kind. In self-effacement and
service it is happiest; and it knows the pangs of neglect and jealousy.
Fanny’s eyes were upon Wayne in love and admiration as she watched him
fasten his coat and draw on his gloves.
“By the way, Fanny, that was a stunning girl you had in there when I
came. I caught a glimpse of her against those dark red curtains--a very
pleasing portrait if I’m asked!”
“She has known trouble, poor child; I’m doing what I can to help her.”
“That’s like you, Fanny.”
“She’s very interesting; she has a lot of talent.”
“If you need help in advancing her cause you may call on me,” he said
lightly, but she knew him so well that she fathomed his serious wish
to know about her protégée. He had taken up his hat, but lingered
expectantly. “I saw her in the art gallery to-day, and she’s certainly
unusual. I wish you would introduce me to her!”
Mrs. Blair had not been prepared for the directness of his request. Her
figure stiffened; she must be on guard against the joy in him that had
filled her heart.
“I know the way round at the Institute and I might be of service
to her,” he said carelessly, but she knew that he was deeply
interested--women always interested him--and she saw no way at the
moment of putting him off.
“I can’t, Wayne.”
“I should like to know why not?” and he laughed as he balanced his hat
by its brim in his hands. She usually yielded readily to any of his
requests and he was surprised that she parleyed now.
“I can’t; I mustn’t; and please, Wayne, don’t make any effort to find
out who she is. I beg you not to; I don’t want you to know her,” she
ended, with pleading in her voice and eyes.
His face clouded and he turned to the door and opened it. Then he flung
round upon her roughly:
“My God, Fanny; have I sunk as low as that!”
She stepped into the vestibule and watched him striding through the
shrubbery toward the gate. She pressed her face to the glass of the
vestibule doors, shielding her eyes from the overhead light with her
hands as she looked after him. She always made a point of sending him
away happy when she could; and now he had left her in anger. She still
watched him after he had left the grounds and passed into the street,
walking slower than was his wont, and with his head bowed. The curious
mood in which he was accepting his father’s marriage still distressed
her; and his declaration that he had given up drink had carried no real
conviction, now that she pondered his words and manner. She waited
until an opening through the trees gave her a last glimpse of him
across the hedge under the electric light at the corner, then with a
deep sigh she turned into the house.
When, a little later, he called her on the telephone and begged her not
to mind anything he had said on leaving--his usual way of making peace
after their occasional tiffs--she was only half relieved.
CHAPTER VIII
THE COMING OF MRS. CRAIGHILL
“My promptness deserves a better cause!” exclaimed Mrs. Blair as she
stepped from her motor at the entrance to the railway station, where
Wayne in his father’s car had arrived but a moment earlier. Mrs. Blair
had brought down her two children, and these in their smart fall coats
were still protesting against the haste with which they had been
snatched from their beds and dressed in their Sunday clothes; but their
faces brightened at the sight of their uncle, upon whom they fell
clamorously with a demand to be taken into the train sheds to see the
locomotives. Wayne was more amiable than his sister had seen him since
their father gave the first warning of his marriage. He chaffed the
children and promised to take them to a football game the next Saturday
if they would let him off as to the engines; and when they were
appeased he held up for his sister’s inspection the morning papers,
with their first-page account of the marriage in New York the preceding
day.
“‘Simplicity marked all the arrangements,’” he read. “‘Only the bride’s
mother and the necessary witnesses were present--dined very quietly
at Sherry’s--scarce noted in the fashionable throng of the great
dining room--Colonel Craighill’s private car attached to the Pittsburg
Flyer’--and so on,” and Wayne shook out the paper to display the
portraits of Colonel and Mrs. Craighill and a view of the Craighill
home.
The picture of the house evoked an exclamation of disgust from Mrs.
Blair.
“Oh, Wayne, they might have spared us that! The house--it hurts worse
than anything else. It’s sacrilege--it isn’t fair.”
Wayne folded the paper and thrust it into his pocket to get it out of
her sight.
“Now, Sis, you’ve got to cheer up. You’re looking bullier than
ever this morning. Those clothes must have eaten a hole in John’s
check-book. It’s rather nasty of John not to come down and face the
music with you.”
“John couldn’t; he simply couldn’t,” she declared defensively.
“Wouldn’t, you mean! John Blair is not a man to get up to meet his
wife’s relations on an early train if he can duck it. But the kids help
out a lot. They’re a charming feature of the morning. You ought to have
taught them to sing a carol and scatter flowers as grandpapa comes
through the gates leading their new grandmama by the hand. It would
have been nuts for those reporters over there with the camera men.”
“No; you don’t mean that _they_ are here!” she gasped.
He indicated with a nod several men and two women waiting near the
news-stand. They carried cameras and were watching Wayne and his sister
with interest.
“The women are the society reporters; they’re going to do this thing
right. Mrs. Craighill’s coming-home gown will be described in proper
dry-goods language; no blundering male eye for this job!”
“How perfectly horrible! I wish I hadn’t brought the children if we’re
all to get into the papers.”
“Brace up! You can’t flinch now. Besides, there’s the train!”
He led the way out of the waiting room and into the train-shed as the
New York express rolled heavily in.
The private car was at the end of the train and before they reached
it Colonel Craighill’s children saw his tall figure in the vestibule.
Their eyes were, however, upon the lady behind him, whose hat and coat
had already been appraised by Mrs. Blair in that sharp _coup d’œil_
by which one woman dissects the garb of another. The porter jumped
out with his arms filled with hand baggage, and as Colonel Craighill
stepped sedately forth, Mrs. Blair’s arms were at once about her
father’s neck. For an instant there was a sob in her throat, but she
stifled it and her hands were immediately extended to her father’s
wife, who hesitated upon the car steps.
“Fanny, this is my wife, Adelaide. Good morning, Wayne!”
“Welcome home!” cried Mrs. Blair bravely, and seized the lady’s
hands nervously in her own. Then with a sudden impulse, as though to
complete, beyond any criticism, her acceptance of the newcomer, she
kissed her stepmother on the cheek.
“You are just my height, aren’t you!” she exclaimed, stepping back.
Wayne waited hat in hand, smiling.
“Adelaide, this is my son, Wayne!”
“Good morning! I am glad to see you,” said Wayne, bowing over Mrs.
Craighill’s hand; and as he raised his head their eyes met with, it
seemed, a particular inquiry and plea in hers.
“I’ll attend to the baggage. Give me your checks, father.”
It was over, this first meeting between Colonel Craighill’s wife and
her husband’s children. As they walked through the waiting room there
was a click of cameras. Other eyes than Mrs. Blair’s had already noted
the new Mrs. Craighill’s outlines, and the films in the newspaper
cameras had recorded a trim, graceful figure of medium height, a
well-set head, crowned with a pretty toque, and a light travelling coat
of unimpeachable cut.
In the waiting room the Blair boys were presented, while their
mother watched the meeting critically. A slight to her children, an
indifference to their charm would have been fatal; but Mrs. Craighill
bent to them graciously. She had even remembered their names, and
applied them correctly. The lads suffered themselves to be kissed and
were thereupon sent home in the Blair motor.
Colonel Craighill had asked Mrs. Blair to come to his house for
breakfast, and they were all soon seated in his car, which the
chauffeur drove slowly, so that Colonel Craighill might point out
to his wife features of the urban landscape that struck him as
particularly interesting. As the rise of the boulevard lifted them
out of the commercial district, the dark cloud that brooded above the
rivers gave Colonel Craighill an opportunity to introduce his wife,
with a wave of the hand, to the prodigious industries which thus
advertised themselves upon the very sky. He was at the point of quoting
the enormous tonnages to which the ironmongery of the region ran; but
Mrs. Blair thwarted him.
“Adelaide!” she cried. “There! Did you see how naturally I spoke your
name the first time! I may call you that, mayn’t I?”
The two ladies clasped hands, while Colonel Craighill smiled upon them
in benignant approval.
“I was going to call attention to that speck of soot that has just
settled on your nose--your first!” Mrs. Blair continued. “Ah! there you
have it now!” she concluded as Mrs. Craighill found the offender with
her handkerchief.
“That, we may say, marks your baptism into full citizenship,” beamed
Colonel Craighill.
As the residential area unfolded itself, he named the owners of many
of the houses they were passing, while Mrs. Blair summarized their
history in short, amusing phrases. Wayne, sitting on the front seat,
turned his head to throw in a word now and then; but for the greater
part he kept his own counsel. He overheard his sister’s rapid survey
of the social geography of the Greater City. She declared that there
was no debating the claims of the East End to social supremacy, though
there were what she called “nice people” in the red brick homes of
transpontine Allegheny. “Dick Wingfield,” she quoted, “always says that
in crossing the river, Charon and not the bridge company gets the fee.
Dick calls the river the Stygian wave.” Mrs. Blair was not sure that
Mrs. Craighill quite took this in, but it did not matter in one who
smiled responsively at everything and appeared anxious to please.
There was the usual difficulty in explaining to a stranger the
triangular shape of the city clasped by its two rivers that so quickly
flow as one, and the fact that you may, if you like, take a boat here
for New Orleans if you are bent upon adventure. “Are there suburbs?”
Mrs. Craighill asked; and rising to this prompting Mrs. Blair flashed
an illuminating glance upon Stanwixley, where, she conceded, there were
delightful people, but why they should live where they did was beyond
her powers of understanding. Colonel Craighill protested now and then,
but smilingly, as one who would, at the fitting moment, pronounce
the final word in all such matters. Greater philosophers than Fanny
Blair have found it difficult to hit off in a few phrases the social
alignments of the Greater City. Where there is no centre, no common
and unifying social expression, it is not easy to find a point of
departure. Even the _terra sancta_ of the East End presents no stern
walls to the newcomer who can provide himself with a house and a chef.
And it is not correct to speak of social strata in the City of the Iron
Heart, for the term implies depth, and the life here at this period was
wholly superficial, a thing of geography and cliques, the one fairly
rigid, the other unstable and shifting. But these were the Years of the
Great Prosperity, a time of broad social readjustments and generous
inclusion. Poverty alone, we may say, enforces the rules of exact
social differentiation; there has never been in America any society so
scrupulous, proud and sensitive as that of the Southern cavaliers when
they threw off their armour and returned to their despoiled estates.
It did not seem possible during these bountiful years that the wolf
would ever yelp in the steep cañons of the Greater City, or that steel,
iron and coal could ever less magically change to gold. It was, indeed,
inconceivable that the prosperous citizens would not forever disport
themselves in the glittering hotels of New York and go on discovering,
like so many Columbuses, the delights of London and Paris. Nowhere were
these Midases more in evidence than on the transatlantic steamers,
where their millions were computed in awed whispers by less favoured
travellers and the stewards danced with unwonted alacrity in the
confident hope of largess.
“It’s our American habit”--Colonel Craighill was saying--“and not
a bad trait, to believe our own state and our own city and our own
quarter of the block where we live the most ideal place in the world.
And this, Adelaide, is home!”
Mrs. Blair flung off her wraps in the hall and went to the dining room
to interview the maid about breakfast. She arranged with her own hands
the roses she had sent for this first table, and, this accomplished to
her satisfaction, she peered into the cabinet that held the best of her
mother’s Sevres with a lingering regret that she had not made way with
it while there was yet time; for Mrs. Blair was eminently human, and
women are never so weak as before the temptation to loot. She heard her
father’s voice above, describing to his wife the character of the upper
chambers and she joined Wayne in the library where he stood in the bay
window looking out upon the thinning boughs of the maples.
“Well,” she exclaimed with a half sigh, “the worst is over.”
“You’ve done bully, Fanny. You’ve risen to the occasion!”
“Oh, it might be worse! It might be infinitely worse. What do you think
of her?”
“Oh, she’s not bad! I should call her a pretty woman.”
“Well, she doesn’t seem to have much to say!”
“No one can, Sis, when you get going. She remarked quite distinctly
that she liked summer better than winter, and I thought she did well to
get that in.”
“Well, she was nice to the children, anyhow,” sighed Mrs. Blair, not
heeding him.
Steps were heard on the stair and in a moment Mrs. Craighill entered at
her husband’s side.
“I hope we haven’t kept you waiting. It’s so good of you to stop.”
“Breakfast is served always at eight o’clock,” Mrs. Blair explained as
they moved toward the dining room. “I was driven from my home by that
rule. Father would never yield fifteen minutes even when I had been
dancing all night.”
Wayne drew back the chair for the new mistress of the house, and then
sat down opposite his sister at the round table. All contributed a few
commonplaces to the first difficult moments at the table, and Mrs.
Blair took advantage of the opportunity to scrutinize the newcomer
more closely. Mrs. Craighill was pretty, undeniably that; but it was
a prettiness without distinction; it lay in the general effect, and
in her ready smile rather than in particular features. Her hands were
not to Mrs. Blair’s liking; they were a trifle too broad, but even
this was minimized by the woman’s graceful use of them. The appearance
of the coffee, which was made in a device that Wayne had set over to
domestic use from the Club, brought him into the talk with his personal
apologies for the absence of the silver breakfast service.
“That machine isn’t so formidable as it looks. It is warranted not to
blow up. But I advise you against its product, Adelaide; the brew is as
fierce as lye and will shatter the strongest nerves. Father requires
water in his--about one hundred per cent. Please don’t feel obliged to
use that trap if you don’t like it.”
He had spoken her name easily, and as he mentioned it she lifted her
head from the cups and smiled at him with a little nod. Mrs. Blair,
observant of everything, could not, in spite of the smooth-flowing
talk, forget the waste areas of her ignorance of this woman, who had
slipped unchallenged into her mother’s old place at the table, and whom
she and Wayne were endeavouring to please. This last point touched her
humour; that they, with their prior claims upon their father and the
house, should be trying to impress the new wife favourably was to Fanny
Blair’s mind decidedly funny.
“I suppose our severest winter weather will hardly equal the cold you
have been used to in Vermont,” she remarked, stirring her cup.
“It gets very cold there, but it is bracing and wholesome,” replied
Adelaide, meeting Fanny’s gaze. “But I have hardly been there since
I grew up. Mama found she couldn’t stand the climate about the time
I needed some schooling, so we went abroad, and you know how easy it
is to stay on once you are over there. Our home in Vermont was at
Burlington--you know, on the lake?--and the winds do come howling
terribly down from Canada! It is lovely in summer, though. I’m going
to take your father up there next summer,” she ended, smiling at her
husband, who gazed at her fondly.
It had been some time since Mrs. Blair had heard anyone speak of
taking her father anywhere. Her memory pricked her at once with the
recollection that in her mother’s lifetime her father had yielded
reluctantly to all pleas for vacations. The children had usually been
taken away by their mother--sometimes to hotels at quiet summer places,
at other times to houses rented for the season. Colonel Craighill
did not always like the places chosen by his wife, but he had never
quarrelled with her plans and decisions in such matters. He liked to
travel and fell into the habit of an annual trip abroad, going usually
alone, chiefly, he declared, for the sea trip. Now, however, Mrs. Blair
reflected, everything would be different.
Breakfast passed smoothly, and they lingered later in the library.
Mrs. Craighill seemed in no awe of her elderly husband. She talked
more freely now, and mentioned many foreign places where she and her
mother had lived at different periods. Most of them were obscure and
unfashionable, and some of them were wholly unknown to Mrs. Blair; but
she was dimly conscious that there was cleverness behind this careless
sketching of the leisurely foreign itinerary pursued by this young
woman and her widowed mother. At the same time the background which
Mrs. Craighill created for herself was shadowy; against it she and her
mother were as unsubstantial as figures on a screen. There was nothing
that you could put your hand on. Vermont, to Mrs. Blair, was even
more remote and inaccessible than those French and German towns where
winters and summers had been spent by the mother and daughter. Mrs.
Blair, in her rapid visualization of their flights, saw them huddled
where the pension charges were lightest.
Wayne soon called for his runabout and went to the office, as his
father had announced that he would remain at home until after luncheon.
Wayne had acted becomingly, to his father’s satisfaction and to his
sister’s great relief. Mrs. Blair was, in fact, quite proud of him
as he said good-bye to her and stood very straight and tall before
his stepmother and bade her good morning. He bore the stamp of
breeding--she had never felt this more than now--and he could be relied
on in emergencies.
“Are you all coming over to-night--the children and everybody?” asked
Colonel Craighill.
“No; you must have your first dinner alone,” Mrs. Blair replied; “but
to-morrow night you are coming to us.”
“I am dining with Fanny to-night, so you will have a clean sweep,” said
Wayne, in conformity with his sister’s earlier instructions.
The sensation of being suddenly established as mistress of a home over
which another woman had presided for twenty years, and in which she has
borne and reared children and died, was to be Mrs. Craighill’s fully
to-day. Mrs. Blair went thoroughly into all the domestic arrangements
with the housekeeper attending. She revealed the repositories of linen,
the moth-proof lodgments for woollen fabrics, the secret storehouses
of fruit and vegetables. On these rounds Mrs. Blair evinced a sincere
desire to be of help. She had fortified herself against heartache, but
there were things that hurt. The ineffaceable marks of her mother’s
forethought and labour were wrought into the deeper history of the
house, and could never be understood by this newcomer, who laid
ignorant hands upon the ark of the domestic covenant and yet escaped
destruction.
Several times, on this tour of inspection, Colonel Craighill spoke
his first wife’s name, and his manner and tone gave to his daughter’s
sensitive intelligence a completer idea of his perfect detachment from
the earlier tie. She felt the tightening of the heart that every woman
feels when an illustration of man’s forgetfulness strikes close home.
She foresees at once her own replacement by another; fickle flowers of
remembrance are rusty patches on her grave where the winds of December
moan forever. Fanny Blair, already, by this prevision, saw herself
forgotten and her own successor entering her husband’s door, while her
children, unkempt and tearful, wailed dolorously before the gates of
oblivion.
CHAPTER IX
“HELP ME TO BE A GOOD WOMAN”
When Wayne returned to the office after luncheon he looked in upon his
father, who, having cleared his desk with his habitual easy dispatch,
was addressing himself to the consideration of new business. Roger
Craighill’s desk was never littered; a few sheets of figures lay before
him as he glanced over his glasses at Wayne.
“Sit down a moment. You may remember that I have wanted, for several
years, to get out of the jobbing business. Now I have an offer for it
that it seems best to accept. Walsh wishes to buy it.”
“Walsh!” exclaimed Wayne.
“I was surprised that he should want to leave us,” Colonel Craighill
continued.
“I’m rather more surprised that he should be able to!” said Wayne, who
saw nothing heinous in Walsh’s wish to leave the office if he could do
better elsewhere. It was, however, quite like his father to express
amazement that a valued subordinate should desert his standard. Within
a fortnight Wayne’s attitude toward his father had unconsciously
hardened; what once had been fitful rebellion was now stubborn revolt.
In his heart, Wayne felt that his father had never appreciated Walsh,
and he hoped now, that if the silent lieutenant left, the loss would
precipitate the breaking down of this complacency, this perfect
self-confidence.
“Walsh has made a fair offer. He knows the business well--as well,
practically, as I myself. His offer is based on the last invoice to
which he adds one hundred thousand dollars for the name and good will
of the house. The capitalization is just as your grandfather left it.
Walsh has owned, for a number of years you remember, ten shares of the
capital stock. You and I together own the rest. The few shares held by
men in the office to complete the organization are all assigned to us.
You have, if you remember----”
“Twenty shares,” said Wayne promptly, irritated that his father was
assuming that he would not know.
“Quite right. You own twenty; I hold sixty-five; and that leaves five
shares held by the clerks that are practically mine. I take it for
granted that you will wish to sell your holding if I dispose of the
controlling interest.”
“No; I hardly think I shall,” replied Wayne. “The earnings are better
than they ever were, and I shouldn’t know where to do so well.
Besides,” he added in a tone that caused his father to wince, “the
business was started by Grandfather Wayne and I have always felt that
I owed it to mother to keep my interest there. I suppose the corporate
name will not be changed?”
“I had assumed it would not be,” replied Colonel Craighill smiling. “It
is a part of the assets!”
“Certainly, the Wayne-Craighill Company! As I am both a Wayne and a
Craighill I prefer to stay in; I assume you don’t care one way or
another.”
“On the other hand, I am glad to see that you have a mind of your own
in the matter, and your feeling about your grandfather, the founder of
the house, does you great credit, my son. It pleases me more than I can
say. I should not be retiring myself if this were not in line with my
plans of several years for concentrating my interests. I can use this
money to better advantage elsewhere.”
He did not explain how he proposed to re-invest the money derived
from the sale of the jobbing business, and Wayne asked no questions.
A number of men were waiting, as usual, to see Colonel Craighill, who
presently took up several cards from his desk and rang for the office
boy to begin admitting the callers.
Wayne had ordered Joe to bring down his runabout at four o’clock and
for half an hour he idled as he waited in his own office. He came and
went as he liked by the hall door in his room so that the clerks in the
outer office never knew whether he was in or not.
“Home, Joe!” and he sat silently pondering until the car drew up at
his father’s door. As he hung up his coat he was conscious of a new
expectation, a new exhilaration. His heart beat fast as he stood,
listening intently, like one who is startled by an obscure sound in a
lonely house and waits for its recurrence. He had gone home to see his
father’s wife; he had gone expecting to find her alone, and he peered
into the dim drawing room guardedly as though fearful of detection. A
clock on the stair struck the half-hour and its chime, familiar from
childhood, beat upon his ears jarringly, and sent confused alarms
bounding through his pulses. He turned into the library and there the
thronging hosts of memory that the scene summoned, steadied and sobered
him as he stood within the portières. Then, as he swung round into the
hall, he heard a light laugh above, and Mrs. Craighill came running
down to meet him. Her step on the stair was noiseless; his pictorial
sense was alive to the grace of her swift descent.
“Home so soon!”
She put out her hand and waited at the foot of the stair. A
rose-coloured house-gown, whose half-sleeves disclosed her arms from
the elbow, seemed to diffuse a glow about her. He stood staring and
unsmiling where her laugh had first arrested him until she spoke again.
“I didn’t know I was so forbidding as all that!” she said and walked
past him into the library. She found a seat and he threw himself into
a chair a little distance away from her. They looked at each other
intently, he grave and sullen, she smiling.
“Well, you did it!” he said presently.
“Please!”
She turned with her lips pouting prettily and glanced over her
shoulder. “Please be nice to me!”
“You haven’t changed your tricks; you don’t have to beg admiration, so
cut it all out. What if I had stopped it?”
“Well, you didn’t--though I gave you your chance.”
“You needn’t give me credit for too much generosity. I was on a spree
and didn’t get your letter until the trap was well sprung, and,
besides, the name threw me off. It was only when the Colonel showed me
your photograph, carried sacredly in his pocket, that I knew who you
were. How’s your dear mama?”
“For once in her life I think she’s satisfied; she’s gone abroad, thank
heaven!”
“Now that you’re fixed I suppose she will do something on her own
account. She’s a wonder, that mother of yours.”
“Mama has her ambitions,” Mrs. Craighill observed pensively.
“Her greed, you mean. How did you get on with Fanny this morning?”
“Your sister’s a dear! I’m quite in love with her; she was perfectly
lovely to me--kind as could be and anxious to be helpful. I’m already
very fond of her.”
“I dare say your affections will include the whole family before you
get through with us.”
This meeting was not to his taste. He had taken advantage of the first
opportunity to be alone with his father’s wife, and now that they were
together he was failing to give the right tone to the interview. It
was proving disagreeable and he did not know how to change its key.
It irritated him to find that Mrs. Craighill was calmly giving it
direction.
“Wayne, dear,” she said, her arm thrown over the back of her low chair,
“you came home to see me and now you are not a bit nice.”
“I came home because it’s home,” he replied doggedly.
“But you haven’t been home at this hour within the memory of anybody on
the place. I asked the maids--very discreetly--what time Mr. Wayne came
home and they were embarrassed. You cut the Club for me this afternoon;
I’m not going to have it any other way.”
He rose and walked the length of the room, and when he had gained the
bay window he looked back at her. She did not move and her head, the
pretty arch of her neck, the graceful lines of her figure brought him
quickly to her side. He took her hands roughly and drew her to her feet.
“Yes, I came home when I did to see you alone,” he cried eagerly. “You
knew I would come; you counted on it; you were sure of it!”
“What a mind-reader you are!” she laughed, looking languidly up at him.
He clasped her hands in both his own, and peered into her face. Her
eyes questioned him long; they held him away from her as though by
physical force. Then the colour surged suddenly in her face and throat
as he bent toward her lips and she cried out softly and freed herself.
“No! No! Not like that!”
“There is no other way. You didn’t think you could come here and begin
all over again and live under the same roof with me and have me forget!
I tell you I am not brass or wood! No woman was ever so much to any man
as you are to me. If I had not been a fool you would have belonged to
me; and now, now you are here and we cannot be less to each other than
we were once. You know that; I know it!”
She was looking at him questioningly, with a wide-eyed gravity, and
she was very white. She lifted her head slightly, as though by the act
summoning her own courage, and took a step that brought her close to
him; she laid her hands on his shoulders.
“Wayne, I want you to help me--I want you to help me to be a good
woman.”
Her pallor had deepened; her lips trembled; the tears shone in her eyes.
“Why did you come here? If you wanted my help you took a strange way of
getting it. It strikes me that the reason you came is something that we
had better not go into.”
“That is not like you, Wayne. I suppose--I suppose--it would not occur
to you that I admire and love your father; that, after the life I have
led, the shelter of such a home as this and the protection of such a
man mean more than I know how to describe. I haven’t the words to tell
you what it means!” she ended with a little moan, and then: “It was
only chance that threw me again in your way.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” he replied harshly. “I think your mother
must have chuckled to herself at finding that she could catch the
father if she couldn’t land the more sophisticated son. She thought
she was taking revenge on me. Those are nice things you have”--his
eye swept her gown--“and if your mother has gone abroad it’s a fair
assumption that she tapped the Craighill till pretty soon after the
wedding--if not just before!”
“You have no right to make such insinuations. It’s infamous. I don’t
intend that you shall insult me under this roof.”
“Under this roof!” he mocked.
“Oh, I understand that it’s yours; that when your father dies it will
belong to you; but while he lives it’s my shelter, it’s my home; the
first, Wayne, that I ever had.”
He studied her with a puzzled look in his eyes. He had thought he knew
her; that out of his earlier knowledge he could readily establish a new
tie. The thought of this had filled his mind from the moment he had
recognized her photograph at his father’s table.
“What I ask you for, Wayne, what I beg you to give me, is my chance. I
have never had it yet. I have been hawked about and offered in a good
many markets. I might have been married to you if mama had not counted
too little on your sanity and tried to get money out of you before
she had you well hooked. It is possible that I was a little--just a
little slow at the game. I let you escape--I could have held you if I
had wanted to--and I suffered for it afterward. You may be sure she
punished me for that.”
“I dare say she did,” he muttered, watching her.
“If it hadn’t been that I really cared for you, Wayne, I think I should
have gone ahead. You thought you were eluding me; the fact is that I
precipitated that row myself to give you your chance to get away. The
mater wanted to follow you into the courts; I stopped that by burning
your letters and declining to give any aid.”
“Ha! my benefactress, you are discovered!”
“No, that is not the tone for you to take with me, Wayne. I have no
intention of asking favours. I think,” and she pondered gravely as
though anxious to be exact, “I believe I realize the enormity of what
I have done perfectly, and I ask forgiveness, mercy, kindness. I have
bought my freedom, and I want to be sure I shall have it--and peace.
Oh, peace, decency; to stop being a vagabond, flung in the eyes of
every man suspected of having money! That mother of mine didn’t sell me
at the last; I made the bargain. And now that I bear your father’s name
I am not going to dishonour it; I am not going to bring any cloud upon
his old age, no disgrace and no shame. There is no nobler man in the
world than he is, and as far as I can, with my poor, miserable, hideous
past, and my poor wits, I am going to try to live up to him. There is
just that one prayer in my heart--after all these temptations, and
heartache, heartache, heartache!--that I may be a good woman--a good
woman, Wayne! What a wonderful thing it would be if I could--goodness,
with peace!”
Her voice was low and failed wholly now and then and he found himself
watching her lips to read the words that his ears lost. He had been
rejoicing in the thought that his father was the victim of a vulgar
connivance between an avaricious and designing woman and a willing and
not too scrupulous daughter; and the situation was one which he had
counted upon playing with in his own fashion. The gossamer web of this
hope now fluttered broken on the wind. In the silence that followed
he saw for an instant the ignoble and shameful aspect of the thing
that had been in his heart. Then a new idea flashed upon him; it was
base, base enough to satisfy even this stubborn mood in which Mrs.
Craighill’s appeal had left him. He felt a joy in his cunning; his
heart warmed as the anger and resentment against his father took form
again. The conquest was not to be so easy as he had imagined, but it
would be all the sweeter for delay. Vengeance for wrongs and injustices
might yet be secured. He experienced a thrill of gratification that
his mind had responded to this need in defeat. His imagination built
up a new tower of possibilities upon a fresh foundation: it was this
new wife who had been deceived in the marriage, not his father! He
would gain in the end what he sought and the blow at his father should
lose nothing of its force when strengthened by her disappointment
and humiliation. It was inconceivable that Roger Craighill would ever
treat the woman as an equal; that there could ever be any real sympathy
between them. With all the zest of youth in her, and with her love of
life, she was sure to seek escape from the bleak zone he, as Roger
Craighill’s son, knew well, but whose far-lying levels she now saw rosy
with promise.
Mrs. Craighill had not looked at Wayne through the latter part of her
recital and appeal; but she rose now and turned to him smilingly. She
wore an air, indeed, of having defined an unassailable position; of
having fully mastered its defense, with her own soul supreme in the
citadel. Her confidence revealed itself in her voice as she addressed
him; he was piqued to find that she apparently dismissed him a little
condescendingly, as though their future relations were established
on a basis determined by herself and that there was no question of
maintaining them there.
“Good-bye, Wayne, I must run along now to dress for dinner. You dine
with Fanny, don’t you? Please tell your sister how much I appreciate
her kindness this morning; and I am grateful for yours, too, Wayne!”
He rose as she put out her hand. He looked at her fixedly as though her
identity were suddenly in question. Then he laughed softly.
“Good-bye, Addie!”
He followed her into the hall. She did not look back at him, but went
slowly up the stair with a dignity that was new in her. It was as
though she wore her new wifehood as a protecting shield and cloak.
When he heard her door close he went up to his own room.
CHAPTER X
MR. WALSH MEETS MRS. CRAIGHILL
Wingfield was mistaken when he announced at the Allequippa Club,
apropos of Walsh’s purchase of a controlling interest in the
Wayne-Craighill Company, that Roger Craighill had never appreciated
Walsh’s services. Colonel Craighill not only valued Walsh highly, but
he took occasion to express, in a statement given to the newspapers,
his “deep sense of loss upon the retirement of my faithful chief of
staff, who after years of painstaking labour, reaps the reward of his
own industry and fidelity.” More than this, Colonel Craighill made
Walsh’s passing the occasion for a dinner to all the employees in his
office and to the managers of the mines and coking plants in which he
was interested. Walsh was thus used as an illustration of the qualities
that make for honourable success. This banquet, provided at a leading
hotel toward the end of October, was memorable on many accounts, and
not least for the address delivered to the company by the head of
the table--an utterance marked by noble sentiment and expressing the
highest ideals of conduct in commercial life. Wingfield characterized
this somewhat coarsely as “hot air” when he read it in the newspapers;
the Colonel was, he averred, the Prince of the Platitudinous.
“The Colonel thinks he is looking through the windows of his soul upon
Humanity,” remarked Wingfield to a shrewd, skilful occulist with whom
he shared such heresies; “but the windows of his soul are all mirrors.”
But Wingfield was almost the only man in town who refused to accept
Roger Craighill at rather more than face value.
Wayne, glancing a few days later at Mrs. Blair’s list of persons to be
invited to her reception in their stepmother’s honour, suggested that
Walsh ought to be asked.
“Why Walsh?” asked Mrs. Blair bluntly. “When I pass him in the park
driving his beautiful horses and with a long black cigar in his mouth,
he makes me shudder.”
“When he takes up a list of accounts payable and runs his eye down
the column, all the people who owe money anywhere on earth shudder.
He’s a sphinx, but I like him. He’s been mighty good to me and if you
don’t mind I’ll say that he will be missed at the office more than the
Colonel knows.”
“Oh, tush, Wayne! Father has always said that no man is indispensable,
and he wouldn’t have lost Walsh if he had needed him. Father’s proud
that an old subordinate can go out of the office into a business of his
own.”
“Maybe,” persisted Wayne, “maybe Walsh isn’t the subordinate.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Walsh has been, far more than the Colonel knows, the
_deus ex machina_ of our affairs. Father has not known the details of
his various interests for years--not since I went into the office.
He sees only the results and, thanks to Walsh, they have been very
satisfactory. When there was a nasty trip to take in a hurry to head
off a strike, or to see why we weren’t making the usual tonnages, old
Walsh slipped out of town and looked after it without a word. Father
thinks he did it all; probably thinks it honestly; and Walsh let him
think it. That’s Walsh’s way. When father went out in his private car
and found all the properties in bang-up shape he thought he was looking
at the results of his own management; but in fact Walsh’s eagle eye and
iron grip had done the real work.”
“You mustn’t talk so of father, Wayne; you have grown bitter toward
him and can’t judge him fairly. But if you think Mr. Walsh ought to
be asked to the reception I’ll send him a card. There isn’t any Mrs.
Walsh, I believe?”
“No. He’s married happily to his horses and cigars. Don’t take this too
hard; Walsh has never manifested any interest in social fusses yet and
he’ll hardly begin now. I can’t see him in a dress suit! He won’t come
to your party but it would be decent to send him a ticket.”
“Certainly, Wayne; not because Mr. Walsh has been father’s brains but
because you ask it.”
“Oh, never mind that! Walsh has always been bully to me. I’m keeping
my stock in the mercantile company just because I like him. When we
closed that deal the other day and I told Tom I was going to hold on
to my stock he came as near being affected as I suppose is possible in
such a hardy old plant. The name of the corporation isn’t to be changed
and he said he hoped I’d come to see him occasionally to help his
credit. He was really a good deal tickled over it.”
* * * * *
The Blair house lent itself well to large entertainments. At ten
o’clock the hostess breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that her
party was a success. The representative people of the Greater City
were there. Men and women who, in Mrs. Blair’s phrase, “stood for
something,” had passed in review before Mrs. Roger Craighill. Mrs.
Blair was catholic-minded in social matters. The wide advertisement of
her city through the coarse social exploits of some of her citizens
during the Great Prosperity had aroused her bitter resentment, and she
had summoned for this occasion many who, able to declare themselves
guiltless of wealth, proved in their own lives and aspirations that
something besides vulgarity and greed emerge from the seething caldron
to which the Greater City may be likened. It was Mrs. Blair’s delight
to discover, and as far as lay in her power, to stimulate and reward
ambition in the arts and sciences. She had promoted the fortunes of
a long line of young physicians, placing them on hospital boards and
sending them influential patients. Poor artists were sure to find
sitters if she took them up; the young girl seeking countenances to
immortalize in miniature would, if satisfactorily weighed in Mrs.
Blair’s balance, find herself embarrassed with clients. John McCandless
Blair could never tell, when he went home to dinner, what new musical
genius would be enthroned in the music room--young men in flowing black
scarfs, or, rather more delectable, young girls of just the right type
to look well at the harp, and who, no matter what strains might be
evoked by their fingers, yet possessed in the requisite degree what
Mrs. Blair capitalized as Soul.
Mrs. Blair’s reception drew a wide circle within which Mrs. Craighill
made the acquaintance of her husband’s fellow-townsmen. Curiosity
proved stronger in most cases than fealty to the dead, even among the
first Mrs. Craighill’s friends. The obvious answer to any invidious
question as to the wife’s previous history was that a man standing
as high as Colonel Craighill, and as careful as he of his honour and
good name, was unlikely to make a marriage that would jeopardize his
position.
There were, however, absences that expressed the resentment of certain
old friends of the family who had, in Mrs. Blair’s phrase, “taken
a stand.” These were fewer than Mrs. Blair had hoped for but Mrs.
Wingfield did not appear; the pastor emeritus of Memorial Church, a
gentleman who had been favoured by fortune and was in no wise dependent
on Craighill patronage, had declined earlier an invitation to dine
and a request for the honour of his presence at the reception; and a
retired general of the army, who sat with Roger Craighill among the
elders of Memorial, not only scorned these overtures but expressed
discreetly his feeling that the marriage had been an act of disloyalty
to the Craighill children. There were not more than half a dozen
of these instances, and while they were not, to be sure, of great
importance, Mrs. Blair magnified their significance and took pains to
thank the absentees later for their attitude. Dick Wingfield, keen in
such matters, found upon analysis that those who, like his own mother,
rejected the newcomer, were persons who had nothing whatever to lose
by incurring the disfavour of Roger Craighill. His mother was rich and
an independent spirit if ever one existed; the old minister’s income
could not be disturbed by Roger Craighill or anyone else; the retired
general had, as a lieutenant, invested his scant savings in Omaha and
Seattle town lots, and checks from Washington were only an incident of
his income. Nobody, in fact, whom Roger Craighill could possibly reach,
no one likely to need his help in any way whatever, had joined in this
tame rebellion.
Wingfield, not easily astonished by anything, was nevertheless amazed
to meet Walsh at Mrs. Blair’s reception. He imagined that he knew Walsh
pretty well, but their acquaintance had been a matter of contact at the
Club, warmed into friendliness during a period in which Wingfield had,
as he put it, “affected horse.” Wingfield was looking for the youngest
débutante when he came upon Walsh stolidly smoking in the Blair
library. Walsh in a white waistcoat was something new under the sun.
It occurred to Wingfield that he had never seen him in anyone’s house
before. He stopped to smoke a cigarette that he might, if possible,
analyze Walsh’s emotions in this alien air.
“So you’ve quit the Colonel--taken over the Wayne-Craighill Company.
If you have any stock to sell I’d like to have a slice. I’ve always
thought the grocery business must be entertaining. Its ethnological
relations would appeal to me. I understand that these people who pile
themselves on our social dump--the riff-raff of Europe--bring their
delectable appetites with them, and that your cellars are as savoury as
a Chinese stinkpot with the bouquet of finnan haddie and such epicurean
delights. So Wayne’s going to stay in, is he?”
Walsh took the cigar from his mouth and nodded.
“Yes; Wayne’s vice-president of the company now.”
“That’s good. You and I are the only people hereabouts who really
appreciate Wayne. There are things that Wayne can do.”
Walsh nodded again. He settled himself back in his chair comfortably
and looked at Wingfield with liking. A bronze Buddha, a striking item
of the lares and penates of the Blair home, gazed down upon them
benevolently.
“Wayne,” said Walsh deliberately, “was born to be a man of power. He
was built for big transactions.”
Wingfield was surprised into silence. He had never before heard Walsh
express himself as to the character of any man and there was something
akin to heartiness in this endorsement of Wayne Craighill. Wingfield
forgot his quest of the débutante in his eagerness to hear the
inscrutable Walsh’s opinions. Fearing that he might relapse into one of
the silences for which he was famous, Wingfield applied the prod.
“The Colonel never understood Wayne,” he remarked leadingly.
“That is possible,” replied Walsh, after a moment of deliberation.
“Wayne could do anything he wanted to--lead forlorn hopes, command a
battleship, preach a sermon, run a coal mine, or sell a gold brick. The
Scotch in him is pretty sound yet. He’s a free spender, but he has his
thrifty side.”
“Um--yes. Wayne has brains.”
“Why don’t you take him in hand, Walsh, and teach him how to work?”
After a prolonged silence Walsh asked dryly:
“Why?”
“Because the Colonel has failed at it.”
The two men looked at each other fixedly for a moment.
“He tried hard enough. He’s disappointed in Wayne.”
Walsh spoke as though he were repeating an accepted opinion rather than
voicing his own thought. Wingfield caught him up.
“It pleases the Colonel to think that he possesses anything as well
authenticated as a thankless child. The serpent’s tooth tickles the
Colonel’s vanity. Resignation becomes the Colonel like a pale lavender
necktie.”
“He may work his way out. Marriage might help him.”
“That’s not so easy. A bad marriage would send him clear to the bottom.
You’ve got to find a particular sort of girl for his case.”
“I agree with you. The girls that are here to-night--the pretty
daughters of best families--that kind would be no good for him; and
besides, they’re not going to try it. Their papas and mamas wouldn’t
let them if they wanted to.”
Wingfield was delighted to hear these expressions from Walsh. It was
as though the sphinx, breaking the silence of centuries, had suddenly
bent down and addressed a chance traveller on the topics of the day.
Walsh spoke, moreover, with the quiet conviction of one who had thought
deeply on the subject under discussion.
“You are quite right. I agree with you fully!” declared Wingfield,
anxious to hear further from Walsh. “It would take a plucky girl to
tackle Wayne.”
“Brains, common sense, patience! A good, sensible working-girl would be
my choice.”
Walsh stroked his bald pate with his hand, and drew deeply upon
his cigar. Wingfield was pondering Walsh’s words carefully, fully
appreciating the flattery of the old fellow’s unwonted loquacity.
“How are we going to find her?”
“We are not going to find her. Wayne’s a lucky devil--such fellows are
usually lucky--and his future must take care of itself.”
“So our prince must marry a pauper, the girl behind the glove counter,
the angel whose nimble digits gambol merrily upon the typewriter,
the low-voiced houri who trifles with the world’s good nature in
the telephone exchange? Wayne is fastidious. How are you going to
arrange the time and the place and the loved one altogether?” demanded
Wingfield.
“I’m not a fool, Mr. Wingfield; I’m not going to arrange it at all! I’d
look pretty in the matchmaking business,” concluded Walsh grimly.
“No; I guess not,” smiled Wingfield; but he was startled by Walsh’s
next statement, delivered quietly and with his cigar in his mouth.
“I could hardly qualify as an expert on marriage, having failed at it
myself.”
Walsh’s tone forbade inquiry. He had opened a door into some dark
chamber of his past, then closed it tight and shot the bolt back into
place. He rose, clumsily and lumberingly, and dropped his cigar into
an ash tray. The long, blank surface of his bald head wrinkled as his
brows lifted, and his eyes widened as though fixed on a horizon against
which he had glimpsed the familiar outlines of some wave-washed and
hopeless argosy. By a common impulse the men clasped hands silently.
“An election bet or what?” cried Mrs. Blair in the doorway. “With all
the trouble there is about getting men, I should like to know what you
two mean by hobnobbing here by yourselves. I shall punish you for
this, Mr. Walsh, by making you take me in to supper.”
The guests were being served in the dining room and in the hall and
conservatory adjoining. Mrs. Blair convoyed Walsh to a corner where
Mrs. Craighill was seated at a table with the solidest bank president
of the Greater City. This person was, however, slightly deaf, and as
Mrs. Blair rose frequently, in her office of hostess, to assure herself
of the comfort of the others who were straying in for supper, Walsh
found opportunity for speech with Mrs. Craighill, whom he had observed
only passingly in the drawing room.
“This is the most hospitable place! Everyone is so very kind,” murmured
Mrs. Craighill.
“I suppose so,” replied Walsh, his glance falling upon Roger Craighill,
who was relating an anecdote to a circle of wrapt listeners near by.
The financier was intent upon his salad, and Mrs. Craighill gave her
whole attention to Walsh.
“Colonel Craighill has told me a great deal about you, Mr. Walsh.
Let me see what it was that he said--you know how splendidly he puts
everything--he said, ‘Mr. Walsh is a born trustee; you can trust him
with anything.’”
“Those are strong words,” said Walsh, meeting her gaze quietly.
“But you are leaving him, and he is very glad when any of his men
go away from him to do better for themselves. He feels that it’s a
credit to him. I suppose it’s like the pride the colleges take in a
successful graduate.”
Here obviously was an opportunity for Walsh to follow her line of
thought and speak in praise of his alma mater; but he switched the
subject abruptly.
“You are a stranger here, Mrs. Craighill?”
“Yes, I was! But I’m beginning to feel at home already. I suppose it
will take me years to learn everything about this wonderful city.”
“I have been here twenty-five years and have it all to learn--I mean
this sort of thing,” and Walsh glanced about as though to broaden into
generalization his ignorance of society. “This is the first time I have
ever crossed a threshold in this town.”
“How strange!” He was even more difficult than the deaf financier,
this strange old fellow with the shiny pate and unsmiling countenance.
“But,” she laughed, “I’m going to take this as personal to me--your
coming to-night! You won’t grudge me the belief that I’m responsible
for your appearance--your first appearance--if you really mean me to
believe that it is the first!”
“There is no doubt of that. It’s what they call my début. I came”--and
he smiled, a smile that was of the eyes rather than the thin lips--“I
came for that. I came just to see you.”
He looked at her so fixedly that she shrugged her shoulders and turned
away. This might be the privilege of an old friend of her husband, but
his words fell harshly, as from lips unused to gracious speech. Very
likely he was an eccentric character, who, from his own statement,
was ignorant of social usage. His keen scrutiny made Mrs. Craighill
uncomfortable for a moment.
“Now that you have seen me, Mr. Walsh, please tell me your verdict;
spare nothing!”
“I think,” said Walsh bluntly, “that you are much nicer than I
expected.”
He was trying to take a lump of sugar for his coffee with the tongs,
but his hand shook.
“Fingers were made first! Allow me! You are smoking too much--that’s
the answer,” she laughed. Walsh was annoyed by this evidence of
weakness, for his nerves were usually steady, and he was vexed to be
obliged to accept her help.
“Horses and cigars are your only diversions, I hear, Mr. Walsh.”
“Who told you that?”
“It was Wayne, I think.”
“Oh, yes; Wayne,” repeated Walsh, as though recalling the name with
difficulty.
“Wayne and you are great friends.”
“Well, I don’t know that he would admit it,” and Walsh smiled. Mrs.
Craighill reflected that there was something akin to tenderness just
now in the face of this curious man.
“Oh, he told me about it! He spoke of you much more enthusiastically
than Colonel Craighill did. It was not that Colonel Craighill didn’t
say everything that was kind; but with Wayne, it was as though----”
“Well?”
“As though he loved you--there!”
The colour deepened in Walsh’s weather-beaten face, ruddy at all times
from the park air, where he drove in every sort of weather; even his
bald crown reddened. He was undoubtedly pleased; but he said, with an
effort at lightness:
“That’s just like Wayne; he’s a great joker.”
Mrs. Blair flashed back upon them now, and charged them with
treasonable confidences. The old banker had detached himself some time
earlier and joined the circle which Colonel Craighill was addressing
in his semi-oratorical key on the opposite side of the room. Mrs.
Craighill and Walsh, having satisfied their own imaginary social
hunger, remained with Mrs. Blair while she had her coffee.
“You must come up and see the dance. All the prettiest girls have come.
You must go up to the ballroom, too, Mr. Walsh. And I’m going to tell
you now, for fear I forget it, how pleased I am that you came.”
“You were kind to ask me. It has been a privilege to meet Mrs.
Craighill.”
Walsh stood up abruptly, bowed with a quaint touch of manner to each of
the ladies, pleaded an engagement downtown, and left them.
Mrs. Craighill was surprised to find herself turning her head to watch
his burly figure through the door.
* * * * *
Wayne, roaming the house restlessly, drifted into the conservatory. It
had been his sister’s habit to ignore what was practically ostracism
as far as he was concerned socially. She realized the justice of
his exclusion, but inwardly, with sisterly fidelity, resented it.
There was a pathos in him that touched her; and as she saw him moving
about alone, or joining some group where size minimized the danger of
contamination, her heart ached for him. Wayne, as he lounged listlessly
in the dining room door, saw Walsh in conversation with Mrs. Craighill
a moment before Mrs. Blair rejoined them. Wayne stood just behind
his father and several of Colonel Craighill’s auditors looked up and
smiled, but without relaxing their attention.
“You young people,” Colonel Craighill was saying, “can’t be expected to
love this town of ours as we old folks do, who, you might say, fought
and bled for it. Even now,” he continued, adjusting his plate carefully
upon his knee and lifting his eyes dreamily, “the Civil War period is
as remote in the minds of the new generation as the Wars of the Roses.”
“Tell us a war story, Colonel!” cried a girl in the circle; “something
really terrible--of how you led a forlorn hope, the flag lifted in
one hand and your trusty sword in another, sprinting right over the
ramparts at Saratoga or The Cowpens, or whatever the place was----”
Colonel Craighill joined in the laugh at his own expense, and appealed
to the group:
“Doesn’t this prove what I was saying? You children know nothing of
American history. I didn’t quite come over with Columbus, Julia. A
few weeks ago I was talking to the president--I hadn’t really gone to
Washington for the purpose but we got into it somehow----”
Wingfield, who had brought the prettiest of the débutantes down
from the ballroom, paused a moment to catch the drift of the
Colonel’s story. He was bound for the conservatory, where there were
opportunities for the better study of his butterfly, who was a trifle
awed by the attention of a grown man, one who had, in fact, been in her
father’s class at Pennsylvania. Wayne, with something akin to a grin on
his face, turned away abruptly out of hearing of his father’s voice,
nodded to Wingfield and passed on. His friend, with the careless ease
that distinguished him, had sighted a waiter and two chairs in a far
corner of the conservatory and led the way thither.
“Did you hear Julia Morse sting the Colonel?” he asked the girl, as
he unfolded his napkin. “I shall have to look her up; I’ve done her
a cruel injustice. I supposed Julia was a stanch subscriber to the
Craighill superstition, but she’s clearly deeper than I imagined. It’s
odd I never knew Julia’s true worth; I’m annoyed by my own density. The
salad--yes!”
“The Craighill superstition?” asked the girl, the knowledge and
wisdom of Wingfield’s forty-three years towering over her youth and
inexperience like a mighty cliff.
“Just that--quite that! The Colonel’s military greatness ranks with the
ladder superstition, the Friday superstition, the thirteen at table
superstition, and all those things.”
“But Colonel Craighill was a soldier in the Civil War--of course not in
the Revolution, I know that.”
“Now really, if you won’t ever say I told you--if this can be a
little confidence just between ourselves as old friends--I’ll tell
you something. The Colonel was never a real colonel at all. But when
General Lee started for Chicago by way of Gettysburg in the summer of
1863, Pittsburg was terribly frightened, so the old folks say--I wasn’t
here, I assure you!--and Colonel Craighill bossed the men who dug
entrenchments around the city to keep the Confederates out. He did it
well. When your father and I were kids together--doesn’t it seem absurd
that you and I can’t be contemporaries, instead?--oh, my, please forget
that I began that sentence; it leads clear back to the time when the
Indians camped where the Craighill building stands.
“Well, as I was saying, the Colonel was only a sort of home-guard
trench-digger and that sort of thing. He helped the women manage fairs
and did it very prettily, but ever since the War the Colonel’s stock
as a red-handed slayer of his country’s foes has been rising. He ranks
with Wellington and Grant, with a little dash of Sheridan thrown in.”
“I sit behind Colonel Craighill in church and it doesn’t seem possible
that he would deceive anyone,” remarked the girl, half afraid to yield
to her delight in these profane utterances.
“Ah! but he deceives himself; he really believes that he held up the
pillars of the Union cause and who are we to question him? And he’s
an ardent if cautious reformer; he’d rather cut the ten commandments
to a scant six than mutilate the present tariff, which alone is holy
to us Pennsylvanians. Do you know, this salad is really edible; I
must congratulate Mrs. Blair on her cook. Of course we’re to see
you everywhere now. Please don’t be running off all the time; it’s
demoralizing. If we good people don’t stay at home, what, may I ask,
will become of Pittsburg? We produce everything in Pennsylvania, as you
may have noticed--everything but local pride!”
CHAPTER XI
PADDOCK DELIVERS AN INVITATION
It was remarked by the clerical staff in the Craighill offices that
in the weeks following Walsh’s removal to the jobbing house, Wayne
was unusually attentive to his office duties. Clerks in the habit of
leaving reports on his desk found themselves questioned in regard
to them before the young man gave his visé, which had been scrawled
carelessly heretofore upon anything thrust before him. It should not
too lightly be assumed that Wayne had experienced any sudden conversion
or that his unwonted diligence was due to the prickings of conscience;
but it had occurred to him, at the passing of Walsh, that he really
knew little of his father’s affairs.
Roger Craighill’s reputation for business ability was solidly
established. Until it became the fashion for trust companies to
perform such services, he had often been chosen to administer estates;
but in keeping with his wish to give more time to public service he
had gradually freed himself of such duties. His marriage, changing
necessarily the ultimate distribution of his estate, had piqued Wayne’s
curiosity as to his father’s wealth. His long-gathering resentment
against his father needed facts with which to fortify and strengthen
itself. He was skeptical as to all of his father’s virtues and the
marriage had demolished his confidence in his father’s conservatism
and caution. He now began to test the outward gilt of the resplendent
statue of Roger Craighill already imaginably set up by admiring
fellow-citizens in the market place. He had only the vaguest idea
of the nature of contracts; but he examined a great number of these
documents, affecting the ownership and control of properties whose
titles were only names to him. He even began summarizing and tabulating
these, the better to study them. His father, as of old, referred to
him, day by day, matters whose triviality now struck him with greater
force than before in view of his growing grasp of affairs.
Wayne had really believed, like everyone else, that his father was
a man whose fortune entitled him to be classed with comfortable
millionaires--not, indeed, among the Pittsburg collossi, but among
the eminently solid and unspectacular rich. As he pondered his
computations and scanned the precis derived from them he reached the
startling conclusion that his father’s fortune was in reality a huge
and unsupported shell. He had begun studying his father’s affairs in
the hope of finding some weapon which, at the fitting moment, he might
use to humiliate this proud and self-sufficient parent, who had been
so intolerant of his sins and weaknesses. Any trifling error or some
badly judged investment would have served; but for the fact that his
curiosity had been awakened in the beginning as to the amount of his
father’s possessions he would have abandoned his researches long before.
It was now perfectly clear that Roger Craighill had ceased to be a
factor in the coal and iron industries; that he had been gradually
relinquishing his holdings in the substantial enterprises with which
he had earlier been identified and that he had re-invested his money
in securities of little or no standing in the market. These reflected,
Wayne realized, his father’s large, imaginative way of viewing “world
questions”--as Colonel Craighill called them. For example, his faith
in American colonial development was represented in large holdings in
Philippine and Porto Rican ventures that struck Wayne as being properly
a pendant to an address his father had delivered Somewhere before
Something on “America’s Duty to Her Colonies.”
Wayne had, during the summer of nineteen hundred and seven, given
little heed to the whispered rumours of approaching panic. The Great
Prosperity had become an old story, and pessimists had predicted
its termination for several years without shaking faith in it. On
Saturday, the twenty-sixth of October, business closed confidently;
before Monday morning a mysterious stifling fog had stolen over the
country. It did not seem possible that any human agency could have
so thoroughly diffused the word--whatever it was--that paralyzed the
financial energy of the remotest village, for it was paralysis, not
panic. The newspapers ignored the situation and suppressed the truth;
a few men around mahogany director’s tables alone dealt in facts; the
rest of the country groped among rumours. Money went into hiding; banks
drew the curtains over paying-tellers’ windows and calmly declared
that there was no cause for alarm. Finance whistled in a graveyard and
everyone pretended that nothing was the matter. Colonel Craighill,
astute student of affairs, fed the journals with optimistic statements
affirming the perfect security of the national glory as proved by
credible statistics. Everybody was rich, yet nobody had any money;
credits were never sounder, but nobody could borrow a cent. The Great
Prosperity had been followed by the Great Scare and yet there was no
panic in the strict sense of the term. Colonel Craighill was encouraged
by his business friends to talk in the newspapers; no one else was
so plausible, no one else could so deftly enwreathe the smiling brow
of Mammon. His pronouncements soothed the fretful and put to shame
those dull persons who had been disposed to question the edicts of the
Mahogany Tables. If Colonel Craighill said that Finance is a science
not intended to be understanded of the people, it must be so, and mere
ignorant mortals did well not to bother their poor heads about it.
Colonel Craighill, believing firmly that merit and length of tenure
should be favoured in promotions, had installed as Walsh’s successor an
accountant who had been chief book-keeper in the office for many years.
Walsh had mildly suggested Wayne, but Colonel Craighill rejected the
recommendation.
“The suggestion does credit to your kindness of heart, Walsh, but--you
must know it is impossible.”
Paddock called on Wayne at the office one afternoon to find him bending
studiously over a mass of papers. Wayne greeted his old friend amiably.
“Don’t be afraid! I’ll not bite you this time.”
He cleared a chair of papers and bade the clergyman make himself at
home.
“I won’t conceal it from you, old man, that I was in bad shape that
night you came in on me here. I saw everything red--not pink, but a
bright burning scarlet. You won’t mind my saying it, but your call was
deucedly inopportune. I had come up here with my tongue hanging out to
drink that quart, and to be caught with the goods on by a gentleman of
the cloth annoyed me. I’ll not spare your feelings in the matter! And
then you looked so fresh and fit and good that that riled me too. I was
ashamed of it afterward--the way I received your life confession. And
the bottle----”
“Did you eat it?” laughed Paddock, delighted to find his old friend in
this gay humour.
“I told you I was going to the bad that night, and you went out with
a hurt look as though I had kicked your dog or done some low thing of
that sort. Your tact is wholly admirable. If you had said one word to
me when I told you I had started for hell I should have screamed and
made a terrible fuss. Strong men could not have held me. You went away
and left me, by which token I know you possess the wisdom of serpents.
And I proceeded at once to get beautifully drunk.”
Paddock said nothing, but smiled sadly.
“But I have cut it out now. I shall look no more upon the rum bottle
when it’s red, not because I don’t like it, but because I’ve thought of
much more dreadful and heinous sins.”
“Then,” said Paddock, not understanding, “I have merely stimulated your
ambition as a sinner.”
“That’s exactly it. There’s something rather contemptible about
drunkenness. A man of education ought to do worse or be very, very
good. Well, how goes the work?”
“First rate. That’s what I came in to see you about. I want you, as a
leading citizen, to come and look at my plant.”
“Certainly, I’ll do that with pleasure, sometime, provided your real
design isn’t to show me off as an awful example. Mind you, I don’t
stand for that. At any rate, I was brought up in the strict letter of
the Presbyterian faith, and if I have any value as an example of what
shouldn’t be, the Presbyterians have first call. It would be low down
in me to pose for you Episcopalians, who are a rival body.”
“I don’t want you to pose as anything; just sit on the back seat and
watch the events of an evening. The hat isn’t passed--no sermon--maybe
a song or two, but you don’t have to sing. Your chauffeur will know how
to take you out; he quite eclipses me. His batting averages make him a
marked man; his record of strike-outs his last season on the diamond
lifted him quite out of the back-lot class.”
“Am I to understand that Joe Denny has fallen under your spell and
frequents the parish house? Well, I thought he was sneaking the machine
out at night pretty often, but I didn’t give him credit for anything so
noble. I thought it was somebody’s housemaid.”
“He says he can pitch with his left hand just as well as with his
right, but he’s passed up the cheering diamond out of devotion to you.
He talks about you with tears in his eyes.”
“He takes quite the paternal attitude toward me--looks after me as
though I were four years old. The paternal attitude,”--Wayne repeated
musingly--“odd phrase that, Paddock. When is it you want me to come to
your joss-house?”
“Why not to-night? The various sections are going to get together for
the first time, and it will be interesting to see how they mix. Jim
Balinski of Altoona will do a sparring stunt with Mike the motorman;
songs and recitations will be provided and the girls’ cooking class
will attend to the refreshments. I dare you to do better.”
“I’m embarrassed,” laughed Wayne, lacing his fingers behind his head
and sprawling out in his chair. “I’m due to sit in a poker game
to-night with a few hardened veterans; but your programme appeals to me
as more wholesome. I’ll come as long as it’s you, but with the distinct
understanding that you don’t try to convert me. I’ll do it once for
an old friend; our friendship will suffer if it ever happens again.
But,” and he drew down his hands and squared himself in his chair,
“but how about all these people you are working for down there? You
are going to feed them on cakes and ale and make them dissatisfied, so
that they will march into the East End some pleasant evening and tear
the citizens from their homes and decorate the trolley poles with them.
Your mission in life is pretty, but after all, Jimmy Paddock, can you
stick a lever under the lower stratum of society and lift it?”
He struck a match and lighted a cigarette.
“Let me see,” replied Paddock soberly, “whether I can explain just
what my idea really is. I don’t propose to lift the whole mass with my
little lever. It seems to me that the books on these subjects are just
a lot of phrases. I don’t know anything about the deep philosophy of
our social organization--I can’t understand those things. I haven’t
the brains to debate social questions with people who don’t see them
my way. I can’t talk to people who say my kind of work is futile; I
can’t discuss it with them or defend my idea, for two reasons: one
is that I don’t even understand their phraseology; and the other is
that they make me so hot that I want to beat their brains out with a
featherduster. There, you see, old man, the wild Indian in me isn’t
all dead yet; I’m far from being a saint. I don’t believe that even
the most ignorant and depraved are going to be spoiled, as you say,
by being treated like human beings. I don’t think the taste of cakes
and ale will send them up into the East End to kill and loot. I may
be mistaken, but I believe that those singed and scorched fellows in
the steel mills are just as good as I am. I don’t recognize class
distinctions. I positively decline to allow any sociologist to classify
me and pin me on a card like a new kind of flea. But every man is a
social class by himself as I look at it. I’m not big enough or strong
enough morally or intellectually to try to pull up one of the social
strata and transplant it; but I can go out and find some poor devil who
is down on his luck or who has got into the gutter, and I can put my
poor individual lever under him and pull for all I’m worth and maybe,
by the grace of God, I can lift him up a little, just a little bit.
Now, you think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“No,” said Wayne, “not in the least. You’re worse; you’re a blooming
sentimentalist. But you’re a good fellow anyhow, and I don’t think you
ought to be discouraged. I’d like to contribute----” and he glanced
toward a check-book that lay on his desk.
“No you don’t!” cried Paddock. “I don’t want your money. I suppose you
could give me a good-sized sum and never miss it; but I don’t want
that kind of money. I accept contributions not as a favour to me but
as a favour to the giver; you see, there’s a large difference. The
richest churchwarden in Pittsburg came out with a party of ladies the
other Sunday. He sent me a check for a thousand dollars the next day
and advised me to ventilate my chapel; he didn’t like the smell of my
congregation. I sent him back his check. A girl who works in a laundry
for six dollars a week offered me one of those dollars to help pay for
the refreshments to-night and I took it!”
“By George, you have it bad! I suppose the laundry girl’s money carried
with it the idea of purification. I do wish they would keep chemicals
out of my shirts. Perhaps if you would reason with them, Jimmy, you
could stop the havoc.”
“You illustrate the individual in his most selfish aspect,” laughed
the minister. “You see only your own torn shirt. Your remedy lies not
with the girl but with her employer. You tell him you want better work
and that unless he raises the wages of his employees you’ll carry your
shirts elsewhere.”
“That would be far too much trouble; it’s a lot easier to buy new
linen.”
“That’s the secret of the whole situation we’re talking about; it’s
easier to buy a new shirt than to take care of the one you’ve got.
By the same token it’s easier to wear out a coal miner and throw him
away when you can’t use him any longer than to preserve the men who
are digging our coal to-day. They all go on the rubbish heap--they’re
just old scrap. I’ve been up in the anthracite districts where children
under the age limit are employed in the breakers; and in the churches
of the towns up there men devoutly thank God every Sunday for so
kindly putting all this mineral wealth in the hills of the State of
Pennsylvania so they may give their own children comforts and luxuries
won by the blackened hands of other men’s children.”
“We have laws that cover such cases; enforce the laws. I’m for that,”
said Wayne.
“But we don’t want to do it that way! We must do it not by law but by
love,” and the minister smiled his sad smile.
Wayne laughed and threw away his cigarette.
“You’re a mighty good fellow, Jimmy Paddock, but you’re a
sentimentalist, that’s all. There may be some of that in me down
underneath somewhere, but I doubt it. Anyhow, I’ll take a peep at your
little party to-night; I dare say it won’t do me any harm.”
CHAPTER XII
THE SHADOWS AGAINST THE FLAME
“Do I know the place? Sure!” said Joe Denny when Wayne ordered the
chauffeur to be ready with the limousine at eight o’clock. The runabout
was in the shop and the limousine was a next year’s model that Wayne
had just acquired. “He’s the wonder, this Father Jim.”
“What’s that?” demanded Wayne.
“Father Jim, they call him out at Ironstead. Say, he knows how to put
the boys to work.”
“What line of study have you tackled?”
“Me study? Say, you’re not on to me. I’m one of the professors.”
Wayne glared at him without speaking and the former ball player
explained, with unmistakable pride and a gradual lapse into the
vernacular.
“I’m the baseball professor. We’re going to put up a nine in the spring
that will make anything else look sick that gets in front. Say, they’re
good people out there. It’s a new one on me, that kind of religion;
all friendly and sociable-like, and the strong, glad hand. He don’t
ask you to sign the pledge or come to church. He says he ain’t running
in opposition to the saloons, he’s just going to put up a better show.
But he’s made a deal with the tank joints. He’s told all of ’em
that if they sell to a fellow what’s loaded or to hurry-the-can kids
he’ll prosecute ’em and have their license took up. He goes into the
saloons and talks to the bosses quite confidential-like and tells ’em
he doesn’t object to their business as such. He says the workin’ man’s
entitled to sip his suds the same as the gents in the Allequippa Club;
but the bar-keep ought to throw out any man that gets loaded, which is
not being a gent any more. He talks kind o’ natural and reasonable,
like he had been a bar-keep himself some time. Say, it’s a sure thing
he could do his own bouncin’ all right. There was a Roumanian low-brow
out there who cheered himself with alcohol straight and went over to
the parish house to clean it out. He butted in and kicked open the
door where the geography class was learnin’ all about Afriky where the
niggers and monks come from. The kids in the night school skidooed for
the home plate, seein’ the fire in the Roumanian’s eye. ‘This is a hell
of a place,’ he yells, and reached for the Father. Father Jim caught
him one under the ear and knocked ’im over a big globe they have out
there to find the North Pole on. The bum thought the earth had caved
in on ’im for sure and laid on his back bleatin’ like a sick sheep.
Some of the kids had got the cops and when they chased in the Father
was pourin’ ice water on the Roumanian, delicate-like. ‘We’ll give him
about six months for this,’ says the sergeant; ‘don’t bother, Father,
to clean him up--he’ll come to in the wagon all right,’ says the
sergeant. ‘Sorry, boys, you’ve been put to the trouble,’ says Father
Jim, settin’ the earth on its right end again, ‘but my friend was late
to his lesson to-night and came in so fast he had heart failure,’ says
Father Jim. ‘Step downstairs, officers, and the night cookin’ class
will give you some coffee,’ says Father Jim. And if he didn’t put the
slob to sleep in his own bed--honest to God he did!
“And listen,” continued Joe, pleased to see that Wayne was interested,
“the gayest that happened was about old Isidore, the Jew ole-clothes
man, who had a row with the rabbi. He had it in for the rabbi good
and strong and he got a pair of pig’s feet and slipped ’em under the
rabbi’s chair in the synagogue, which was against the religion, and oh,
my, some of the members of that church got after Isidore and was goin’
to make ’im into a burnt sacrifice all right. But Father Jim hid ’im in
the cellar at the parish house and went to square it with the rabbi.
You might think, them not bein’ members of the same church, and viewin’
matters quite different, they’d give each other the razzle; but Father
Jim umpired the row all right and Isidore buys his meat at the kosher
shop now, which is proper, Father Jim says, him bein’ a Jew, which is a
great race, he says. Shall I crank the buzz wagon?”
Guided by a pillar of cloud that wavered against the stars of the keen,
autumn night, the motor sped on toward Ironstead. The black pall was
lighted fitfully by fierce gusts of flame; golden showers of sparks
rose ceaselessly, fountain-like, and gave a glory and charm to the
scene. At one point there fell on Wayne’s ears the mighty cymbal-crash
of hammers, now ringing clear and resonant, and lost again in a moment
in other tumults of the valley. The spectacle, the sounds, spoke with
a new language to his imagination. Here was the most stupendous thing
in the world, this forging of the power of the hills into implements
and structures and weapons for man’s use. The steel frames of towering
buildings, the ribs of swift ships, the needle that sews the finest
seam--these were all born of this uproar.
Wayne stood up in the motor to peer upon figures that moved about in a
glare of flame as though on a great stage set for a fantastic drama.
He knew the practical side of these smelting and forging and riveting
processes; but it suited his mood to-night to think of them as part of
some tremendous phantasmagoria. He singled out one dark Titan as the
chief actor, and named him Vulcan; and these were his slaves, these
shadowy shapes that swung the brimming crucibles on huge cranes or
manipulated with ease the long glowing bars that might have been the
prop and stay of some fiery-hearted Ætna. What could it all mean to
these hurrying, leaping men, the discordant hymn of the hammers, the
terrible heat, the infernal beat and clash, the nerve-wracking cry
of the saws as they severed the hot bars, the venomous, serpent-like
hissing that marked the last protest of the rebellious ore against
these tyrants who had wrested it from earth’s jealous treasuries.
And Joe, sitting unmoved, with his hands upon the wheel, turned to
see why his master delayed. Wayne crouched in the open door of the
tonneau, his broad shoulders filling the opening, his cap on the back
of his head, gazing upon a spectacle with which he had been familiar
from childhood; but to-night it took new hold of him. To these “singed
and scorched” beings, the shadows against the flame, Jim Paddock was
giving his life.
“Go on, Joe!” he shouted, and slammed the door.
CHAPTER XIII
JEAN MORLEY
The parish house of St. Luke’s was a remodeled two-story business block
adjoining the frame church. One of the store-rooms had been cut in two,
half of it serving as a reading-room for men; the rest of it was used
as a _crèche_ where young children were looked after at hours when
their mothers were too busy to care for them. The other half of the
building served as an assembly room on occasions and here the exercises
of the evening were already in progress when Wayne arrived. At one end
of the room a ring had been improvised and within the roped enclosure a
string quartet was playing a waltz to which the feet of a considerable
portion of the audience kept time. The place was packed and Wayne
stood until the end of the number sandwiched between two labourers
who had paused on their way home. Their faces were still grimy; their
dinner-pails rubbed Wayne’s legs democratically. A prestidigitator
followed the quartet with a series of sleight-of-hand tricks. He was a
young Italian and was warmly applauded by representatives of his race
in the audience. A young woman sang a popular ballad, the pastoral note
of whose refrain, “In the woodland, by the river, I await my love, my
own,” was plaintively incongruous in the place.
Wayne was aware of an undercurrent of excitement, especially among the
men and boys. They were on their good behaviour, but the tameness of
the programme had begun to cloy. A recitation by a girl in pale blue,
who stood in painful embarrassment for several minutes while her memory
teased her afar off with forgotten rhymes, elicited a few mutterings
of disapproval. Someone on the back benches cried, during a long and
seemingly endless pause, “Where did you lose it, Minnie?” whereat she
withdrew in tearful confusion, followed by sympathetic applause. A
scuffle in the rear caused general disorder and drew attention away
from the platform. The brother of the recitationist was, it seemed,
trying to punch the head of the culprit who had mocked her. Wayne had
so far seen nothing of Paddock, but the minister now rose near the
scene of conflict and with a quiet word subdued the belligerents. A
young man, in a necktie of violent green, who appeared to be the master
of ceremonies, leaped to the stage and called for order. He announced
that the literary and musical numbers were concluded. “If the gents
back there wot wants to fight will ca’m theirselves, we’ll give ’em a
few points on how it’s done by real scrappers. The evenin’s stunts will
close with five rounds between Jim Balinski of Altoona, and Mike, the
motorman. You fellas that want to be noisy better get out now or be
chased out.”
A wild cheer, punctuated by cat-calls, greeted the two boxers, as, clad
in tights, they stepped nimbly into the roped enclosure and saluted
the admiring audience. A howl of “Kill the Irishman” from a violent
partisan was drowned in groans and shrieks of “Put him out” in four
languages. At this moment Paddock appeared, divested of his coat and
waistcoat, gave a hitch to his belt, amid cheers, examined the gloves
of the combatants and admonished them as to the rules. Wayne noted with
interest that Joe, his chauffeur, was time-keeper, with a dish-pan and
stick for gong. A hush fell upon the crowd as the men warily began
feeling of each other. The round ended in lively sparring without
apparent advantage to either man. The Irishman was, Wayne learned from
one of his neighbours, a member of Paddock’s own class in boxing at
the parish house and sentiment seemed to favour him. The second round
was marked by clever foot-work by the Irishman, who walked round the
Altoona visitor to the delight of the spectators. In the third and
fourth rounds the Irishman continued to play with his antagonist, who
doggedly sought an opening for a heavy blow. He landed heavily with
his right several times, but the Irishman’s nimbleness saved him from
damage. In mere cleverness, the local man was the better boxer, a fact
which was clear enough to his adversary, who held back and waited
for an opportunity to break through the Irishman’s ready guard with
a telling blow. The strategic moment came when, in the last round,
the Irishman jumped away after raining half a dozen blows on the
enemy’s head, and grinned his satisfaction amid laughter and howls of
delight. In his joy of the situation he made a gesture that indicated
his complete confidence in the fortune of battle to his friends in the
crowd, and his insolence was promptly rewarded by a telling clip in the
face that brought him blinking to his knees.
He came to time, however, with rage in his eyes. Several women shrieked
at the sight of his blood-smeared nose and there was a slight commotion
as a girl near the door was led out to faint. “Kill ’im, Mike!” roared
a dozen voices. “You’re all right, Altoona!” yelled a lone supporter of
the visitor. They clinched, but the Altoona man flung off the Irishman
with ease. “Knock ’im out, Mike!” chorused the motorman’s friends. The
Irishman feinted elaborately, but his antagonist sullenly maintained
his guard and waited. The time was short in which to achieve victory,
but he had saved himself for a supreme effort. The Irishman hit him a
smart clip on the chin that staggered him for a moment, and then the
man from Altoona drew back and gathered himself together. He swung his
arm high, as though it had been a hammer, and the Irishman cowered
under it, slipped as he side-stepped and the Altoona man, striking out
wildly, landed in a heap with his knees in the Irishman’s face.
The male portion of the crowd charged the stage with a roar. Wayne was
aware that Joe, whose voice had occasionally risen above the tumult,
seemed now to be trying to bring order out of the prevailing chaos.
The combatants quickly retired; Paddock donned his coat and begged all
to remain for refreshments, which were further announced in the odour
of coffee that stole up from the basement. Many to whom the boxing
contest had been the beginning and end of the entertainment, were
already crowding into the street, and no effort was made to detain
them. Half the benches were carried out under Joe’s direction by two
or three stalwart young fellows while the former light of the diamond,
filled with the pride of brief authority, watched its effect upon
Wayne, who was somewhat embarrassed to know what to do with himself.
Paddock strolled about addressing a few words to everyone. The colour
glowed warmly under the clergyman’s dark skin; his smile was less sad
than usual. A young man dropped the plate of ice cream he was passing
to a girl and Paddock met the tragic situation by telling a story of a
similar mishap of his own.
He spoke to Wayne last of all and drew him into a group of half a
dozen saying, “Young friends, this is an old schoolmate of mine; won’t
you make room for us?” With paper napkins on their knees he and Wayne
were soon taunting each other with some of their old-time adventures,
while the listeners beamed their delight at the intimate quality of the
colloquy. Wayne told several stories about Paddock that were listened
to eagerly by the little circle. The girls giggled; the young men
laughed aloud. Paddock threw in a word here and there to elicit some
new tale. Wayne’s success with his auditors stimulated him; the circle
widened, and he talked of some of his experiences in the coal mines
during the year of his probation, using colloquial phrases of the men
underground as he had learned them in the bituminous mines. The simple
frocks of the girls; their red, labour-scarred hands; these young men
in their cheap, ready-made clothing; the brassy jewelry worn by several
of them, touched both his humour and his pity. But he was aware, too,
that he enjoyed their attention. In his sister’s house a few nights
before, among people of his own order, no such experience as this would
have been possible. He rose presently at the climax of an anecdote that
had pleased his hearers particularly.
“Don’t hurry away; I want to show you what we have here,” said Paddock.
“About all I say for it is that it is clean--most of the time. In there
is the men’s reading-room; a table for writing, too. Pipes, you notice,
are not discouraged.”
They looked in where a dozen men of all ages sat about small tables
reading newspapers and periodicals.
“Some of these old fellows are as regular as British Museum readers.
Every man who comes here can have a cup of coffee and a sandwich in
the evening for the asking; the cooking class downstairs looks after
that. I’m putting on a lot of foreign newspapers. A few books over
there--just a beginning. Anybody can take a book home by writing his
name on a card. Bring them back? Oh, well, what if they don’t? Down
below is the kitchen--mind the step!--the building was in bad shape
when I got hold of it; I’ll get after that stairway to-morrow. Here’s
the cooking school; about twenty girls are taught by a domestic science
teacher regularly. A part of the class volunteered to provide the
refreshments to-night. That coffee wasn’t bad, was it?”
At the foot of the dark stairway they emerged into a low basement whose
cleanliness and order were at once apparent even to the lay sense.
“Don’t let me bore you. I just want you to get a bird’s-eye view. This
plant isn’t complete yet--we have only the essential requirements; the
frills will come later. These are more advanced pupils; younger girls
we get in the afternoons. Rather remarkable young woman over there,
wiping dishes. Came out last Sunday and volunteered to help in her
leisure. I must speak to those girls a minute.”
Wayne followed the clergyman through the unfamiliar apparatus of
the school kitchen to the farther end of the room. The young women
indicated were evidently enjoying themselves and as the two men
approached one of them laughed happily--a laugh of quality that drew
Wayne’s attention to her. He stopped suddenly, seeing that she was
beyond question the girl he had met in the art gallery; there was no
mistaking that head of hers! Her back was toward the door, and she
had not heard the men approach. Her laugh rang out again--it was
like a flash of water down a hillside, or any other bright and happy
thing. She turned, towel and cup in hand, as the minister greeted her
companion and introduced Wayne.
“This is Mr. Craighill, looking for a model cooking school, and he knew
where to come!”
“Oh, Miss Morley, this is my friend, Mr. Craighill. He’s been watching
our show upstairs. I haven’t dared ask how he liked it, but he’s a
judge of coffee and he drank all of yours!”
Paddock’s joy in his work shone in his face; he was immensely pleased
that Wayne had given him the evening. One of the dish-washers drew
him away to meet a newcomer, and Wayne and Miss Morley regarded each
other gravely. Her arms were bared to the elbows; she held a half-dried
cup in her hands; a blue check apron covered her gown. There was no
question of recognition; both remembered their former meeting. Wayne
spoke at once.
“This is different from the art gallery. I was sorry about that. You
were quite right--not to want to know me. I have thought about that
afternoon a good deal.”
“I have thought about it too,” said the girl, “and I have been sorry I
spoke to you as I did. I had no right to assume that you did not mean
to be kind. I shouldn’t have stopped to talk to you that afternoon if
I had not been so full of the picture that I really didn’t think about
myself--or you. The portrait seemed somehow to make it right enough
in the first place--it all seemed impersonal. But I didn’t like your
wanting to take my sketch.”
“You didn’t like it,” said Wayne, “because I am who I am. And you
were right. I have thought of it since and you were quite right. I am
glad to have this chance of telling you so. I saw you in my sister’s
house that same afternoon and I asked her who you were and she would
not tell me--you see I am a very bad man,” he concluded, and bowed
slightly, looking down at her hands that were long and fine, but
labour-roughened, as he had seen that first day.
“I didn’t know you were interested in this sort of work,” she said,
so obviously wishing to be kind that he smiled as their eyes met. Her
crown of dark hair, her fair skin, her splendid blue eyes with their
mystical gray shadows struck him anew.
“I can’t allow you to be deceived about me. I was never here before or
in any such place. I have heard of such things, and haven’t approved of
them. I came out to-night because Mr. Paddock is an old friend.”
“He is wonderful; I came to a service last Sunday out of curiosity; I
had never seen any of this settlement work. He talked to the people
as though he were one of themselves--I suppose you wouldn’t call it
preaching at all--and it is easy to see how they all love him.”
“No doubt he interests them; but I suppose we’ll have to judge his work
by its results,” he ventured, wishing to see what she would say.
“I don’t agree with that, Mr. Craighill. If a man has the heart for a
work like this, that’s enough, isn’t it? The results don’t matter.”
He smiled at her earnestness, but replied gravely:
“It’s a good deal; it’s undoubtedly a whole lot!”
He had not been deeply impressed by the evening’s entertainment as
a moral force. It seemed, in fact, a far cry from the performances
of Paddock’s clumsy amateurs to the souls of the spectators. The
reading-room he had liked better; and the cooking school was well
enough, though it was difficult to reconcile any of it with his earlier
knowledge of Paddock. He did not quite formulate the idea into words,
but he was unable to see just how Paddock was to profit by these
labours; nor was he persuaded that the people the minister served would
be materially benefited. So far as Paddock was personally concerned
he could join heartily enough in the girl’s admiration. But now that
chance had thrown her again in his way, he wished to make the most
of it; a poor art student, contributing her services in this humble
fashion to the work of a social settlement, was a new species. She must
be an unusual young woman or Fanny Blair would not have taken her up.
The remembrance of her sharp rebuff in the art gallery did not make
it easy to talk to her now; but she put down her cup and towel and
addressed him with a directness that was disquieting.
“I said a moment ago that I was sorry I had spoken to you in the way
I did. I want to put it a little differently now. It troubled me
afterward--I felt that I had been unjust; and I don’t think we ought to
feel about anybody as I showed I felt about you--as though----”
“As though being an infamous sort of person decent people shrink from
was a bar,” he supplied, curious as to what she meant to say further.
“Well,” she continued, “I didn’t apply to you that day one of my own
principles: that we all owe something to each other--that we have
no right to hurt anyone, no matter who it is. It’s what I think Mr.
Paddock has come here to teach; it’s what I think religion is!”
She was trying to apply Paddock’s religion to his case, and her
sincerity was making a serious business of it. It was an odd sensation,
this, of talking to a remarkably handsome young woman who frankly
wished to deal with him in the light of her religion. He was surprised
to find that he felt no inclination to laugh at her; she interested him
immensely and he was sorry when Paddock returned and interrupted their
interview.
“I thank you,” he said; “I appreciate your kindness to me.”
Paddock carried him off to see the remainder of the house, whose
facilities he hoped to augment by purchasing the adjoining property and
adding a swimming pool.
“I think I like the cooking school best,” observed Wayne, “but a pool
would be a valuable addition; I see that. If you bathe the flock and
persuade them not to fry their food you’re doing a lot for their
bodies, and I suppose it won’t hurt their souls any.”
Paddock opened a door at the back of the second floor and turned on
the electric lights, disclosing a small room containing an iron bed, a
table, a shelf of books, a desk and little else.
“Remember that cup? Got it at St. John’s for sprinting. You were
second, Craighill, a fact which I always remember with satisfaction.
That’s the only bit of ancient memorabilia that I lug about with me.
Those were the good times of the consulship of Plancus all right, and
seeing you brings them back with a rush. Off here is a little special
indulgence I allow myself--a shower; I take all my ice water that way.
But let’s go down and see what they’re doing below.”
Joe had put the assembly room in order and stood by the door discussing
baseball with a group of admiring youngsters. Paddock had carried his
hat and coat to the assembly room.
“I’m going to take Miss Morley and her friend into town. Here they are
now.”
The young women were just appearing at the head of the basement
stairway. Joe crossed the room to meet Wayne.
“Are you ready, sir?”
“Yes, bring the car up. And, Paddock, if you are going in with those
women, I’ll take you all in the car; there’s plenty of room.”
“Thank you. I’m sure we’ll be grateful. The trolleys are a torture.”
Wayne went into the street to where Joe was lighting the car lamps at
the curb, leaving Paddock to repeat his invitation to the young women.
As he returned to the assembly room Miss Morley met him.
“It’s kind of you to offer to take us in; but it’s unnecessary for Mr.
Paddock to go. He means to come back here to-night and it’s a hard
trip. After what I said to you that day at the Institute you might
think----”
“Yes,” he said, fumbling the buttons of his coat.
“Whatever I felt that day I don’t feel any more. And I don’t want to be
a trouble to Mr. Paddock.”
He smiled as she finished. What she meant was that having seen him in
this place and having found that he and Paddock were friends, she could
forgive him for having tried to flirt with her; that his visit to the
settlement had in a way lightened the burden of his sins and made their
acquaintance possible.
Paddock saw them into the car, not sorry to be relieved of the long
journey into town. Wayne said that he would drive himself, and when
Paddock had bidden the young women good night, the minister turned
and shook hands with Joe, who had been making sure of the rear light.
Wayne leaned out to ask him what was the matter and saw Joe staring
into the car with an odd look on his face. His hand went to his cap
and he mumbled something which the noise of the engine drowned. Then
he ran round and jumped to the vacant seat beside Wayne, where he
crouched in silence throughout the journey. Occasionally Wayne checked
the car’s speed to ask the chauffeur the way, and once Joe jumped out
to investigate an ominous change in the throb of the engine; but Wayne
was spared the familiar ironies with which Joe usually criticized
his driving. The expression of Joe’s face at the car door and this
subsequent moody silence puzzled Wayne; and as his memory sought to
reconstruct in all its trifling details his encounter with Miss Morley
at the Institute the fact that he had afterward seen Joe following
the girl through the dusk as he sat with Wingfield pondering the
orchestra’s affairs took precedence of every other incident of that
first meeting. He heard the voices of the passengers occasionally, but
he did not once turn his head. He was trying, for almost the first
time, to drive the car carefully, and the effort began presently to vex
him.
“You take it, Joe,” he said.
He repeated the address Miss Morley had given him, and Joe drove to it
without comment, a boarding house in an unfashionable quarter at the
edge of that anomalous borderland where the long line of dingy shops
and tenements paused a little nonplussed before the broad open area in
which cathedral spires and new smart dwellings strove, it seemed, to
make peace with art and music as enthroned within the solid walls of
the Institute.
Wayne waited on the steps until Miss Morley and her companion had
opened the door. The young women expressed their thanks cordially
in the flickering light of the hall lamp. As he turned back to the
car, the voice of Miss Morley’s friend was flung out by the closing
door--“Jean!”
Wayne bade Joe drive home, and shut himself in with her name.
CHAPTER XIV
A LIGHT SUPPER FOR TWO
As Wayne entered his father’s house he saw with surprise that the
little reception parlour, adjoining the drawing room, which was usually
dark at this hour, was brilliantly lighted. His surprise increased as
Mrs. Craighill appeared in the door and gazed at him without speaking.
“Well!” he said.
“Well!” she returned.
“Just home from a party, are you? Where’s father?”
She put her finger to her lips, and indicated the closed library door
with a slight movement of the head.
“He’s writing a speech or something. He had a stenographer come up
right after dinner. I was _de trop_, so I have been waiting all this
time for you to come home and amuse me. And you are very, very late,
you bad boy.”
He followed her into the reception room, a place rendered comfortless
by the decorator and furnisher, and Mrs. Craighill resumed her seat in
the least forbidding of its chairs. She suffered Wayne to mitigate its
severe lines with pillows.
“There are better loafing places in the house,” he observed, as he sat
down opposite her and felt for his cigarette case.
“No smoking! You can’t get it out of these draperies.”
“You’ll have to this time.” He dropped the match stick into a Sevres
urn at his elbow and looked her over.
“The Colonel’s been at it ever since dinner?”
“Since eight-thirty by the stair clock.”
“You might have gone to bed.”
“Oh, yes, there’s always that; but it’s a bore, going to bed right
after dinner. I’ve never been used to it. And besides, you never can
tell: I might have been needed; the door might have swung open at any
minute and a demand made for a date--at just what hour George crossed
the Delaware, and whether it was real or stage ice they put into
history so the Father of his Country would look well lithographed in
the boat with his cloak pulled round his shoulders.”
“You needn’t trouble about being called in for consultation. When
the oration is all done you will be given a chance to attend a dress
rehearsal--or two of them. I used to hear those things; but now you’ve
cut me out.”
This was the first time since the afternoon of her arrival that Wayne
had seen his stepmother alone. He had, in fact, seen little of her.
They met usually at the breakfast table, but Wayne was never home at
midday and as often as not he dined at the Club. A series of dinners
and receptions in her honour had engaged Mrs. Craighill’s attention;
her coming had forced the season and these functions were now lagging.
Her presentation to the society of the Greater City had, however, been
accomplished; and she was now woven into the social fabric, one of
its bright figures, discernible to any eye. She was Mrs. Craighill, a
sufficient answer to any inquiry. She had met nearly everyone it was
necessary to meet; even the small band of recalcitrants who had sworn
that she should never cross their thresholds had sat with her at other
people’s tables, and taken her hand at larger functions whose charging
battalions were recruited from the blue-book.
“What have you been doing?” she asked, after a moment.
“I’m afraid to tell you; you would never believe it of me. I’ve been
out to Ironstead seeing how the other half amuses itself in my old
friend Paddock’s parish house. There was a boxing-match; a girl recited
‘Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night,’ or enough of it, then a social mix-up
with ice cream and coffee.”
“Something new, isn’t it, your going in for that sort of thing?”
“Rather a new shot; but not so tiresome as you might imagine. As a
social diversion it would compare favourably with shows I’ve attended
in this neighbourhood.”
“I’ve met Mr. Paddock; I’m on the Children’s Hospital committee with
him. You see, as Mrs. Craighill I’m ex-officio--is that right?--in
a lot of things already. I’d rather prefer to wait a little and be
recognized on my own merits, but then----”
“Maybe they’re afraid to wait for your merits to disclose themselves,”
he suggested.
“Please don’t say unkind things to me. I’m likely to cry.”
“Don’t do that. Tears wouldn’t add anything to the effect of that gown;
it’s one of the most perfect things I have ever seen you wear.”
“It isn’t bad, is it?” she rose with sudden animation and took a turn
across the room, looking over her shoulder at her shadow in a long
mirror.
“It’s charming. There’s no denying that there’s something very nice
about you, Addie. You know how to wear your clothes; this matronly air
you’ve been cultivating--the much-married look, isn’t wholly to my
taste, but you’ll do. What’s that you’ve been reading?”
He stooped and picked up what appeared to be a magazine in a linen
cover, stamped with gold letters. She caught at it, but he held it away
and opened upon several hundred sheets of typewritten manuscript neatly
bound into the case.
He flung it aside, laughing aloud.
“The Colonel’s speeches! Lord, Addie, do you think you _have_ to do it?”
She had coloured, but manifested no resentment at his tone.
“He asked me if I didn’t want to read some of his things, and what was
the answer?”
“Yes; what was it? It’s taking a mean advantage though! It was fitting
that you should come in here to read those orations; they’re like the
furniture--lines of austerest grace, with a little gilt stuck on here
and there. You must have had a roaring time of it.”
“Oh, I haven’t done so badly!” She produced a novel and tapped the
cover significantly. “I really haven’t felt called on to commit all the
speeches to memory. You wouldn’t suggest that, would you?”
“I shouldn’t exclude that from the parental expectations. It would
undoubtedly boost you in the Colonel’s regard. It would show a becoming
interest in his affairs. A man of ideals must have a sympathetic wife.”
“He’s locked up with his ideals, which are probably quite beyond
me--and I’m outside the door,” she concluded plaintively.
“That’s wholly complimentary. You are distracting--never more so than
now. You affect my own ideals pleasantly. It was always so. I wonder
what would have happened if--well, if your dear mother hadn’t been so
obviously and beastly grasping.”
He had not expected it to come so soon, this change--this appeal,
this cry, faint though it was, of distress. His eyes brightened as
he watched her. A black velvet band clasped her throat and a diamond
twinkled in a pendant that swung from it by a tiny chain. The line
from her brow, with the brown hair rising abruptly above it, to her
fair throat, could not have been improved upon. Though he had never
thought of her as common or vulgar, in his assay she had never been of
standard weight and fineness; she had been offered at too many prices
in too many markets, and he was not sure yet how much alloy lay under
the bright surface. On the day of her home-coming he had mistakenly
expected to find her ready to meet him on his own terms, but she had
rebuffed him. He had felt that she must share in time his own contempt
for his father; he had been content to wait for that, and he felt that
he had not waited in vain. To-night, with only a month of married life
behind her, she had a grievance; she was bored, and eager for sympathy.
Her youth and prettiness, her charm, of which she was not ignorant,
meant as little to her elderly husband as moonlight to strong,
deep-flowing waters. Like a troublesome child she had, in effect, been
told to sit in a corner outside the door while her husband gave heed to
important matters within. It was inevitable that Wayne, by reason of
their old acquaintance, and with the same roof sheltering them, should
be her chief dependence in unhappy hours.
She had gathered herself with an effort and frowned; but a smile played
about her lips, and she bent her head with a becoming grace.
“I thought I asked you not to think of that. We buried all that that
first afternoon.”
“I’m not so sure we buried it. The ghost of it still walks!”
“It had no ghost; it was too dead for that.”
“If it had been dead----”
“Well, what would have happened?” she asked, bending toward him, her
elbow on her knee, her chin in her palm, as was her way.
“For one thing, you wouldn’t have sat here all evening in this hideous,
stiff room. You have a comfortable sitting room upstairs where you
could have taken your ease while the Colonel prepared his oration.”
“I don’t believe I understand,” she said. “You know I am a very dull
person, Wayne; I am not a bit--what do you call it?--subtle?”
“You’re a mighty pretty woman; there’s no doubt of that. And knowing I
think so and would be likely to mention it, you stayed down here to be
sure not to miss me when I came home.”
“Please don’t speak to me like that; it is not what I expected of you.
I told you when I came here that I meant to be very, very good. More
than that, I asked you to help me. I threw myself on your mercy!”
The tears were bright in her eyes and she leaned back and turned her
face away from him.
He rose with a laugh.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t cry! It’s bad for the complexion. Let’s dig
in the pantry for something to eat.”
“Splendid!” she cried, jumping up.
He tried to take her hand, but she brushed by him and ran toward the
dining room, where she bade him turn on the lights and wait while she
foraged.
“Stay right here, please! I will bring the things myself; don’t expect
too much, but I think--I think there will be cold chicken.”
“The strong drink is usually kept locked--you must have the key.”
“Nothing but milk, or distilled water! You may have either. You wait
here--it would look better.”
She pursed her lips and bent her head with the slightest of
inclinations toward the library.
When he heard her at the swinging pantry door a moment later he sprang
up and flung it open. She carried a fowl and bread, and told him he
might fetch knives and forks and other essentials of their feast. She
was in a laughing mood now, and in the midst of their preparations, she
ran to the hall door and listened, like a child about to ravish the jam
pots. The grace of her slight figure, her pretty way of catching up her
skirts, the mockery of her anxiety lest they be discovered, brought
them into a new and delightful intimacy.
“Do you remember?” asked Wayne, crossing his legs at ease and nibbling
the sandwich she had made for him, “do you remember our little picnic
on the rocks up there at Struby’s Cove, when we got lost on the drive
home? There was chicken then--perhaps it was a distant cousin of this
one. All chickens are sacred henceforth!”
“And there was a new moon and the wind blew in cold from the sea and
the pine grove by the shore was dark and sad.”
“And I kissed you that night--the first time!”
She was serious instantly and held up her hand warningly.
“Don’t be naughty; that was a long time ago!”
“Two years last August, which is not so very long!”
“Long enough to be forgotten, though.”
“I am not in the habit of forgetting pleasant things. You were a being
to worship that night.”
“Your worship was pretty short; you took that Philadelphia widow
driving the next day.”
“But we didn’t have a picnic and get lost.”
“Decidedly not, as she was from Philadelphia!” And they laughed softly,
in the subdued key of their talk.
A little later Colonel Craighill was heard at the library door bidding
the stenographer good night. Mrs. Craighill rose, clutching her plate
and glass.
“Service was for one only,” she whispered, and on this hint Wayne
restored her chair to its place against the wall, and with a little
nod, a shrug of her shoulders, a pretty lifting of the brows, she
vanished through the pantry door and took flight upward by way of the
back stairs. Wayne heard the click of the buttons in the hall as his
father turned off the lights, and a moment later Colonel Craighill
appeared at the door with a handful of papers.
“You up, Wayne? I thought a burglar was entertaining himself. I really
believe I’m hungry, too. I’ve delayed writing a statement I was asked
to prepare of the educational conditions of the South, and there was a
lot of statistical matter to go over. I think I have it the way I want
it though.”
He stretched himself at ease in a chair, while Wayne brought a plate
and cut him a slice of the fowl.
“What have you been up to to-night?”
“I went out to Ironstead to a show at Paddock’s parish house.”
Colonel Craighill’s face expressed surprise and pleasure.
“I’m glad to hear it; Paddock’s a good man for you to cultivate.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that!” said Wayne, instantly resentful. “I’m
not sure but he’s a dangerous character.”
“No man who gives his life for the good of mankind can be any other
than a useful member of society.”
“I suppose that’s so, but if Paddock should lead his ragged legion in
an attack on the banks downtown and raid the shops it would be less
admirable.”
“We must take a hopeful view of society; every school-house in the
land is an outpost of democratic ideals,” declared Colonel Craighill
impressively, plucking, Wayne guessed, a phrase from the address he had
been preparing.
“Here at home we’re going to need a good many school-houses to knock
the spirit of democracy into the riff-raff of Europe. When do you go
away again?”
“Oh, not till early in December, when I go to Boston for the conference
of the Municipal Service League. Adelaide will go with me.”
“I have intended speaking to you about one or two matters. Since Walsh
left I’ve been going over all our affairs.”
Colonel Craighill stared at his son in frank surprise.
“You have been checking over the securities? If you had asked me I
could have saved you a good deal of bother. I have them all tabulated
so that their salient features can be seen at a glance of the eye.”
“Yes; I have a copy of your synopsis and have been checking it.”
“I have had that done from time to time so that it has been kept up
to date. I’m glad, however, that you are taking an interest in these
matters.”
“The whole story is not told in your list,” said Wayne, ignoring his
father’s approval.
“Very likely; only the more important items are noted.”
“In the case of that Gregory property you put into the Sand Creek
combination, Gregory maintains that he has a claim--I don’t quite
understand what it is. He’s a hard one to get anything out of.”
“I don’t recall just the terms of that arrangement, but the old
fellow’s become a great nuisance. The whole Sand Creek field used to
be covered with shafts sunk by small operators who were killing each
other by preposterous competition. When we organized the Sand Creek
Company and took them all over, we were obliged to shut down two-thirds
of the old shafts to make anything out of any of them. As I remember,
I made the deal with Gregory myself, more out of kindness to him than
anything else. I had known him many years and he had been unfortunate.
It has always been my policy to deal generously with such cases. The
vein through his acreage is poor, the coal inferior and with many ugly
faults in it.”
“But there’s a lower vein that is all right. I found the engineer’s
report with an estimate of the amount of coal in his hundred acres.”
“Well, it’s a matter we must look into. We’ll take it up before the
end of the year. There’s never any use in being in a hurry about such
things. I have always remembered what your grandfather Wayne said to
an anxious young real estate agent once, in your grandfather’s old
age. The young man was trying to sell your grandfather a lot downtown
somewhere and became offensively persistent. One day your grandfather
turned round on him and said--the thing impressed me, for your
grandfather was exceedingly wise: ‘Young man, I have never made any
money by being in a hurry.’ I have thought of that remark a thousand
times!”
“I remember with equal distinctness,” said Wayne, smiling a trifle,
“that once when grandfather was teaching me to play checkers he said
never to imagine that the other fellow in any game was a fool.”
“Quite characteristic; he had almost Emerson’s way of shooting into
the bull’s eye. I wish there were more men like Andrew Wayne; he was
faithful in all his obligations, a man of absolute exactness in all his
dealings. I used to hope you had inherited some of his traits.”
Colonel Craighill’s eye rested on the glass of water which stood by his
son’s plate. The significance of the glance was not wasted on Wayne.
With an almost imperceptible movement he pushed the glass away from him.
“You have been very regular at the office lately: I want you to know
that I have noticed it, and that it has pleased me very much--very
greatly indeed. I have sometimes wondered, Wayne, whether Dick
Wingfield’s influence has been the best for you. I’m afraid he doesn’t
take life very seriously. With his intelligence and leisure he might be
of great help in our reform work.”
“Dick’s interested in the fine arts and not in politics. I’m sorry you
don’t approve of him; he’s the best friend I’ve ever had. He’s the only
man in town who hasn’t kicked me at some time or other. I probably need
kicking, but it’s nice to know there’s one human being who withholds
his foot.”
“You will find, if you follow your present course, and practice
sobriety and industry, that you will not lack friends.”
“I suppose so, but it’s the sinner that needs friends, not the saint.
But in this Gregory matter--if you are going to be gone next week----”
“I’ll write to Gregory and tell him to come in later on and we’ll talk
over his case. He’s always appreciated the fact that I took care of him
at the time we formed the Sand Creek Company. I’ll fix that up with
him; he’ll have to be reasonable. He’s a simple old fellow and if he
sees the absurdity of his claim he’ll be glad to settle.”
He yawned and looked at his watch. “Dear me, it’s half-past one! Will
you put out the lights?”
Wayne heard his father’s door close, but he sat smoking and pondering.
His interview with him had left him irritated and restless. He was well
aware that Mrs. Craighill had found relief and pleasure in his company,
and he smiled as he recalled her hurried flight through the pantry at
his father’s approach. The incident lacked dignity, but his father’s
treatment of her had lacked, too, and she was a young woman and
admiration was sweet to her. The girl at the parish house stole across
the smoke-dimmed horizon of his dreaming, in her gingham apron, with
the towel and cup in her hands. Her friend had called her Jean--Jean,
dearest of names, with its hint of Scottish mists and moors and
heatherbloom; and Jean seemed the inevitable name for her, predestined
of all time. Simplicity and sincerity were in the haunting tones of
her voice. His ready imagination threw a bright glamour round her. She
suggested all manner of pictures; perhaps it was the remembrance of her
against Sargent’s masterly portrait that prompted this; at any rate she
was the most vivid person he had ever known, and his memory flung him
back sharply upon that first meeting, and he saw the anger in her eyes
and heard her saying: “_I don’t care for your acquaintance, Mr. Wayne
Craighill._”
He turned off the lights impatiently and went to bed.
CHAPTER XV
MRS. BLAIR IS DISPLEASED
Wayne went on a Saturday afternoon in November to a matinée of the
Symphony Orchestra, expecting to find Wingfield, who kept close touch
with the box-office in the interest of the guarantors. Not seeing his
friend at once, he climbed to the gallery where Wingfield sometimes
went to study the emotions of those who, he said, got more for their
money than holders of first-floor seats. Wingfield again proved
elusive, but Wayne sat down on the last row and gave heed to the
Tannhaüser overture. His eyes roamed the audience aimlessly; he was,
it seemed, the only man in the place. He was aware, as the familiar
strains wove their spell upon the house, of something familiar in the
dark head before him. He bent forward slightly to make sure; but there
was, he told himself, but one head like that--there was no doubt of its
being Jean Morley.
She did not stir until the end of the number. Then with a little sigh
she turned slightly so that he saw the faint shadow of a dark lash on
her cheek. A scarlet ribbon, tied under a plain collar, flashed an
instant’s colour to her face before she settled herself for the next
number. There was something distinguished, noble even, in the poise of
her head; and soon before the mad flight of the Valkyries it bent as to
a storm. It pleased his fancy that the waves of sound floating upward
surged round her with a particular intent. He was quite sure, however,
that she must not see him here. He knew the quality of her anger;
the ground he had gained at the parish house must not be lost. If he
wished to retain her respect he must avoid the appearance of lying in
wait for her. The sensation of caring for anyone’s respect, least of
all that of this unknown girl, who had instinctively, on first sight,
set up barriers of defense against him, was new to his experience.
He left before the last number to continue his search for Wingfield,
and found a scrawl at the box-office explaining his friend’s absence,
but suggesting that they dine together at the Club. Wayne glanced at
the treasurer’s report, made a note of the day’s proceeds, and as he
mingled in the crowd, found himself walking at Miss Morley’s side.
“It was beautiful, wasn’t it?” she said, as the crowd caught and held
them. One or two women bowed to him distantly and eyed with cold
interest the tall girl in the unfashionable clothes to whom he was
speaking. He was conscious of this inspection of her and it angered
him. He heard his name spoken by someone behind him--“That’s Wayne
Craighill,”--as though he were a notorious character to be pointed out
boldly to strangers.
“You think they liked it? It wasn’t too much on one key?”
“It was lovely, but of course I don’t know, I never heard an orchestra
before. It probably meant more to me for that reason.”
“Yes, I suppose first times bring the rarest sensations. They really
did the Valkyries in great form.”
“That was perfectly glorious; I should like to hear all the opera.”
“You are beyond doubt a natural born Wagnerian; I must tell my friend
Wingfield how well the audience took his programme. He’s the power
behind the orchestra, and he contends that the best is not too good,
that people who never heard these things before are just as competent
to criticize as trained musicians. You should hear a symphony now--give
Beethoven a chance, then try the opera--on and up to the heights.”
“I don’t know about the heights, but I was pretty well up on the slope
this afternoon, and the whole world was mine.” She spoke with feeling,
this girl who had never heard an orchestra before, but who had followed
the trumpets to new and strange summits and still carried dreams in her
eyes.
It was a gray November afternoon and he intended to make it easy for
her to leave him here, under the bright entrance lights.
“I’m going to Mrs. Blair’s,” she explained.
“Won’t you let me go along, please? You see--you see, I’m dining there!”
“Not really!”
He laughed aloud. He had lied and she was not fair game for falsehood.
“Well, I carry a key to my sister’s front door and I can always have a
place there.”
They dropped the discussion for the moment; it was quite a mile to
the Blair’s and the moment was sufficient unto itself. He forgot that
there could be any question of her accepting his escort. His heartbeats
quickened as he found her walking beside him with a free step that fell
in comfortably with his own swinging stride. She walked as people walk
who are bred in a hill country--with a slight sway of the body from
the hips--and she carried her head high. In imagination he robed her
in fashionable raiment, a figure of distinction in any company, only
to protest to himself that her qualities were superior to feathers or
flounces and were as new in her as though no woman had ever possessed
them before. The music still sang in her heart; she had been greatly
moved by it. Before Sargent’s portrait he had felt only her tyro’s
ineptness; but music had stolen her away from herself, and carried her
close to golden lands of promise.
“How does the work go at the Institute?”
“Oh, I keep at it. I have good days and bad. Sometimes my eyes don’t
see straight and my fingers are sticks. This afternoon the music made
it all seem easy; I think it would help if the orchestra played in our
class room.”
“A capital idea; I’ll speak to the directors about it. Music does seem
to pry us loose from the earth. You may be surprised to know that I
used to dabble at the violin myself--a long time ago. I was looked on
as a promising student, and might have been a real good fiddler if I
had kept it up.”
“But you still play, of course?”
“Not by a long shot! I broke my fiddle on my seventeenth birthday and
turned toward a business career.”
“I suppose you had to do that.”
“Well, it didn’t seem quite square to my ancestors to fit myself to
be the third fiddler in an orchestra; they were eminently practical
persons. If I had kept at music as a life business very likely their
shades would have haunted me and snapped my fiddle strings. But I
have no regrets. I should probably have starved to death if my early
ambitions hadn’t been thwarted. Anyhow, I guess I’m a kind of fatalist;
if it had been in the books that I was to go fiddling through the
world--why, I should have fiddled. And in the same way, it was ordained
that you should go in for art, and here you are, spending your days at
it and nothing could head you off.”
“Oh, yes; many things could! Many things tried!”
“I can’t believe it! I believe that everybody has a destiny; I don’t
know what mine is, but I undoubtedly have it. I wouldn’t have you think
that because I fell on my fiddle and smashed it and lost my chance of
immortality that way, I am a person without accomplishments. I would
have you know that I’m a man with a profession. I’m a mining engineer
and can prove it by my diploma, and--no other way!”
His spirits were high; they talked and laughed together without
restraint. He had not in a long time laughed and chaffed with a girl in
this way. This walk through the dusk was oddly complete in itself; he
felt no curiosity about her now, no interest in her life beyond this
half-hour. Her simplicity, the frank way in which she disclosed her
own ignorance, her serious belittling of her work in the art school,
interested and touched him. She did not quite understand him; she was
not used to his kind of banter. His mention of his youthful study of
the violin she had taken soberly and she talked of her own aims to show
her sympathy.
“There are so many students all over the world studying art that it
seems silly for me to be wasting time over it. I had better be learning
to do office work or how to sell things in a shop, or how to cook for
some of these East End people, or dust rooms and wait on table. But
sometimes my teachers have praised me, and that puts off the evil day
when I shall have to come down to hard work and burn my portfolio----”
“Just as I smashed my fiddle! But no! I tell you, the fates have charge
of our business. They are the supreme and ultimate court--the lords
of high decision. They have already fixed the fabulous prices which
you are to get for your portraits. My sister will undoubtedly have
you paint hers. If you and she are friends you can’t escape. Fanny’s
always having her picture painted.”
“Oh, but I’m not so foolish as to think I could do portraits--not if I
lived a thousand years. My ambition stops at pen and ink. If I can only
learn to be just a little bit of an illustrator I shall be satisfied.”
“Excellent! I approve of that! It’s just as hard, they tell me, and
the market is better! When you are not studying or helping at the
settlement house or listening to music what do you do? You must have a
scheme of life all worked out for yourself.”
“Oh, I often go for long walks, in the afternoon--take a trolley as far
as it will carry me and then strike off for the hills, and walk and
walk and walk.”
“I suppose you carry a sketch book to see how nature compares with the
landscapes at the Institute?”
“No; landscape is beyond me; it’s too big for me. People interest me
more, children particularly.”
“Well, of course if you want juvenile models I needn’t offer myself.”
“No, you needn’t,” she said with so crisp an emphasis that he laughed.
“But you might take me along to sit by and sharpen the pencils; that
would save you a lot of bother.”
“It might, but you see I use ink!”
“Then,” he cried in despair, “there is nothing left for me but to hold
the bottle. Let’s change the subject before you tell me I may not do
that!”
They had passed, soon after leaving the concert, the Craighill house,
whose lights flashed at them through the bare trees, and were now
drawing close to the Blairs’. She grew suddenly silent, then stopped
abruptly.
“I don’t believe I’ll go to see your sister now--it’s so late. I’ll
telephone her that I’m not coming.”
“You’re afraid my sister won’t like your coming with me, isn’t that it?”
“No, I’m not afraid of your sister--she’s been kinder to me than anyone
else ever was----”
“But you don’t think you ought to go to her house with me. I would have
you know that my sister thinks rather well of me!”
“I must not do anything she would dislike,” persisted the girl.
“You think she wouldn’t like your going there with me? I could leave
you at the gate!”
They had resumed their walk to avoid the appearance of dallying. He
had no wish to jeopardize the girl’s relations with his sister; but it
was pleasant to talk to her; he had never known just this kind of girl
before. Her poverty, her ignorance, her ambitions interested him and
set her apart. It had never been his way to hide his iniquities; he was
persuaded that he meant her no harm and he rebelled against the thought
that there were reasons why she should not be seen with him. His own
sister had expressed this clearly enough and he did not know what
Fanny would say to him--one never knew about Fanny!--and the hope that
his sister would seat Jean Morley and himself at her dinner table only
rose to fade. Fanny was capable of it, but she was capable, also, of
scolding him sharply before the girl and sending him out of the house.
“Mrs. Blair has a right to question anything I do. She is doing a great
many beautiful things for me.”
“Oh, I’ll explain it to Fanny. She and I are great pals,” he said
lightly.
“I couldn’t deceive your sister. If she should learn that you had
walked to her house with me without telling her, she wouldn’t like it
and if she knew she wouldn’t like it; so you can’t know me--you mustn’t
know me! Nothing could be clearer than that.”
“I certainly can’t know you this way; that’s as plain as daylight.”
“There’s no way of knowing me at all! You must understand that
now--once and for all. I’m very busy and have my work to do.”
“Well, we’ll put it up to Fanny.”
And so, the girl still reluctant, they entered the house, where Mrs.
Blair darted out from the library with many exclamations. She seemed,
on the surface, to take the appearance of her callers as a matter of
course, but she waved him into the library with an air of brushing him
out of existence.
While he waited he scrutinized the new books with a view to determining
in just what field of thought his sister now disported. Miss Morley’s
errand with Mrs. Blair was of the briefest and as they concluded their
conference in the hall he appeared before them promptly. His sister’s
glance did not encourage his hope to carry off the situation lightly;
but he could not do less then accept full responsibility for the visit
and he resolved to put a bold face upon it. Mrs. Blair had just rung
for her motor, and she sent the maid upstairs for her wraps with the
obvious intention of making it unnecessary for Wayne to accompany the
girl further.
“Fanny,” he began, “Miss Morley and I have become acquainted in the
most astonishing fashion. We met at Paddock’s parish house not long ago
by the merest chance; this afternoon, while at the concert, estimating
the deficit for the day, I ran into her again; and I begged Miss
Morley’s consent to walk up here with her; and here I am.”
“It really was unnecessary,” murmured the girl.
“I think you ought to tell Miss Morley to give me just a little of her
time, Fanny--just a little. Of course she is busy; but then----”
Mrs. Blair looked from one to the other. The girl was so plainly
embarrassed, Wayne’s good humour and high spirits were so appealing,
that Fanny Blair found this one of her most difficult occasions.
“I’m sure Miss Morley is quite able to manage her affairs without any
help from me. Are you dining here, Wayne?”
“I’m afraid I intimated as much to Miss Morley so she would let me
come with her; I promise never to tell another lie.” He bowed in mock
humility but the frown on his sister’s face showed her displeasure.
“I’m going to take Miss Morley home in the motor. If you are dining
here you can make yourself comfortable as usual.”
“Oh, but I really can’t stay! You’ll have to take me along. Now that I
think of it, Dick expects me at the Club.”
Fanny was clearly not pleased, but he was confident of mollifying her
later. The girl’s plight was a more serious matter: he had taken an
unfair advantage, he had put her in a false position with his sister,
and he bitterly accused himself. Fanny pointedly ignored him while they
waited for the motor, and he stood by like a boy in disgrace while she
talked to Miss Morley about a dozen irrelevant things. He sought to
save his dignity by hastening the arrival of the motor from the garage;
and when the car came and he shut them in--Fanny left him to find a
seat outside.
She gave him Miss Morley’s address as though he had been the footman,
and he climbed humbly to a seat beside the chauffeur. When the boarding
house was reached Mrs. Blair descended and rang the bell herself, and
when a slatternly maid opened the door Mrs. Blair stepped inside for
a few minutes, that there might be no question of the sex of Miss
Morley’s escort.
“Well?” demanded Mrs. Blair as soon as he had seated himself beside her
in the tonneau.
“Why so tragic, Fanny? Paddock asked me to come and see him and his
good works--I went; he insisted that I look at his kitchen and there
was your girl with the adorable head dutifully wiping the dishes--a
pretty picture! Paddock was going to take her and a friend into town on
the trolley, but the hour was late and I took them home in my car--she
and the other girl inside, poor old me decorously out in the cold.
Then I went to see how much Wagner the dear people were swallowing at
popular prices this afternoon; went into the balcony to look for Dick,
and lo! the adorable head was just in front of me. But no, I did not
let her see me; I knew she would lose faith in me if she thought I was
pursuing her; I went about my business, but on my way out ran into
her again. What could be more natural than that I should walk to my
sister’s house with her?”
“You must have known she was going to the settlement house; it’s a
little hard to accept so many coincidences. And I had asked you to let
her alone.”
“Paddock invited me to visit him; she and her friend were cleaning up
the dishes. It was her first visit, too.”
“So you took her home in your car? You did that?”
“And her friend with her. Joe is a kind of usher and policeman at the
settlement house. Paddock seems to be gathering in all sorts and
conditions--even me!”
“Joe!” exclaimed Mrs. Blair with more animation; and then: “You must
get rid of that fellow. I don’t like him.”
Mrs. Blair spoke with so much energy that Wayne laughed aloud.
“Why, Fanny, Joe has saved my life many times. He’s been so miserable
when I went bad that I’ve been ashamed to face him.”
Mrs. Blair relapsed into silence, and he saw by the flashes of the
electric lamps at the corners that she was seriously troubled.
“You know without my telling you that you must let this girl alone.
These chance meetings won’t occur again--if they _have_ been chance
meetings!”
“I swear it, Fanny!”
“She’s terribly poor; she has ambitions, and I’m trying to help her.
She’s utterly unsophisticated, as you can see; you will ruin her future
and make her wretchedly unhappy if you don’t avoid her.”
“When do you think a man can begin to be good? Do you think I am so
utterly rotten that no decent women may ever dare know me? Come now,
Fanny.”
“There are plenty of girls you can know if you want to--who don’t live
in boarding houses and starve their way through art schools.”
“But they haven’t her eyes; they don’t carry their heads like
goddesses,” he persisted.
“You’ve seen too many eyes in too many divine heads. I tell you, it
won’t do! If you will think of it a minute you will see that only a
word is enough to wreck that girl’s life. Do you suppose you can call
on her at her boarding house? Are you going to walk with her to her
lessons? Do you quite see yourself taking her to concerts and to church
Sunday mornings? My big brother, if you don’t stop being preposterous I
shall get angry.”
“Oh, no. Please don’t! I’m disappointed; I thought you had advised me
to be good and marry and settle down.”
“Marry! That girl? Wayne, you are impossible!”
“Very likely; but the girl isn’t so impossible. I hadn’t thought
of marrying her, but the idea doesn’t exactly terrify me. She’s an
immensely interesting person--she haunts me like a theme in music.
She’s poor and if I could save her from the pitfalls of art--the
failures, the heartache of failing to arrive--that isn’t so impossible,
is it?”
“Yes, it’s absolutely out of the question. And if you don’t let her
alone I’ll ship her back where she came from; just one more of these
coincidences and I’ll do that. We’ve had enough marriages in the
family, I hope, to last for some time.”
“Ah! So this bitterness of spirit is not all for me? Has John taken to
evil ways?”
“What’s the matter at father’s? Why was Addie crying this morning when
I went in to see her?”
“I dare say she cried because you came, if you were as fierce as you
are now.”
“She had been crying and looked miserably unhappy.”
“Probably a row with the cook. She isn’t used to keeping house. She’s
going to Boston with the Colonel and that will set her up again.”
Mrs. Blair was silent for a moment then flashed:
“How much do you see of her?”
“Precious little. Breakfast, and a glimpse sometimes as I go to my
couch at night.”
“You must leave the house; you must come and live with us at once,”
declared Mrs. Blair with impressive finality.
“Thanks!” Wayne laughed. “Do you think I tease my stepmother to make
her cry? Do you think my moral example is bad for her? Addie snubs
me every chance she gets. Only this morning at breakfast, while the
Colonel read a papal encyclical or something equally exciting, Addie
and I discussed the relative merits of country sausage and chocolate
éclaires. To see me sitting at the breakfast table between the Colonel
and my stepmother is edifying beyond any words. Addie is a good girl; I
like Addie. But she isn’t in the same class with your protégée. Here’s
the Club; shall I detach John McCandless from the sacred rye-pots and
send him out?”
“You know John never drinks; and he’s in Buffalo to-day.”
“Then he will drink beyond any doubt; one must--in Buffalo!”
While he stood chaffing her at the car door, she clasped his hand
tightly and begged him to see her soon. As the car started a newsboy
hailed Wayne familiarly from the street and Fanny saw her brother’s
broad shoulders bent over the lad and his elbow crooked as he felt for
a coin. How true it was that everyone liked Wayne! His generosity was
boundless; the very recklessness and extravagance of his derelictions
endeared him to many. As the Club door closed upon him the newsboy
dashed off with an exultant shout on the wings of new fortune.
CHAPTER XVI
THE TRIP TO BOSTON
Mrs. Craighill bore the scrutiny of her new fellow-citizens with
dignity, and by the first of December she had ceased to be a curiosity.
She had met everyone of importance; even Mrs. Wingfield had been
obliged to bow to her at a reception. Those who persisted in their
determination to ignore her advent were too few to count. It had been
hinted that she would prove loud; that she was dull; that she would
make her husband’s money fly--“such women” always did; but no one
worth considering was willing at the end of two months to say that she
was properly to be classed among “such women.” Her severest critics
were those who, habituated to the contemplation of Roger Craighill’s
presence in a front pew at church, feared that by marrying one of
“such women”--they being young adventuresses headed brazenly for the
divorce court--their idol might suffer the pains and penalties of
scandal and alimony. Even the most conservative now admitted that if
Mrs. Craighill’s motives in marrying her elderly husband had not been
the noblest, she was carrying herself well. Members of her own set,
who had been among the original doubters, had waited for the complete
disclosure of Mrs. Craighill’s wardrobe before committing themselves,
but the taste and sobriety of her raiment disarmed criticism; she was
not loud. In another of the circles within the Circle it was questioned
whether the newcomer was fitted intellectually to be Roger Craighill’s
wife, but Fanny Blair vouched for the worthiness of her stepmother’s
interests. “Addie reads everything,” declared Mrs. Blair sweepingly,
whereupon Mrs. Craighill was promptly nominated for membership in the
Woman’s Club. Many were saying that her conduct, in circumstances the
most difficult, had been admirable and the frequency with which, in
these first weeks, Fanny Blair had gone about with her, advertised the
completeness of the new wife’s acceptance in the family. It was even
whispered that Wayne had reformed, and this startling announcement,
where it found credence, was attributed to his stepmother’s influence.
Roger Craighill and his wife were dining alone at home the evening
before the day of their departure for Boston. He had long made a point
of dressing for dinner and she wore a gown he had not seen before and
whose perfection he praised.
“Your taste is exquisite, Addie. I like you in light things; they seem
to be a part of you--to express you. You are the most graceful and
charming woman in the world.”
Her face brightened. They had been dining out a great deal and it was a
pleasure to have this evening at their own table. She felt again the
dignity of her position as Roger Craighill’s wife. She had been hurt
deeply by his exclusion of her on the night he had written his address;
but she thought now how handsome he was, how well he carried his years,
and it was no mean thing to have been chosen by such a man to share his
home and fame. She had found it all too easy to take refuge in Wayne’s
ready comradeship; the stolen references to their earlier acquaintance
that she had suffered him to make had shown her how dangerous it was to
trust to his consolations. Wayne must be kept at a distance; she would
take care that he did not see her again alone.
In this fresh access of loyalty to her husband she excused and
justified his conduct in shutting himself in to prepare his address;
very likely it was the way of busy men who thus give their leisure to
public service. She must sacrifice her own pleasure just as he did
and bring herself into sympathy with these labours of his. There was
flattery in his frequent monologues on public matters and public men;
she was perforce the listener, but he was older and in her ignorance it
was an agreeable relief not to be expected to contribute more than an
inquiry, thrown in to lead him on. She resolved to keep a scrap-book
of the offerings of the clipping bureau to which he subscribed, that
a complete history might be made of his public services. At Boston
she expected to hear him speak for the first time; she had seen the
programme of the conferences and several men of national prominence
were to make addresses.
She poured the coffee and sent the maid away, to prolong the mood of
this hour. The quiet service, the substantial appointments of the
room, the realization that she bore the honoured name of the man who
faced her contributed to her happiness. It was pleasant to be Mrs.
Craighill; she was enjoying her position in the thousand ways possible
to her nature--the stir of the clerks in the shops when she appeared,
the whispered interest her presence occasioned anywhere. She was,
indeed, Mrs. Craighill and everyone was anxious to serve her. To be
sought first by those persons who are forever seeking victims to act
as patronesses; to be asked to head subscription lists; the deference
shown her--these things she enjoyed with a pardonable zest and she
would not jeopardize her right to them.
“As you haven’t seen Boston in late years,” Colonel Craighill was
saying, “you will find much to interest you while we are there for the
municipal conferences. Though I haven’t the slightest ancestral claim
on New England I feel a certain kinship with her people. If we were not
so firmly planted here I should like to move to Boston to spend my last
years there. Contact with some of her fine, public-spirited citizens
would be an inspiration. Some of my best friends are Bostonians,
friends I have made through my connection with public work. People
ask me--and they will be asking you from time to time--why I spend so
much time on these movements for the public welfare; but they have
been a great resource to me. I have been well repaid for all I have
done. I have had my perplexities and worries, a modern business man
is ground in a hard mill; but I am conscious of having done my little
toward bettering our political and social conditions, and nothing in my
life makes me happier than that thought. Do you know,” and he smiled
depreciatingly, “I heard from one or two quarters that Harvard was
going to confer a degree on me next year for my work in behalf of civic
reform; it was only an intimation, but one of my friends, whom I have
learned to know well at our annual conferences, is a prominent alumnus,
and he has remarked several times that they’d have to make a Harvard
man of me somehow.”
“I think it is so remarkable,” said Mrs. Craighill, “that you never
went to college. You seem like a college man.”
“I have regretted more than I can tell you my lack of systematic
education. My father was hardly more than well-to-do and I went into
business at eighteen. But I have been a diligent reader; you might say
that I have always been a student. It’s possible that I should have
fared poorly in college; my disposition was always, even when a boy, to
brush away details and seek the broader view. I think I owe my success
in life to that--the ability to climb upon the hills and see the lights
afar off.”
He stirred his coffee with the care we give in our ease to unimportant
things. He was satisfied with himself and the world; when he spoke she
felt as though she were eavesdropping upon a reverie.
“It is a great joy to have you here by my side--the house has
brightened since you came. If only Wayne would take the place to which
he was born in the community I should not have a care!”
“But Wayne is doing well; I thought you said yourself that he was
attending very regularly at the office, that he had really begun to
take an interest in business.”
“He’s a boy of moods, poor Wayne! Just now he’s going to the office
every day. His cleverness is amazing when he applies himself; but
let a new kind of motor catch his eye and off he goes! He’s struck
a new humour lately--devoting himself to the study of a lot of most
complicated legal matters--contracts and the like. Such things are best
left to the lawyers. But he has kept straight for some time and that’s
something. It’s a good deal, and I’m grateful for it. I have always let
him do as he pleased at the office in the hope that he would some day
find something that interested him.”
“He’s very bright--and likable,” said Mrs. Craighill. “Fanny says he’s
a genius.”
“Fanny can see no wrong in her brother, and I’m glad of it; but she has
kept me ignorant of many of his worst escapades and I have simply never
been able to get near him. We are very unlike.”
“Isn’t that strange! I’ve been thinking that in so many ways you and he
are much alike.”
“Physically, yes; he has my build. I rather fancy that I’m still as
erect as he is!”
He smiled and waited for her acquiescence, but she had been thinking
intently and did not at once meet his eyes.
They had rarely spoken of Wayne; it could hardly be said that they
avoided mentioning him; but his life was outside theirs; his sleeping
in the house and eating one meal a day with them left him a tolerated
tenant whose ways it were wiser not to question. Mrs. Craighill
observed with interest that her husband seemed willing to take credit
for his son’s admirable physical proportions, but that his paternal
pride stopped there. Her attitude toward her husband was so wholly
sympathetic to-night that she saw Wayne with his eyes. It must indeed
be a grievous thing to have lived an honorable life, to have made a
place for one’s self and to find both name and position brought low by
a profligate son.
“Fanny is very happy,” continued Colonel Craighill. “John is a splendid
fellow--steady as a rock, and with high ideals. A woman like Fanny
needs such a man to check her exuberances.”
“Oh, she’s most delightful and she has certainly been kind to me! She
might have made it hard for me if she had wanted to.”
“Oh, she’s kind!” smiled Colonel Craighill, though his tone implied
that allowances must be made for Fanny. “There’s a good deal of the
Wayne in her, just as there is in her brother.” He shook his head and
sighed. As they left the dining room her husband placed his arm about
her. These intimations of his secret feeling toward his children seemed
to have knit her closer into his life; she felt the ground solider
under her feet. She was not without her sensibilities and she had
realized that a second wife does not at once wear her new robes easily.
It is as though she blundered upon a stage whose scene has been set by
another hand. Its mechanism, its lights, its exits are unfamiliar. She
is haunted by the dread of missing her cue and of hearing a ghostly
prompter’s voice mocking her off stage.
“I have just been re-writing my will, and I have taken pains to
eliminate, so far as human foresight can do so, the possibility of any
trouble when I am gone. You will have many years beyond my expectation
of life and I want nothing to mar them. It will be unnecessary for you
to deal with my children in any way. I have designated our strongest
trust company--a concern in which I have long been director--to
administer the estate. Of course I hope your relations with my children
will always continue friendly, but it is best not to mingle family
interests in such a case. And now”--he rubbed his hands together as
though freeing himself of every care--“now we may dismiss the future to
take care of itself.”
“I don’t like to think of such things,” she murmured. “I’m just
beginning to appreciate all that you have done for me. It means more
to me, Roger, than you have any idea of. You have been most kind and
considerate, and generous in every way. I have never been so happy--I
never expected such happiness to come to me. It doesn’t seem that I
deserve it.”
She sat down on a stool beside him and he took one of her hands and
held it on his knee and stroked it fondly. This tenderness, keyed
to the domestic tone of the hearthside, soothed and exalted her. He
believed in her, she belonged to him; she wished that this hour might
never end, so perfect were its peace and happiness. He talked to-night
with a new freedom, and she felt the years diminish between them. He
told her many anecdotes of old times in the city, describing the humble
beginnings of some of his fellow-townsmen: “When I first knew him he
was only a truck driver, and now!”--the familiar phrases of American
biography. The hours passed swiftly. At half-past ten a motor stopped
at the side door, and a moment later Wayne’s key snapped the lock.
“I’ll tell him to come in here,” said Addie, rising. He answered her
summons cheerily, and came in and stood with his back to the fire. His
high spirits caused his father to eye him carefully, but Wayne, as
though in answer to this silent inquiry, straightened himself and stood
erect with arms folded for inspection.
“I’m off for a little trip to-night. Wingfield wants me to go over to
Philadelphia with him to see a Mask and Wig show. We’ll come back in
three or four days.”
“Are you sure it isn’t a prize fight?” quizzed Colonel Craighill. “I’m
always a little suspicious of Dick’s expeditions. When you and he leave
town I usually find there’s been a prize fight at the other end of the
line.”
“Oh, I can’t believe such things of Mr. Wingfield!” cried Addie; “he
talks to me only of pictures and music. I can’t imagine him watching
men pound each other.”
“He’s a fellow of first-rate ability,” observed Colonel Craighill,
to whom Wingfield was a deplorable idler who had made no use of his
talents. “But he has never justified his right to exist.”
“Why should he work merely to please his critics? If he took a job,
it would throw somebody else out. What would you have him do?” Wayne
demanded.
“Our rich young men have had too much notoriety; they have brought
scandal upon the city!” ejaculated Colonel Craighill wrathfully and
with unmistakable application.
“You oughtn’t to believe all you see in the yellow papers. Besides,
Dick’s about the decentest man I ever knew. He doesn’t pretend to sole
ownership in all the virtues. That’s why I like him so well.”
Colonel Craighill had frequently made these thrusts at Wingfield and
to-night Wayne resented them more than usual. He turned to Addie,
who had sought a book on the table and was studying the title page
attentively during this interchange. She thought Wayne had not
shown his father proper respect and the disturbance of the room’s
tranquillity annoyed her.
“When do you head for the Hub, Addie?” Wayne asked.
“It’s to-morrow night, isn’t it, Roger?”
“Yes; to-morrow evening,” answered Colonel Craighill reaching for a
magazine.
“Dick and I spend only a few days assailing the impenetrable fastnesses
of the Philadelphia mind. Is there anything special coming up, father?”
“Nothing out of the usual run; I think Gregory may come in, but you
needn’t trouble about him. Tell him I’ll see him when I come back.”
“He was in to-day, now that I think of it,” remarked Wayne, thrusting
his hands into his pockets, “and waited an hour for you.”
“I’m perfectly aware of that,” snapped Colonel Craighill. “I was busy
and sent word for him to see Morehead. He’s so persistent lately that
he’s lost any claim he had as an old acquaintance and we’ll let him
face the facts squarely with our lawyer.”
He spoke with considerable irritation, but he controlled himself and
adjusted his glasses to read.
It was the first time that he had shown anger before his wife.
She had wondered whether anything could shatter his perfect poise
and affability, and his display of temper frightened her, much as
exhibitions of anger in adults alarm and dismay children.
“I must get my bag; I’m holding the car,” said Wayne to Addie. “I hope
you’ll have a fine outing.”
“Wayne,” interposed Colonel Craighill, “your man Joe doesn’t seem
quite essential to this establishment. It seems to me we might get
along with one chauffeur between us.”
“Then,” grinned Wayne, “you had better fire yours. Joe has been here
longer, and we must stick to the merit system if the heavens fall.”
“Joe’s a sporting character; my man is a trained mechanic. A number of
men have spoken to me of Joe’s reckless driving of your machines.”
“They ought to speak to me. If you don’t want Joe on the place I’ll
move my car to a public garage.”
“I’ll trouble you not to speak to me in that tone. I’m not questioning
your right to use the garage; I merely suggested an economy and getting
rid of an idle fellow who is bound to get you into trouble.”
“You don’t know Joe. You couldn’t push him into trouble!” laughed
Wayne, with a return of his good humour. He received a reproachful look
from Addie as he shook hands with her. His father rose and bade him
good-bye with formality.
“We shall be gone about a week,” he remarked; “my address will be the
Beverly if you should wish to communicate with me.”
While Wayne was packing his bag Colonel Craighill continued to turn the
pages of his magazine. Addie moved restlessly about, softly opening and
closing the book-cases and listlessly glancing at titles. The display
of ill-feeling between father and son had spoiled what had been at the
moment of Wayne’s entrance, the happiest evening of her married life.
If sides must be taken, she would, of course, stand with her husband;
but she was displeased that Wayne had made it necessary for her to
take sides at all. Wayne’s unreasonableness had caused the domestic
sanctuary lamp to flicker just at the moment when it had flamed most
auspiciously. With sudden access of feeling she crossed the room and
laid her hand gently on Colonel Craighill’s arm.
“Roger,” she murmured softly, “I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t trouble, dear; it’s too bad you had to witness my humiliation;
but it’s inevitable, I suppose, that you should know.”
She saw that her sympathy was grateful to him; she felt his response
to it in the soft stroking of her hair as she knelt beside him. They
remained thus until they heard Wayne running downstairs humming softly
to himself. He stood at the door a moment later, suit case in hand.
“Good night!” he called, and as he went for his coat and hat she
followed him to the door. He waved his hand to her and as the motor
rolled toward the street she returned to her husband.
Colonel Craighill was again turning the leaves of a periodical, and he
threw it down with a yawn.
“It must be bedtime.” He paused and listened. “Isn’t that the door
bell? I’ll go myself.”
He returned carrying a special delivery letter, and opened it with a
paper cutter which she handed him from the table.
“Why,” he exclaimed, his face lighting, “it’s from Colonel Broderick.”
When he had finished reading he turned back to the beginning again,
murmuring his pleasure, and read aloud:
“I had expected to write earlier, asking you to stay with us during
the meetings of the conference but, in Mrs. Broderick’s absence, I
was afraid to assume the responsibilities of host. She will, however,
be at home to-morrow so I am asking you and Senator Tarleton of
Virginia to accept our shelter. I am very anxious for you to know
Tarleton as he wields great influence in the South and this is the
first time he has lent his countenance to our work. Mrs. Broderick
will allow the three of us full liberty to sit up all night and pass
final judgment on all the things that have so long been dear to you
and me. I hope your annual address is good and salty; the attitude
of this administration toward the civil service has been a keen
disappointment and I look to you to launch a vigorous and effective
protest.”
“That really is a very great compliment, Addie. Colonel Broderick
is one of the leading citizens--if not, indeed, the first citizen
of Boston. I have always been a little afraid that he looked on my
relations with him as purely official and not quite--not wholly social.
You see, your Bostonians have their notions of such things, and they
are entitled to what they would themselves call their point of view.
Mrs. Broderick is, even more than he, the New England aristocrat, a
very cultivated woman; and she was enormously rich. It is the greatest
possible honour to be asked to stay there. I won’t conceal it from
you, Addie, that I’ve rather feared once or twice, when I’ve been in
Boston, that Broderick avoided asking me to the house!”
“Why should he?” asked Mrs. Craighill coldly.
“Well, after all, I’m a Western man, and our city has seemed--I would
confess it to no one but you--to have lost its early social dignity.”
“You could hardly expect it to be another Boston any more than you
could make Paris of it.”
“But now that the invitation has come in this perfectly cordial way,
it’s too bad they still look on me as a widower. They certainly had
cards.”
“Maybe you were not expected to understand; it’s merely a matter of
fact.” Her words were accompanied by a smile, so slight as to be almost
imperceptible, and a narrowing of the lids as she watched and studied
him.
“Of course they didn’t know of my marriage; you may be sure it was not
by intention.”
“I should say that the invitation leaves room for that doubt. The
Brodericks were certainly on the list of people to whom cards were
sent; I noticed the name the other day when I was looking over my
calling book.”
“But, my dear Addie! What motive would they have for ignoring the fact,
assuming that they knew of my marriage?”
“Then, of course, if it’s an error, they would be grateful to have it
corrected.”
She started to speak further, but bit her lip upon a renunciation of
the trip. She had resolved to see what solution of the matter he would
himself suggest. He pondered a moment.
“I hope you won’t misunderstand me, Addie, but I really don’t quite
see how I could suggest their asking you. In fact, it is clearly by
intention that Tarleton and I are being brought together there quietly,
and while it’s a bit awkward to be asked in this way so shortly after
our marriage, I hardly feel--the Brodericks being what they are and all
that--that I ought to----”
He broke off with a light laugh and a graceful outward fling of the
hands, in despair of these complications.
“It would be a pity for you to miss the opportunity of visiting so
distinguished a family--with Mrs. Broderick being the rare woman she
is, and all that!”
“Of course there is that side of it,” he agreed, with bland eagerness.
He did not see that she was laughing bitterly at him. “But I really
don’t see how that takes care of you!”
“Oh, you musn’t think of that! I should undoubtedly be bored to death.
I always hate visiting; when I’m away from home I much prefer going to
a hotel.”
“Well, I’m not thinking of myself so much--it’s whether visiting
Broderick that way and meeting Tarleton in the intimate way he
suggests, I shouldn’t be able to effect alliances of real value in one
way and another.”
“Why, of course,” she acquiesced with ironical readiness. “It’s a
masculine affair entirely; the fewer women the better. I know nothing
of such things, but Mrs. Broderick is a reformer herself, isn’t she?
I think I have read her name in the newspapers in connection with
meetings of various kinds--I don’t remember just what it was--but of
course she is interested in large affairs, and must be a great help to
her husband.”
She broke off in a pretty reverie, wide-eyed and with lips parted--an
expression that marked a fine shading of delicate mockery. “You are not
going there for fun, but to aid your reform work.”
“That is precisely it! I’m glad to see how you catch the spirit of the
matter. If it were not that I really believe I am doing my little mite
of good I should be unable to justify myself in giving so much time to
these things. But, this is really awkward! It is generous of you to
wish me to go----”
“Generous? Nonsense! It’s a wife’s first duty to be a help to her
husband. Just now it’s important for you to stay with the Brodericks
while you’re in Boston. I should be only an encumbrance----”
“No! I can’t allow you to say that! It’s merely a matter of your
abandoning the trip to----”
“To help the cause!” she supplied.
“I really appreciate this more than I can tell you, Addie. And in proof
of it I’m going to take you to Bermuda for Easter.”
“No, indeed! You musn’t feel that I have to be bought off--that
would spoil it all. You go to Boston and get all you can out of the
experience. You must remember to tell me just what they have for
breakfast, and about Mrs. Broderick’s gowns.”
“Fancy me!” he laughed.
He went out with the note in his hand to telephone his acceptance to
the telegraph office. When he had shut himself in with the telephone
she laughed; a light, mirthless laugh.
CHAPTER XVII
MRS. CRAIGHILL BIDES AT HOME
Wayne and Dick Wingfield breakfasted at the Club on the morning of
their return. Notwithstanding Colonel Craighill’s skepticism as to the
purpose of their excursion, they had really been to Philadelphia to a
Mask and Wig entertainment of University men. Wingfield had watched
with interest Wayne’s prolonged abstinence and wondered whether it
could be possible that his friend had really reformed. Wingfield,
himself most abstemious, had been careful not to place temptation in
his friend’s way; and he had taken Wayne to Philadelphia the better
to keep track of him at a time when, he knew by experience, Wayne was
likely to make one of his mad plunges.
They discussed the morning news as they ate.
“I note that your father has shot a broadside into the administration
up at Boston. Here are a few yards of the speech.”
“Humph!” grunted Wayne.
“Very likely you enjoyed private rehearsal of the oration, so it isn’t
new to you.”
“You flatter me. Father’s speeches are not a subject of family
counsel.”
“I suppose Mrs. Craighill will be a great help to your father in his
public life.”
“It’s possible,” remarked Wayne, buttering his toast. “She’s getting
her first taste of reform now and will, no doubt, go in strong for such
things when she gets back.”
“It would be a shame to reform this town; it would be so much less
interesting if it turned virtuous. Really, I think I should leave the
place if it got good. By the way, how about our friend, Paddock, the
fighting parson? Did you know that mother has taken him up? Paddock’s
self-sacrifice and devotion to humanity are on the table daily at
home--served hot with all meals.”
“Paddock’s all right. He’s a good fellow, but he’s overloaded with
sentimentalism. I don’t believe I told you I had been out to look at
his joint at Ironstead.”
“You did not, Mr. Craighill. Were you ashamed of me, or were you just
afraid I’d contaminate the place?”
“I was afraid you would be bored. I took some risks myself, but it
didn’t seem decent to refuse when I’m the oldest friend he has here.
It was like the chap to come to town and bury himself in the grime and
filth for six months before I heard of him. But I went to his religious
vaudeville, which was rather below par as shows go; but the crowd was
better than the bill, and you might say, in classic phrase, that a
pleasant time was had.”
“Recitations, songs and that kind of things?”
“And a boxing-match that almost ended in a riot.”
“Dear me! I must get in on this Paddock wave. He sounds very promising.
The first thing we know they’ll be snatching him up for heresy and I’ve
always wanted to know a heretic. It would be quite an experience to
attend and comfort a convicted heretic in his last merry moments before
they chuck him into a coke oven to sizzle for ever and ever.”
Wayne grinned at this cheerful forecast of Paddock’s immolation.
“They’d better let Paddock alone. He doesn’t pretend to know anything
about theology. He has a curious fancy that the man beast can be
tamed by kindness and made to feed from the hand. It’s this old
brotherhood-of-man business you read about in the magazines.”
“It’s not unpicturesque--a fellow with a private barrel spending
his money that way. I must get him to send in a few bunches of his
parishioners to hear the orchestra at our expense. Our fat and waddling
rich don’t know a symphony from a canvassed ham anyhow. Our chief hope
for the fine arts lies in people who draw their dividends in yellow
envelopes at the end of a long, hungry line of the horny-handed. I’m
disposed to think Paddock may be deeper than appears. I’ve about
concluded, myself, that the people we know--the prospering Philistines
we see in the clubs and in each other’s houses--are a dreary rotten
bore. The human race has really been decadent ever since it dropped by
its tail from the ancestral breadfruit tree and wiggled into its first
trousers.”
“You feel that way this morning because you had to dress in a sleeper
without your usual bath. A shower will set you up. You’re always rather
savage when the luxuries of civilization are cut off.”
“You never can tell when a man is going to need the consolations of
religion,” resumed Wingfield, reverting to Paddock. “Here I am turned
into the forties, which means that I have crossed the summit and
started down the shadowy side of the mountain. My last photographs
cost me double--such a lot of retouching to keep me from looking like
a wrinkled monkey. People are beginning to pick lint off of me--a sure
sign of age. The seeds of mortal disease are abroad in my system.
At night I often hear a stealthy step behind--the Ancient Destroyer
taking my measure. I’m getting on. My old popularity as best man and
light-footed usher is waning and I’ve passed from the active to the
honorary pall-bearer list--a frank recognition of my senility. The jump
from being the gay usher at a church wedding and finding aisle seats
for all the prettiest girls, to marching in behind some poor devil
who’s gone the long road--it jolts, my dear boy!”
“That’s what you get for being so respectable. I haven’t had any
chances to carry the white ribbons since my first year at home. My
social career stopped abruptly at about 3 A. M. that morning I cruised
in from the country in my first motor and hit a bread wagon.”
“The popular construction placed upon that act always seemed most
ungenerous,” mused Wingfield. “It was a deed of noblest benevolence,
not a freak of inebriety. They are still picking up the buns you
scattered from the Allegheny bridge--bread cast upon the waters turning
up away down at New Orleans! I have always thought if I were to go in
for that sort of thing I should attack milk wagons. They say most of
our milk is impure anyhow.
“I suppose,” Wingfield continued, regarding with a frown a speck of
soot on his cuff--“I suppose Mrs. Craighill will have a good time in
Boston watching her husband at his gambollings with the saviours of the
republic.”
“I dare say,” replied Wayne, rising and looking at his watch. “Which
reminds me that I must go up to the office and sit on the lid.”
Wingfield rose at once. Wayne’s recent attendance upon his office had
puzzled him. Sobriety and industry, as practised by Wayne Craighill,
offered food for reflection; he was afraid to comment upon this
new course in the usual terms of their raillery; he refrained from
remarking upon it at all for fear of breaking the charm--whatever it
might be--that had effected this change in his friend. He stood at
the window of the reading-room and watched Wayne disappear toward the
Craighill building.
At noon Joe reported at the Craighill offices, having brought the car
down ostensibly to carry Wayne’s bag to the house, but in reality to
make sure that his employer had returned in good order.
“I guess I’ll run up to the house with you and get some clean clothes,
Joe. I’ll be down in a minute.”
Joe, satisfied by his inspection, lingered a moment at the door.
“Well?” demanded Wayne, glancing up again.
“The widder’s home, sir!”
“The what?”
“The widder--Mrs. Craighill--she’s home.”
This was Wayne’s first acquaintance with a nickname bestowed upon Mrs.
Craighill by Joe, and derived, it appeared, from Joe’s pretended belief
that a woman who marries a widower becomes a widow.
“Home? When did she get home?”
“Oh, she never went! She’d brought her trunk to her room to pack but
passed it up.”
“That will do, Joe.”
As the door closed, Wayne threw himself back in his chair and stared
out at the blurred sky. There was no question but that his father had
intended to take Mrs. Craighill with him; the matter had been spoken
of several times in his hearing; his father had called the proposed
visit their wedding journey; and when he left home there had certainly
been no change in his father’s plans. Nothing but illness could account
for it, as Mrs. Craighill had been too short a time in the city to be
subject to sudden and imperative social demands. He pushed a button and
asked the chief clerk what address his father had left. It was brought
to him on a tablet in Colonel Craighill’s own handwriting: “Care
Colonel Winthrop Broderick, Beacon Street, Boston.”
On the same sheet another address had been written and scratched out,
but it could be read: Hotel Beverly.
Wayne laid the tablet on the desk before him and studied it with care
for a moment, then a dawning consciousness of what had happened caused
him to strike the table with his clenched hand.
“Great Lord, he’s ashamed of her!” he ejaculated, so loudly that he
turned guiltily and glanced about to make sure that he was alone. The
situation visualized itself sharply before him. Broderick was a name
eloquent of wealth and social distinction. He had known one of the sons
of the house at the “Tech.” The roots of the Brodericks struck deep
into New England soil. Wayne had often heard his father call Colonel
Broderick the ideal American citizen; a Harvard overseer high in the
councils of the University; spokesman for his city on many notable
occasions; author of a history of his regiment, and patron of arts and
letters. The Bostonian was everything that Colonel Craighill would like
to be. It was utterly incredible that the Brodericks would invite a
man to their house whose wife was unacceptable; nor was it a plausible
theory that Mrs. Craighill would, on her own motion, abandon a journey
that promised pleasure after its attractiveness had been enhanced by
an invitation which in itself conferred distinction. He had not read
social ambition into Adelaide Craighill’s scheme of life; what she had
married for, he had honestly felt, was shelter and protection; but she
was young, and to be pardoned a degree of social curiosity. She had
shown no disposition to advance herself adventitiously, but here was
her first opportunity to try her palate upon the unaccustomed fruits
of her new life. As he pondered, with a deep frown on his face, he saw
the arc of his own opportunity broaden. His father’s wife had already
turned to him once for sympathy; and the possibilities of sympathy
in such a situation--the bright line of danger, its hazards and
penalties--fascinated him as he dwelt upon the prospect. As an anodyne
to his conscience he dwelt upon the humiliating plight of his father’s
wife, young, not without her charms and with a right to the enjoyment
of life, put aside as though she were a troublesome child. It was his
own chivalry, he assured himself, that rose in arms to her defense.
He drew the top down upon the disorder of his desk and was soon
whirling homeward.
* * * * *
Mrs. Craighill sat in her upstairs sitting room, sewing. A wood fire
crackled cosily; about her were the countless trifles with which a
woman invites comfort and ease. The impression of smartness that Mrs.
Craighill always gave was not lacking to-day. It may be inferred
that she knew her own decorative values. The subdued blue of her
gown matched the wallpaper--or seemed to. Her delicate features, the
soft curve of her cheek, her fair round arms, free from the elbow,
the careful disposition of her hair, swept high from her forehead,
were items calculated to charm any eye. She turned her head a trifle,
hearing a motor in the driveway below, and her hands fell to her lap
with the bit of needlework she was engaged upon. When the car passed on
to the garage she resumed her work, bending her head so that her neck
presented its prettiest arch to the open door. She hummed softly as she
heard Wayne’s step drawing near. When his voice sounded behind her she
did not turn, but held up one hand, and waved it, calling a careless,
familiar “hello” to his own greeting.
He walked to the fire and swung round, facing her, his hands thrust in
his pockets.
“Well?”
“I didn’t expect you home for luncheon. How did you leave Philadelphia?”
“Oh, I left it with pleasure; the usual way.”
“I suppose the amusing Mr. Wingfield took good care of you?”
“He did. He’s an exemplary person. He took me to call on his mother’s
relations--all a thousand years old--which is hardly what might be
called devilish.”
She continued to bend with a pretty gravity to her work, while he
watched her, amused at the pains she took to ignore the fact that
there was anything remarkable in her being in the house; then he
laughed and stood close beside her, taking one of her hands. She
caught it away quickly and nodded toward a seat, continuing to affect
absorption.
“Sit down, won’t you? I’m very, very busy, and this is most particular
work; if I should make a mistake----”
He obeyed, studying her with pleasure shining in his eyes for a moment
of silence, then broke out laughing.
“Sh-h!” She laid a finger on her lips, with a slight inclination of her
head toward the door.
“Did you tell them downstairs that you would be here for luncheon? Then
ring for Annie and I’ll send word.”
Until this was done she continued her refusal to meet his eyes. She
inquired of the maid as to whether Mr. Wayne’s room was in order, and
when the girl had gone she dropped her needle and said carelessly, as
though the matter were of the lightest importance:
“I had a cold and thought I’d better not risk the trip to Boston. You
know I’m not used to this fly-by-night sleeping-car travel.”
“Indeed? It’s very unfortunate that you were obliged to deny yourself
so great a pleasure. I thought you were not subject to colds!”
“I suppose it’s the change of climate--coming here so far inland. They
say it does make a great difference.”
“But this is an unusually open winter; it’s perfectly delightful
outdoors to-day. And the sky would be blue if you could see it.”
She raised her eyes to the window to verify his statement.
“I suppose,” he said, without changing the key of their dialogue, “that
we could keep this up for several days if it seemed necessary.”
“I think so myself!” she affirmed; “it would be interesting to see how
long one could go on being perfectly stupid. It’s a great resource,
talking stupid talk.”
“The only trouble is that it’s such a waste of time. There are so many
interesting things to say!”
“Do you mean that you would say them? How very odd!”
She threaded a needle, with the pretty solicitude, the graceful,
bird-like intentness with which a woman performs this slightest office,
and he was aware of his joy in the nimbleness of her fingers, and their
steadiness as they answered the quick searching of her eyes with the
point of thread.
“Would you rather not refer to it at all?” he asked.
“Oh, my not going? Why should anything be said about a matter that
has already been fully explained? You are a man; you have been on a
journey; you have been down in the city all morning; have you nothing
to say to an unfortunate slave, who has been shut up here with her
needle three long days?”
“The slavery of the needle is too satisfying a spectacle in itself to
admit of any coarser topic. I should judge”--and he bent nearer--“I
should judge, if my dull masculine eye is competent to pass on such a
thing, that your industry has been of rather recent date. You hadn’t
been at work on that thing all morning.”
“Oh, no! But I have had ever so many other things to do this morning;
this is a large establishment and the housekeeping--the making sure
that there is sugar for the coffee and coffee for the sugar--takes a
lot of time.”
“One has always the neighbours in case of shortage. If your abandonment
of the Boston excursion is a painful topic, we will drop it. Besides, I
know the real reason you didn’t go.”
“Is it possible? Then you ought to give mind-reading exhibitions. I’ve
begged Fanny to teach me how to do table tipping; I’ve heard that she’s
a wonder at it; and they say it runs in families.”
“Have you seen Fanny?”
“Why, no! I dare say she imagines I went away. The newspapers had it
that I had gone, and of course they are always right.”
“Of course she will find it out; Fanny knows everything!”
“I hadn’t thought of telling her; it seemed to me that this was a fine
chance to get a rest--to play at leading a very, very lonely life, not
letting anyone know I am here by myself.”
“But that has lost its point, now that I am here. The king has gone
a-hunting; the prince--if I may so honour myself--has come to defend
the citadel. How do you like that way of putting it?”
“I don’t think I care for it. The citadel doesn’t need defending. When
the king comes riding home he will find the drawbridge up and the water
in the moat as quiet and peaceful as when he thundered forth to war.”
“But the lady in the tower--what of her?”
“She’ll be knitting--just as the king left her.”
“Admirable!”
She rose suddenly, wearied of this banter, flung her sewing aside and
ran from the room.
When she came down to luncheon her mood was high. She led the talk into
many channels, but dwelt chiefly upon matters remote and unrelated. His
being there, he was well aware, was something that the servants would
not overlook any more than Mrs. Craighill’s detention--when all had
known of the projected journey--would pass unremarked by the shrewd
eyes of the back stairs. A sense of this scrutiny, and of their being
there together, gave zest to the propinquity of the luncheon table.
It was an addendum to the supper they had eaten together on the night
Colonel Craighill sought seclusion for the writing of his speech; it
had the same quality of a clandestine pleasure, but with the element
of fear eliminated. Wayne did not question that she had counted on his
coming, any more than he doubted the impulse that had led him home at
this unusual hour. His senses tingled with the delight of facing her
thus at the table. She poured the tea with which, she said, she always
cheered herself at noon. He met her eyes at intervals, eager for the
smile that rose, beyond question, from a happy heart.
In the library, where he followed her, she continued to talk gaily
while he smoked.
“Well,” she said after half an hour, “don’t let me keep you. It must
be time for you to go back; though I suppose you stay at the Club all
afternoon when you lunch there.”
“I don’t hear the call of business shouting very loud.”
“Oh, of course you must go back; it would never do for you to stay
here! That would make it necessary for me to go away--to Fanny’s--or
anywhere.”
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t sit here and talk all afternoon if we
want to. We are at home here; we can do as we like.”
“Oh, no, we can’t. That is exactly what we can’t do.”
“But if you were to do as you like what would you propose?”
“Taking a long walk in the country--I think that would be splendid. But
I should have to go alone.”
“I have a better plan: take the car and go into the country--then walk!
There’s no fun in walking in town. The roads are frozen, so there’s no
mud. We could take a hamper and have a picnic.”
She eyed him with incredulous amusement.
“I thought you were a bright young man, and yet you propose that? We
should undoubtedly meet our pastor and all the elders in our church
and I’m not a bit anxious to scandalize the community. We’d look nice
motoring out the front gate together!”
“There are more ways than one of reaching the wildwood. I should take
the machine myself, and start toward town; you would lightly board the
trolley and ride to the end of the line; and then what would be more
natural than that I should pick you up?”
“That’s a delightful plan--ingenious and all that; but, my dear
boy--suppose we should get smashed in the machine; then how would it
look in the newspapers?”
“It would look very well in the Boston papers to-morrow morning,” he
said watching her narrowly. “It would serve notice on the Brodericks
of your existence, which it is only polite to assume has not otherwise
been brought to their attention.”
“What else do you know?” she asked.
“Oh, I know nothing. I’m only guessing. As you say, I’m something of a
mind-reader. They’d probably forgotten that there is a Mrs. Craighill;
they invited the Colonel to their house; he thought it might be awkward
to have to bring Mrs. Craighill into it--to ask to have her included
in the invitation--they being so eminent--so Mrs. Craighill, being the
most amiable of wives, stays at home and knits!”
“That does very well for an amateur.”
“But what young woman of spirit”--he assumed an oratorical manner that
suggested his father’s way of discoursing upon large topics--“what
young woman of spirit, I ask, left forlorn with her knitting, would
tamely submit to being snubbed? Does she not owe it to herself,
to her womanhood--to the sex we all revere and love--to show her
resentment and seek in any fashion that may please her the solace of
companionship, the consolation of Nature!”
She laughed with guarded mirth at this imitation of her husband. He had
drawn close to her, and he bent down and took her hands.
“You will go, won’t you? It will be just like those old times----”
“Please don’t! Run away and stand over there, and I’ll tell you whether
I like your plan or not.”
When he had posted himself by the window, as far away as possible, she
rose and went to the door, where she stood debating archly and watching
him, biting her lip, tapping the floor lightly with her foot, her eyes
dreamily bent upon him.
“If you will be good--very, very good--I think I shouldn’t mind!”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SNOW-STORM AT ROSEDALE
“You haven’t seen the country yet; we will take a run for the hills,”
he said when he had picked her up. “I might have brought my little
racer, but this machine is more dignified. Besides, with the tonneau
curtains drawn we look like a large party.”
They rode in silence at first but their spirits rose with the rapid
flight and the joy of freedom. They skirted Stanwixley and were soon
speeding over the hills. She wore a pretty fur toque and when the wind
began to whip her free hair, he begged her not to tie on the veil she
had brought, lest it spoil the jaunty effect of the cap, in which, he
assured her, she looked only seventeen. Their flight into the open took
colour from this thought of their youth, dancing alluringly before them
over unreckoned miles to a goal where all was possible and all unknown.
It had been unseasonably warm at noon, but the wind blew more coldly as
the afternoon advanced. Dark clouds were massing in the West; the storm
spirit, having ranged the plains and prairies of the farther West, was
now preparing to pile its snow in the Appalachian valleys.
“How would a snow-storm strike you? We’re likely to catch one before
the day’s over.”
They were climbing a hill and as the heavy machine gained the windy top
and a long, clear stretch of highway spread before them he looked at
her and asked:
“This road leads round the world--why should we ever go back?”
“Because we are not utterly silly, and we are not going to lose our
minds, I hope.” But she laughed, as much as to say that nothing really
mattered. “I’m hungry. It seems to me you promised sandwiches. If you
did, I’m dying for food; if you didn’t bring them, then I’m not hungry!”
“I like your philosophy. You’d be a good girl to seek the happy isles
with--you wouldn’t cry if you got your feet wet, or were lost on a
desert island, or anything like that.”
“I hope not--but you never can tell. I mustn’t get the crying
habit--nothing ages one so fast.”
“I think we’d better turn round unless we really expect to be gone
forever--I’m willing if you are. As to the sandwiches, I have a little
surprise in store for you. It’s too cold to picnic out-of-doors--how
would a fire and something hot strike you?”
“Tea--most delightful of thoughts! But these farmhouses don’t look
inviting.”
“That’s where the surprise comes in. We’ll run into the Rosedale
Country Club and maybe we can get a fire to take the chill off before
we go home. You’ve never seen Rosedale; it’s the best thing we do in
country clubs.”
They were soon speeding over a private road that led through a heavy
woodland, skirting a ravine. The woodland yielded at once to a golf
course at their left, stretching across a gray upland. Its targets
suggested the lost banners of a deserted battlefield, and a long bunker
midway of the slope the desolate grave of defeated battalions. They
climbed a hill with the vale deepening at their right hand and an
abrupt turn brought the club-house into view, its white-pillared façade
greeting the eye with suggestions of domestic taste and comfort. A man
appeared instantly as though he were expecting them, and flung open the
door of a large lounging room where a great log fire crackled cheerily.
A table had been set for two directly before the hearth, and while
they were throwing off their wraps the man brought a tea tray with
sandwiches and cakes.
“You see,” said Wayne, rubbing his hands before the flames, “all the
comforts of home were to be had for the trouble of a telephone message.
Ah, look at that!”
A snow-storm had sprung into being without the snow’s usual tentative
experiments, and the wind was driving a feathery cloud across the
landscape. At the ravine’s edge below the veranda a few scarlet leaves
clung bravely to the sumac bushes, their colour flaming in the whirling
snow. Mrs. Craighill turned with a contented little sigh from the
windows to the room’s comfort and cheer. Their adventure, too, gained
fresh quality from the sense of security communicated by the handsome
room. Rosedale was a small and exclusive organization which, even at
its busiest season, gave its members almost the seclusion of a private
house. Mrs. Craighill left the fire to inspect some of the etchings on
the walls and came back to the seat Wayne placed for her at the table,
shivering from her plunge into the arctic circle that lay beyond the
reach of the fire.
“There doesn’t seem to be anybody else here; is it really all our very
own?”
“Do you want me to answer yes or no?” he laughed. “You saw the
caretaker; he’s always here and he has a wife around somewhere. We are
chaperoned, if that’s what you mean.”
“But other people might come at any time. Do you think anybody else is
as perfectly deliciously crazy as we are?”
She surveyed the table with satisfaction and began filling the tea-pot
from the kettle that hummed over the alcohol flames.
“Well, if anyone comes we won’t let them in--that’s all! Possession is
ten points of the law in this case. I thought of it first and anybody
else will be treated as an intruder.”
“But at the rate it’s snowing we may never get home!”
“Well,” he said, nibbling a sandwich, “why should we?”
“There is that question, of course! You will have tea, won’t you?”
The man now brought cups of hot bouillon which, Mrs. Craighill
declared, lifted their luncheon out of the plane of commonplace teas
into the realm of banquets.
“Will you have something to drink, sir?” asked the servant.
Wayne glanced quickly at Mrs. Craighill.
“You can have champagne, buttermilk--anything. The cellar is excellent.
I stocked it myself.”
“No; we will have nothing,” she answered with decision, and when they
had dismissed the man, Wayne looked at her and smiled as he stirred his
tea.
“I haven’t tasted a drop since you came. Do you know why?”
“No; I really haven’t an idea,” she replied with an assumption of
careless interest. She knew what he wished to say; she entertained no
delusions as to his sincerity; but she wished him to say it. There was
tenderness in his manner and tone as he bent toward her.
“I did it for you, Addie. It was because you came back into my life. I
had been going a wicked gait; in another year I should have been all
in. But the night father showed me your picture and I knew it was you
he was going to marry, I made a resolution never to drink again. I have
been doing pretty well, haven’t I?”
“It has been fine of you; I appreciate it; I thank you for it.”
“I realized perfectly why it was that you were coming--why you were
going to marry my father. I had known that there must come a time when
your relations with your mother would become intolerable. I knew that
you had to escape from her. If you had to be sacrificed I was glad
chance was sending you my way that I might make it all easier for you.
Your plight--the thought of a girl like you being hawked about--was
hideous. I ought to have seen that, that summer we first knew each
other; but I punished myself and I hope you felt it too, when I thought
it was your mother that I was revenging myself on. And now, Addie,” he
concluded spaciously, “I want you to be happy.”
“You are a dear boy,” she murmured.
She did not interrupt him with the hundred questions that thronged
into her mind. He was giving his own twist to the facts of their
earlier relationship and his own escape from her mother’s net; but she
correctly surmised that he was deceiving himself and she was in a mood
to aid and abet deception. She had drunk her tea and rested her arms on
the table, urging him on with her eyes. The flame had warmed her cheeks
to a bright colour and was finding and brightening the bronze in her
hair.
“You deserve the best; you have a right to happiness,” he went on. “I
mean to stand between you and unhappiness.”
“You are very good to me, Wayne!”
He placed his hand lightly on hers that lay near--and removed it
instantly, afraid to risk too much. “That first afternoon, when I went
home just to see you, it was because my old feeling for you had risen
in me strong at the sight of you again. When you begged me to let you
alone that day, I obeyed you. You had come with fine ideals of your
duty and an ambition to fill your place in my father’s house worthily.
You wanted to live up to his own dignity. I saw all that.”
She nodded her head once or twice at the soothing combination of praise
and sympathy. She waited for what further he had to say with confidence
that it would be agreeable to hear. It was apparent that he had
deliberately made this opportunity; he had planned their ride with this
bright, glowing hearth as its goal; and she experienced the pleasurable
sense of being a figure in a little drama, herself its chief character,
with a setting of the stage at once adequate and satisfying.
He had always been plausible with women and he was playing the
situation for what it was worth. He could almost believe in his own
sincerity. He was conscious that he was managing the affair well;
he even enjoyed his own speeches which he uttered so glibly that he
wondered at his fluency.
“The appeal you made to me that first afternoon did you credit; it was
like you. A man of iron could not have failed to be touched by what
you said to me. I knew as no one else in town ever could know what you
were trying to escape, and how you had set up my father as a splendid
big god to worship. He was to be your strength and your refuge, and
you were horror-struck at the thought of our going back to our old
basis. I wanted to make love to you and you would not have it. I felt
the scorn you heaped on me--it burned me like hot coals, but I waited;
I waited because I knew the time would come when you would want and
need me. I knew how it would be because I, too, had knelt before the
same glittering god. I’m going to be honest about all this: at first I
thought it was your mother who had cheated him, and I was glad of it;
then I saw that it was the other way around--that you had been deceived
and cheated, and that you would have to pay for it. When I saw that
that was the way of it, and that you were trusting him to end your long
campaign against the world, my sympathy went out to you, and all my
old feeling for you came back. You were never so precious to me as you
are to-day--no one ever meant to me what you mean. You are dear to me,
dearer and more precious than any words can tell you, Addie.”
He had spoken rapidly, in a low vibrant voice. She made no reply, but
turned her head slightly away; but when he again touched her hand she
suffered him to hold it; it slipped into his palm and rested there at
the table’s edge.
“I understood that whole matter of your changed decision about going
to Boston. It was so perfectly plain that it was funny. Father didn’t
want you to go to the Brodericks. To put it plainly, he’s the rankest
kind of snob. He was a little bit afraid you weren’t quite up to their
level. He had been crazy for years to be invited there, and the chance
was not to be missed. He would have thrown over my own mother in the
same fashion if he had played at being a great reformer in her day. I
remember, when I was a child, that Fanny and I used to play with two
dolls we called king and queen, and we sat them up on a throne and
worshipped them; but the king sprang a leak one day and the sawdust
came out and that was the end of the king business for me. I was about
fifteen when I began to find out that father was stuffed with sawdust.
It came about from his title of Colonel. A lot of us boys were bragging
one day about what our fathers had done in the Civil War and I had
silenced the other youngsters by announcing that my father was so brave
that he had been made a colonel, and one of the others came back at
me the next day with news he had got at home that my father had never
been in the war at all--and it was true! And all this philanthropic
work and these meetings he addresses so beautifully--it all comes of
the cheapest kind of vanity. It isn’t the thing itself he’s interested
in; it’s his own name in the newspapers, the glory of his after-dinner
speeches at the Waldorf, and quiet committee meetings at Old Point
Comfort about the time the shad are beginning to run, and when it’s
nice and comfortable to meet the spring down there, and issue open
letters to presidents and governors about any old thing, just so it’s
far enough away from home. When they come round and ask father to go
in for reform in Pittsburg he can’t hear them talking; he sympathizes
with the work, and is annoyed when the muck-raker writes us up, but
press of other affairs prevents him, and so forth. The fact is that
he’s a coward when it comes to getting out on the firing line to be
shot at. He wants the Indians in Wyoming to be protected and the Negro
to be educated, but he’s afraid to go up against the gang at home. With
cowardice and vanity as the chief elements of his character--bah! you
see it all--you don’t need to go into the case any deeper. You thought
you were solving all your problems by marrying a fine, chivalrous
gentleman, respected and admired by all the world, but you have already
got a taste of his real character. He’s begun to leak sawdust. He likes
you because you are pretty and gentle and biddable, but chiefly because
you listen so charmingly when he talks!”
“Wayne, Wayne, you don’t know what you are saying!”
“Yes, I know what I am saying. And I know it is blackguardly for a man
like me, who has led an evil life and never done a decent thing--who
has been a disgrace to his honoured father and to the city he was
born in, to be talking so; and I’m only saying it to you because you
have already found it out--because we’ve both got to suffer from it.
Don’t imagine I’m one of those sickly asses who are always snivelling
because they’re misunderstood. I’m a bad lot and everybody knows it.
I’ve been understood all right enough. Fanny tried to keep me in social
countenance by sticking me down the throats of the people she knows and
sees in her own house; but I’m so rotten they won’t have it. The women
that have to speak to me in her parlour cut me on the street. Because
I was born with wild red blood in me and didn’t settle down into being
a fraud like himself, father took that martyr-like tone about me with
all his friends. I can hear him now mentioning me to the Brodericks and
sighing softly and shaking his head dolefully to get their sympathy.
You can be dead sure the Brodericks know about me; the last time I
was in Boston I tore up a few trees on the common and all the papers
printed our illustrious name in big red type.”
He laughed a little wildly, for he had ceased to be a lover and was a
man with a grievance and in his bitterness he forgot the woman before
him; and his voice rang out passionately in the room. He had clutched
her hand until it hurt and she drew it away, cowering in her chair to
escape the wild torrent of his words.
“Please, Wayne, no more of it! You are spoiling the afternoon! It is
getting dark and we must be going home.”
He did not heed her but rang the bell and when the servant came he
told him to bring whiskey, and to be quick about it. She expostulated
while he was gone; she begged him not to throw away the advantage he
had gained by his long abstinence; she threatened never to speak to him
again if he drank a drop. The man brought a bottle and glasses, and
said as he put it down, “That’s the Rosedale special, sir; you put it
in yourself four years ago.”
Mrs. Craighill rose as the door closed, and made a motion as though to
seize the bottle.
“Just let it alone,” he said: “I want to show you something.”
He filled the whiskey glasses full, and brimmed the water glasses with
the liquor, whose odour nipped the air keenly. Then he set the bottle
down and folded his arms.
“Addie, every drop of blood in me calls for that stuff; I know every
sensation it would give me and three months ago I would have given my
immortal soul for a spoonful; but I’m just as safe from it as though
it were locked up behind steel doors. No power on earth could make me
touch a drop.”
So long as he made love to her she understood; this bit of bravado
disturbed and baffled her. But here at least was something that
required prompt commendation, and while she had been better satisfied
by the first direction of his talk, here was a zone of safety in which
they might stand together in security. She rose and placed her hands on
his shoulders.
“You are splendid; you are fine and brave and I am proud of you, Wayne,
dear!”
His manner changed instantly and he caught her hands and clasped them
tight. He was still breathing deeply from his long harangue, but in a
moment he spoke quietly, with a return of the tenderness with which he
had begun.
“I’m a beast to frighten you that way; and I must have hurt this poor
little hand.”
He kissed it and swung her hands lightly, looking into her face
tenderly.
“What a terrible big bear you are! And everything was peaceable and
cosy and you let your temper get the better of you.”
The snow, still falling densely, had hastened the twilight and night
was near. “We must go--at once--at once! What if the car wouldn’t run
in the snow?”
“What if it wouldn’t! They can give us dinner here--right here on the
hearth. They can always put up something--it’s the rule of the Club,
and there’s no end of wood for the fire.”
“We are going straight home--just as straight as we can go. Please!”
She tried to free herself, but he held her hands fast, laughing into
her eyes, and suddenly he put his arms around her and drew her close
and kissed her full upon the lips. The firelight danced fitfully about
them as they stood thus. He had raised his head to repeat the kiss,
when steps sounded upon the veranda. Someone cried aloud once, twice,
and beat upon the door, and when Wayne flung it open Jean Morley,
frightened and sobbing, stumbled across the threshold.
Wayne plunged through the snow-filled dusk after a man who had turned
away from the veranda steps and was running swiftly down the road. To
his surprise the fugitive, who had at once widened the distance between
them, stopped short and wheeled round.
“I meant no harm! I meant no harm!” cried a voice.
“Good God, Joe! What are you doing here?”
“Is it you, Mr. Wayne? I guess I’m crazy, that’s all. I meant no harm.
She’ll tell you herself I meant no harm.”
“We’ll see about that. I told you to stay at the house. I’m surprised
and disappointed in you. I’ll see you about this to-night. Now go to
the car--back there under the shed--and bring it out right away and
take us in. And you needn’t try to smash it on the way home; go in by
the Red Oak road and take your time.”
Wayne was not more surprised to find that his man Joe had been Jean
Morley’s pursuer than by the young fellow’s evident distress, so
markedly in contrast to his usual amiable cocksureness. It was no time
for inquiry and debate. The snow was already ankle-deep and it was
imperative that they start home at once.
Wayne, returning to the club-house, found Jean Morley, sitting by
the fire, with Mrs. Craighill ministering to her. She had not yet
recovered from her fright; her clothes were wet and her dark hair had
shaken loose about her face. Mrs. Craighill appealed to Wayne for an
account of what had happened, and her surprise was manifest when Wayne
addressed the crumpled refugee quietly by name.
“Mrs. Craighill, this is Miss Morley.” Whereat Mrs. Craighill’s “Oh!”
expressed rather more than surprise. “Miss Morley is an acquaintance
of mine; we met”--and he smiled at the girl--“at the parish house at
Ironstead where she is one of Mr. Paddock’s assistants.”
Jean rose, and aware that an explanation was necessary she offered it
immediately, standing forlornly on the hearth.
“I had gone for a walk in the country; I have been in the habit of
taking an afternoon once a week, and it was so fine at noon that I
ventured on a longer excursion than usual. I took the train to Rosedale
Heights, and struck off across the fields. I turned back when it began
to snow, but lost my way and it was not till then that I saw that
someone had followed me.”
“The man who followed you was my chauffeur; is there any reason why he
should be annoying you?” demanded Wayne.
“No, there is no reason; but I know him. I have known him a long time.
I’m sure he didn’t mean to trouble me--he wouldn’t do that. I was
foolish to run, but the dark was coming on and I was not sure of the
way in the snow. I ran up on the veranda more for shelter and to get my
bearings than in fear--I really was not afraid!”
Her hearers were struck by the fact that she seemed anxious to minimize
the incident. She turned toward the door saying:
“I need not trouble you further; I can very easily walk to the station.”
“Not a bit of it!” exclaimed Mrs. Craighill. “We were just ready to
start and it will be perfectly easy to take you home. Is the machine
ready, Wayne?”
Mrs. Craighill was pointedly ignoring him in her attentions to the
girl. She was holding her hat to the fire to dry; the caretaker’s wife,
who had been sent for dry shoes and stockings, led Miss Morley to her
own room to change. Mrs. Craighill had been a good deal shaken by the
sudden invasion of the peaceful club fireside, but she had not lost her
wits. The housekeeper had been drawn to the scene, not merely for aid,
but to sustain and support the two culprits of the tea table, before
the bedraggled girl who had interrupted the afternoon’s drama.
The spell had been broken; the arrested embrace, the defeated kiss
might not be recovered at once. Mrs. Craighill placed a chair between
herself and Wayne and from this vantage point surveyed him with
severity as she touched a loosened strand of hair into place. They
were now on the most formal footing; and he smiled slightly before the
bristling bayonets with which she demanded explanations.
“Well, who is she?”
“Oh, don’t be so fierce about it, Addie! I couldn’t help it. She’s just
what I said--a girl I met at Paddock’s mission at Ironstead. She’s an
art student; Fanny is helping her; she’s one of Fanny’s enthusiasms.”
“Do you suppose--do you suppose she saw us?”
“I doubt it; she didn’t have time!” and Wayne laughed. “But it would
make no difference if she did.”
“Oh, you think it wouldn’t! Well, it might make a lot of difference to
me--had you thought of that?”
“Why, of course, Addie, it would be unfortunate, deplorable; but
there’s no reason for worrying about it. She was running from a
man--the man happened to be Joe, my chauffeur.”
“Then it _is_ a pretty business! How do you know that Joe didn’t come
here to look for us?”
“Because Joe is not that sort of fellow. I know him well; he’s devoted
to me.”
“He may have thought this was another; I don’t like it. I trusted you
absolutely and you have made a clumsy mess of it. And besides, you had
no business to do _that_--what you were doing--you took advantage of my
kindness and sympathy.”
“For heaven’s sake, cheer up! If the girl hadn’t broken in here just at
the wrong moment it would have been all right, wouldn’t it?”
He was laughing in an effort to blunt the edge of her displeasure, but
his attitude accentuated her anger.
“No, it would not! It was wrong and wicked of you! But what have you
done with Joe?”
“He’s going to run the machine home--all of us--including Miss Morley.”
“Just after you caught him pursuing a helpless girl through a
snow-storm in a wild place in the country! Do you mean to say you
haven’t discharged him? You have certainly lost your mind!”
“You wouldn’t have me leave him here, would you, to walk in?”
“It might be interesting to know just what _she_ was doing away out
here in a storm like this, with a man following her.”
“Well, that’s about as broad as it is long. I don’t believe we’d better
go into that! She’s a simple little girl from the country and our world
is a big dark mystery to her; very likely she’s speculating as to what
you and I are doing here in a snow-storm, with all the evidences of a
quiet little party--to say nothing of the whiskey bottle and all the
glasses full?”
He spread his hands over the table, which was not eloquent of
abstinence.
“It looks like the merriest kind of an orgy, doesn’t it? And it’s all
my fault--every bit of it. No matter what they say, it simply does not
pay to be good! Here’s a whole quart of the best rye in the world, used
merely to demonstrate my own powers of resistance. There isn’t a man in
the whole State of Pennsylvania who would believe me if I swore I had
poured out whiskey just to smell it.”
His hand touched one of the filled glasses; he raised it high and
looked at it with a fierce craving in his eyes; then slowly very
slowly, without taking his eyes from it, he put it down. She had
watched him in silence, wondering; but he continued in his light,
bantering tone. “As I was saying, it’s all my fault. I’m guilty on all
counts of the indictment. You were a perfectly helpless woman in the
hands of a monster. I’m sorry, Addie; I’m just as penitent as can be;
and I’m going to get you out of the scrape as fast as I can. I’ll take
the whole burden of it--explanations, lies, everything! Now be a good
girl, won’t you, and don’t let everybody know you’re angry--though you
_are_ charming when you’re ruffled.”
He had persuaded her to a more amiable humour when Miss Morley
returned, and she met the girl and led her to the fire with solicitous
murmurs.
“We can go at once now, Wayne, can’t we?”
“The car awaits your pleasure, ladies!”
“But please don’t trouble about me,” cried Jean. “It’s only a little
way to Rosedale Heights and I can take the train there and be home in
half an hour.”
“We can’t allow it! It’s a long walk to the station and we have the big
motor with lots of room and to spare.”
“It was the oddest chance that brought us here,” Mrs. Craighill went on
to say, as she held the girl’s cloak. “Mr. Craighill had taken me to
call on some friends who are spending the winter at their farm beyond
here. It was later than I thought when we started and we ran in here to
telephone home that we should be late for dinner.”
It was a sufficient explanation, blithely uttered; Wayne, bringing his
stepmother’s things to the fire, hoped she would not protest too much.
The matter of the whiskey bottle, for one thing, was a part of the _res
gestæ_ which it seemed best to leave to the mercy of the trial judge.
Night had fallen when they left the club-house and the forward lamps
of the car cut a broad path of light over the snow. Wayne adjusted one
of the movable seats in the tonneau so that he faced the two women,
and turned on the electric light. The thing had its ridiculous side;
the pains Mrs. Craighill was taking to be polite to the girl struck
him as funny; but by the time the car reached the highway more serious
reflections engaged him. Jean Morley’s account of her walk afield was
plausible enough and he did not question it; he wondered whether Mrs.
Craighill’s story had carried equal conviction. An effort to assure
himself that it was not important what the girl thought, found him
looking straight into her eyes, whose gray-blue depths and sorrowful
wistfulness seemed more fathomless than at any of their previous
meetings. Her knowing Joe, the ball player and chauffeur--the man
who now guided them home--added a puzzling factor; they were utterly
irreconcilable characters. His glance rested first on one woman and
then the other as he unconsciously compared them--Mrs. Craighill, trim
and smart, with the girl, whose shabby, discoloured gloves, her plain
little hat with its rumpled feather, her cheap coat, were vesture of
a different world. Only an hour before he had kissed the one; he had
held her unresisting in his arms; she was pretty, charming amusing, but
the glow of the afternoon had paled; their adventure had ended on a
frightened, smothered half-note.
He had been checked in the course he had marked for himself; whirled
out of the straight current into the labouring waters of indecision. He
had resolved upon an evil thing; he had hoisted sail and steered for
the rocks, but the plunging depths might not be so attainable after
all! That potential superstition, latent in us all, and to which strong
men are often susceptible, teased him with questions as to why this
girl had walked into his life. There, too, was Paddock, the clerical
sentimentalist. Only a little while before Paddock had crossed the
threshold of his office and struck down, in effect, the cup with which
he was about to consecrate his life to evil things. It is the way
of the guilty to take counsel of omens; the knocking at the gate in
Macbeth is the loud beating of every conscience-struck heart. Wayne’s
imagination played upon the figure of Jean Morley, drifting through the
storm to the remote house where a woman, weak as he was weak, yielded
herself to a kiss he had calculated in coldest reason.
The occasional glances that Mrs. Craighill vouchsafed him meant his
dismissal, for the time at least. It was plain from her conduct that
the ground here lost might not easily be regained; but he was surprised
to find in his brooding that he cared so little. Addie’s pique was
absurd; but he had kissed women before and they were prone to magnify
the gravity of their indiscretions, and to sulk afterward. His thoughts
traversed a circular track, but the fire had gone out in his blood.
Rousing from his absorption suddenly he found Jean’s eyes bent upon
him, wondering, pitiful and sad. He had not heeded what the women were
saying to each other, but now Mrs. Craighill asked him where they were
and he looked out upon the lights of the city.
“Shall we take Miss Morley home first?” he asked.
“Dear me, no! She must stop and have dinner with us. Better than that,
won’t you stay all night with me, Miss Morley? It’s still snowing and
it will be hard getting about town to-night. You see, your knowing Mrs.
Blair makes it seem that we _all_ know you.”
CHAPTER XIX
MR. WINGFIELD CALLS ON MR. WALSH
Wayne not appearing at luncheon, Wingfield ate alone and then watched
the street traffic from the Club window with listless interest. Across
the street rose the grimy façade of Memorial Church, its spires
piercing the fuliginous cloud the wind was blowing across the city. A
battery of automobiles discharged a party of young people bent upon a
wedding rehearsal, and Wingfield sighed softly as the girls fluttered
out of sight through the church doors. Shortly afterward he left
the Club and walked slowly in the direction of the warehouse of the
Wayne-Craighill Company. Wingfield was given to roaming and frequently
sauntered through the jobbing district, dodging the clattering trucks,
noting the destination of merchandise and dropping in upon friends in
their counting rooms to exchange anecdotes and question them as to the
state of trade.
His business this afternoon was to call on Tom Walsh, whose silhouette
he presently observed at a window of the counting-room on the second
floor of the Wayne-Craighill Mercantile Company’s establishment. A
truckman bawled to him to look out for himself as he entered the main
door where, in a small room, a number of gentlemen were gathered
about little tables containing specimens of coffee and the agent for a
California canning factory was opening his “line” for the enlightenment
of the chief buyer of the house, a person who, with his last summer’s
straw hat tipped over his eyes, spent his days trying to reconcile
the pictured peach of the label with the fruit inside the can. A boy,
engaged with marking pot and brush in decorating a soap-box with
cabalistic characters, stopped chewing gum and whistled to a comrade
to give heed to the strange being who had entered the front door and
was now ascending the counting-room steps. As Mr. Wingfield was careful
of his raiment, his manner of gathering up the skirts of his ulster
on the stair, and the fact that he wore spats, caused the artist and
his comrade to exchange signals of derisive delight. As Wingfield
disappeared into the office, an inquiry as to “what the old man would
do to ut,” was shouted across the warehouse beneath him.
When Walsh had kicked the door shut and offered Wingfield a cigar,
he went to a sliding window in the partition of his den and gave
orders for a few minutes to his chief clerk on the other side; then he
returned to his desk and lighted a cigar.
“Well, I’m glad you came in; I was just thinking about you. How’s
Wayne?”
“All right; we spent a few days in Philadelphia and he was as good as
gold. He’s been sober for nearly three months.”
“Then he’s overdue,” remarked Walsh. “He usually comes down with a jar
when he’s let it alone so long.”
“He’s been at work, too--as regular as the clock. Your retirement from
the office seems to have had a stimulating effect on Wayne’s energies.
How do you account for it?”
“Um. Maybe he wanted to see what’s inside the pot. He got me up there
one day last week and put me through a cross-examination that gave me
the headache. I noticed that the boys in the office jump when he comes
in now; they didn’t use to know he was there.”
“New stepmother doing it?” asked Wingfield.
Walsh looked at the end of his cigar carefully and smoked quietly for a
few minutes before replying.
“He’s deeper than that; Wayne has a game on hand. His conversion is too
sudden. He’s saving up like a volcano. He’ll let go one of these days
and there will be hell. I don’t like it.”
“Maybe he wants to make money and get rich,” suggested Wingfield.
“And maybe--maybe,” replied Walsh contemptuously, “he wants to buy
airships so he can call on the man in the moon. I don’t know what it
is, but the signs point to trouble.”
Walsh took off his hat and caressed his bald head. Then he threw up a
section of his glass cage that looked out upon the street and bade a
truck driver stop beating his horses. He dominated his establishment
like the captain of a ship, his office serving as a bridge. A clear
tenor voice, singing a ballad, rose from the wareroom below. Walsh
touched a button and when the chief shipping-clerk appeared bade him
discharge the singer at once.
“Chuck him! I warned him myself I wouldn’t stand for it.”
“I hope it’s the one that guyed my clothes as I came up,” said
Wingfield. “My spats seemed to pain him; he was painting things with a
brush.”
“He’s the one,” growled Walsh. “I’ll let his voice rest for a week and
then I’m going to put him on the road. He’s the likeliest colt on the
place.”
“Fire him first, then promote him?” asked Wingfield.
“Yep. But I don’t make a fixed rule of takin’ ’em back. Fired the
office boy last week and he’ll stay fired--hung a couple of these ‘Get
Busy,’ ‘Keep on smiling,’ signs over my desk. Well, where’s Wayne now?”
he demanded.
“He went to his office this morning after breakfasting with me and
didn’t show up at the Club for lunch--he’ll probably be there for
dinner--there’s nobody at home, you know. The Colonel took his bride to
Boston to hear him deliver his oration.”
“Mrs. Craighill went to Boston?”
“Why, certainly.”
“I guess not,” said Walsh; “she’s home--hasn’t been out of town.”
“Wayne didn’t know it; he thought they both went.”
“They didn’t; I’m quite positive. Very likely Wayne didn’t know. They
may have intended going together and then something happened and Mrs.
Craighill stayed at home.”
“I didn’t know you were so thick with the family. One might think you
and Mrs. Craighill were on telephonic terms of intimacy.”
“No; hardly that. I haven’t heard from her but I know she’s in town. My
information may be private and exclusive; I guess most likely it is.”
“Where does that leave us?”
“It doesn’t leave us anywhere; it just brings us to the starting point!”
It was hot in the glass box and Wingfield fanned himself with his
hat. Since the night of Mrs. Blair’s reception, at which he and Walsh
had spoken of Wayne with a common understanding and sympathy, Walsh
had been much in his thoughts. Wingfield was a student of character
and it pleased him to think that in this grim, bald old fellow he had
discovered a type. Walsh’s traits were of a sort to appeal to him
and now that he was learning that Walsh gathered information through
secret and mysterious channels, his liking warmed to admiration. It was
precisely this sort of thing that Wingfield liked to do himself. He
took off his ulster and drew his chair closer.
“Do you mean----”
“I mean that Wayne and Mrs. Craighill should not see too much of each
other. They are both young and foolish. The Colonel is a good deal
wrapped up in himself; one roof isn’t big enough to cover an elderly
husband--an important, busy man--his young wife and a youngster who’s
a past-master at the business of jollying women.”
“But Wayne has a sense of honour; there’s a place where he would draw
the line.”
The cashier brought in the bank deposit which Walsh surveyed carefully.
When the man had gone he lighted a fresh cigar and when it burned to
his satisfaction he laid a broad hand on Wingfield’s knee and said:
“We seem to understand each other. I don’t talk much, neither do you.
This is all on the dead level, is it?”
“You can trust me. What we say here is strictly between ourselves.”
Walsh nodded in sign that the compact was understood.
“You and I can’t quarrel over Wayne’s good qualities nor over his bad
ones either, for that matter. If managed right, he’d be a fine, big,
manly fellow. The Colonel never knew how to handle him. We spoke of
that up at Mrs. Blair’s that night. You’ve noticed that Wayne’s going
to the office now and that he’s been straight ever since the Colonel
got married. A change like that doesn’t just happen; you’ve got to
account for it. You haven’t accounted for it, have you? Well I have!
He’s got the idea that the Colonel hasn’t treated him square. The
Colonel’s rubbed it into him pretty hard and often--not by roasting
him and that sort of thing, but in a thousand worse ways. He’s made
the mistake--and I’ll be damned if I think the Colonel knows it
himself--of posing to the boy as a pattern of what _he_ ought to be.
All this God-and-morality business--these speeches about the wickedness
of politics in Jupiter and that kind of thing--make the boy tired.
It’s worse than that: he wants to catch the Colonel napping and prove
him a fraud! It’s a devilish sort of thing--you don’t like to think of
it; but that’s my explanation of this sudden devotion to business. The
thing’s in his eye; he’s looking for spots on the sun.”
Wingfield caressed his gloves gently. Walsh smoked hard.
“I don’t believe it’s in him. He’s as sweet as cream inside and
wholesome and clean. The thing you suggest wouldn’t be possible in the
Wayne Craighill I know,” and there was rebuke in Wingfield’s tone.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m for the boy all the time. I wish to God
he was mine! He’ll wobble right some day, but just now that’s what
he’s up to. And there’s a little more at the back of my head----
Not ready yet,” he called to a clerk who had entered with a mass of
correspondence. “Wait till I ring. There’s that; and that woman up at
the house gives him another chance at the Colonel; I see you flinch at
it, but he’s out for revenge--he’s been getting ready for it for a long
time.”
“No!” ejaculated Wingfield sharply. “I don’t believe it--it’s beneath
him. We don’t understand each other at all if you think Wayne Craighill
capable of anything so low, so base, so utterly despicable.”
He took off his eye-glasses, swung them the length of their gold chain,
and glared at Walsh when he had replaced them.
“I should take the same view if I didn’t know some things that you
don’t. I don’t question Wayne’s honour, but it’s no stronger than his
sense of justice, and it’s the injustice that rankles and the feeling
that the Colonel isn’t above magnifying his own virtue at the boy’s
expense.”
Wingfield nodded in affirmation, but his astonishment grew at the wide
range Walsh’s thoughts had taken.
“You imply that there are circumstances that confirm your impression
that Wayne and Mrs. Craighill are not suitable companions for each
other?”
“I imply nothing as to the future, or the present either, for that
matter. What may interest you--and this is entirely in confidence--is
the fact that Mrs. Craighill knew Wayne before she knew the Colonel!”
Walsh thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his office coat and
chewed his cigar. He was no pedlar of gossip and Wingfield saw that he
had not parted with this piece of information without a wrench.
“How did he know her? Was it bad or good?”
Walsh shook his head, and compressed his thin lips.
“I guess it was all right. He might have married her himself if the
circumstances had been quite normal, but he found that they were trying
to railroad him into it, and he backed water.”
“They?” queried Wingfield.
“Um,” answered Walsh, looking out upon the snow-storm that raged in the
narrow street. In the windows over the way blue shaded lamps in other
counting rooms were lighted, and he rose to turn on his own. Wingfield
saw that beyond the simple statement of fact Walsh would not go. Walsh
was troubled. The light of the desk lamp sought out the deep lines of
his face; his small gray eyes narrowed. Outside the door several of
the clerical staff wondered at the length of the interview accorded by
their chief to the tall gentleman with the dark beard. The fact that
the shipping-clerk’s assistant had been dismissed in the midst of the
call had sent a cold chill through the establishment: the old man, it
was whispered, was out of sorts, and his state of mind they attributed
to the malign influence of the tall person in spats.
“Of course the Colonel didn’t know,” suggested Wingfield.
“No; and that works into my general idea of what Wayne’s up to. Wayne
had risen to the same fly but they failed to hook him. When he saw the
Colonel about to swallow, bait and all, he lay low. It was the kind of
thing he wanted. It tickled him to see the Colonel make a mistake.”
“You think the Colonel was trapped. He’s an old hand--he knows the
world. He must have had a lot of chances to marry women of position and
wealth.”
Walsh rubbed his face raspingly with his thick fingers.
“When a man’s sixty or thereabouts any woman that plays the game
right can land him. If she’s young and pretty and naturally smart,
he’s fruit--simply fruit! A vain man is the easiest mark; tickle him
a little and he’ll goo-goo. We’re all chumps where the women are
concerned, Wingfield; they nail us every time. The Colonel was bound to
walk into the trap. Lord, man, even I’ve had ’em after me! A few yards
of crêpe coming in to ask my advice about managing their property;
sympathy gag; helpless woman; no one to appeal to; comes to Tom Walsh
because of his success in business, his reputation for being square and
so on. Now that I’m down here alone and the impression’s abroad that
I’m a solid citizen, they’re looking me up rather more freely. While I
was with Craighill the Colonel got all the crêpe. Now I’m getting my
proper share of the business. They jolly me about my horses and say
they think it’s so fine for a man to have some form of recreation. I
tell ’em I always drive alone! But the Colonel shied at the widows,
grass-fed and otherwise, and married a woman nobody ever heard of
before. He probably thought he was doing a smart thing to cut out the
local crowd. I guess Mrs. Blair wouldn’t have let him marry anybody in
town. He did well, according to his light. The reel’s wound up and the
fish is in the basket.”
“I fancy we’re neither of us deeply concerned about the Colonel; it’s
Wayne we’d like to help; am I right?”
Walsh nodded gravely.
“I don’t think the woman is a bad woman. I went up to Mrs. Blair’s that
night at the rash expense of a white waistcoat just to look her over.
She’s pretty and friendly. I don’t suppose she’s buncoed the Colonel
any more than he’s buncoed her. It’s about even. She struck me as being
kind of pathetic, some way.”
“Ah! I hadn’t noticed it,” remarked Wingfield. “She struck me as a
young person who would take care of herself. They’re an interesting
type, these young women who corral old gentlemen of established
position and wealth. The Colonel must have a fine estate; he’s made
money ever since he inherited the Wayne fortune and he’s never lost
any.”
“Um!”
This grunt of Walsh’s was discouraging. Wingfield’s own reticence had
been admired, but Walsh’s was even more opaque; he felt that the old
fellow was a hooded falcon who could, if given free flight, penetrate
far into the mystery that surrounded Mrs. Craighill.
“I guess we might call there to-night,” Walsh continued. “I’m not
on to the social game, but I suppose that, having had the Colonel’s
announcement cards and having met the bride at Mrs. Blair’s, it’s up to
me to call. As I have no official knowledge of the Colonel’s absence I
guess I’ll drop in to-night and it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to
come along. You can dine with me at the Club. Do you put on a white
vest for evening calls or will a black one do?”
The proposed visit was not to Wingfield’s taste. Wayne had distinctly
told him that Mrs. Craighill was in Boston with her husband, and in
the circumstances for him to call at the house with Walsh, of all men,
would be an event whose implication would not be wasted on a man of
Wayne Craighill’s sharp perception. He was averse to going; the very
idea was repugnant; but Walsh clearly wished his company and he finally
agreed to go.
“Very well, I’ll arrange the transportation”; and Walsh dismissed him
with an injunction not to break his neck on the office steps.
CHAPTER XX
EVENING AT THE CRAIGHILLS’
Mrs. Craighill had not relaxed her severity toward Wayne when, with
Jean between them, they sat down to dinner. She continued, however,
her protecting attitude toward the girl, whom she had installed in the
best of the guest chambers adjoining her own room. Any doubts that had
crossed her mind as to the extent of Wayne’s knowledge of the young
woman had been dispelled by Jean herself. She had sought eagerly for
any basis for suspicions, but Miss Morley was apparently all that she
pretended to be; and Wayne’s own manner at the table set the seal of
truth upon his protestations of merest acquaintance as uttered at
the club-house. The girl interested Wayne and it was, Mrs. Craighill
divined, the interest of novelty; she was of an order of woman that
had not heretofore attracted his attention. And seeing his absorption,
noting the pains he took to be entertaining, Mrs. Craighill’s glances
in his direction gained nothing in amiability. He imagined that she
wished to punish him for having been caught in the act of kissing her;
and his acceptance of the situation, and his cool appropriation of the
girl whom she had brought home merely for the purpose of placation,
added to the blackness of his offenses.
The talk, as led by Wayne, fell into lines that served to minimize Mrs.
Craighill’s importance in the trio. She did not care about magazine
illustration, or know very much about Claude Monet; and Miss Morley’s
ignorance of grand opera, and her naïve preferences in the music she
did know called for nothing but occasional smiles of polite indulgence
from Mrs. Craighill. Wayne was making far too much of the girl; it
was unnecessary and unbecoming. Her poverty, proclaimed in her shabby
clothing, her lack of ease, her deficiencies in a hundred other
trifling ways irritated Mrs. Craighill. But if the girl did not know
how to manage her artichoke she was not dull. When she became aware of
her hostess’s silence she made a point of including her in the talk.
It was an event in the girl’s life, this hour at the prettily set
table, with its bowl of roses aglow in the soft candle-light; the
silent service; the leisure born of plenty and secure from the clutch
of time. Her awe passed. Mrs. Craighill had been kind and Jean was
taking her kindness at its face value, and in apparent ignorance of its
ulterior intention. She saw in Mrs. Craighill a woman of the ampler
world, whom the gods had favoured with good looks and fortune, and
Jean studied her with an artist’s eye. Adelaide Craighill’s head, so
admirably set on her pretty neck, had never pleased anyone more. That
half-languorous droop of the lids that withheld the full gaze of her
eyes for sudden, unexpected, flashing contacts, was not without its
fascination. If Jean Morley interested Mrs. Craighill, Mrs. Craighill
interested Jean Morley even more.
Jean’s frankness, now that her diffidence had passed, revealed her
in a new light. Wayne had never placed her, never found an adequate
background for her. In their several meetings he had been satisfied
with what the moment disclosed. A reference to her fondness for walking
served to open a long vista, which his fancy crowded with pictures.
“I was born and brought up in the hills,” Jean said, “but a long way
from here. I don’t belong in the soft coal country--my home is in the
anthracite region. I never was here before, and probably shouldn’t be
here now if it weren’t that I’m able to spend the winter in study at
the Institute. I think I like my own country better than this; I have
never been in cities very much. Just a few times I have been down to
Philadelphia to look at the exhibitions. I should have spent this year
there, but I came here, for several reasons, and now the winter is
going so fast and I have so little to show for it.”
“You can’t do it all in one winter,” Mrs. Craighill remarked
sympathetically.
“No--and you can’t do much in many winters! I’m not a genius--I know
that as well as anybody; but I want to make the most of my little
talent. Bad pictures seem so much worse than anything else--worse than
bad music even. It’s better not to start if you’ve got to go on forever
being an amateur.”
“Well, one has the fun of trying,” murmured Mrs. Craighill. She had
seen American students abroad on their eternal pursuit of fame, and
her words were lightly shaded with her forbearance of all hopeless
aspirants.
“Did you always fancy pictures and drawing?”
“I’m afraid so! It seems absurd to speak of my things at all to people
who know--to those who have seen the great galleries abroad. But I used
to pick up pieces of charcoal and try to draw when I was a child, and
I never seemed able to give it up. I would bribe the little neighbour
children to pose for me; the boys who worked in the breakers were nicer
to draw because if I smutted my picture it didn’t matter--it made it
all the truer to life. When we had the last strike up there in my
country”--she called it “my country,” as though it were detached and
alien and Wayne liked it in her--“a lot of newspaper correspondents
came to report the troubles, and I suppose if it hadn’t been for
the strike I should have lost my courage and given up trying. But I
was sketching some of the children in town one day with charcoal on
wrapping-paper and one of the newspaper men asked me to give him a
few souvenirs. I had a whole trunkful and he helped himself. He sent
them off with an article called ‘The Children of the Breakers’ and it
came out the next Sunday in a Philadelphia paper with my pictures. The
artist on the paper sent me some ink and paper of the kind used in
black and white work and then a check came for twenty dollars. That
helped to spoil me; and then I heard of a free scholarship here and
when I came Mrs. Blair, who’s on the Students’ Aid Committee of the
Institute, was kinder than anyone else had ever been; she’s been lovely
to me!”
“Mrs. Blair is splendid to everyone--so enthusiastic and helpful. You
are fortunate in having her for your friend.”
It was in Mrs. Craighill’s mind that if the girl should tell Mrs.
Blair just how she came to be dining at the Craighill table the
story might require elucidation. Fanny Blair believed her to be in
Boston, and from Boston to the Rosedale Country Club was a far cry.
Her irritation at Wayne increased: he had certainly made a mess of
things; and his absorption in the girl, his ready transfer of interest,
did not mitigate his offense. She was not in the least interested in
Jean Morley’s studies in black and white, and she was considering
the advisability of anticipating the girl by telling Fanny Blair the
Rosedale story first, in a way to protect herself. The prospect did not
please her. She had a high opinion of Fanny Blair’s intelligence, which
caught at truth in zigzag lightning flashes of intuition. And while she
considered these things, Jean Morley, whose character was not involved,
described the landscape of the upper Susquehanna with almost childish
enthusiasm and Wayne, who had no reputation to lose, listened to her
with an attention that would have been excessive if paid to a first
visitor from Mars.
Mrs. Craighill preceded them slightly as they sought the library. Her
fine carriage, her short, even step, the train of her gown that swept
after her detainingly--these trifles added to Jean’s impression of her
hostess as a finished product of the fashionable world.
Before the blazing logs in the library Mrs. Craighill rallied again,
touched to pity by the sight of Jean’s shoes, borrowed of the
housekeeper at Rosedale, which, as she placed her own dainty slippers
on the fender, seemed to shrink in their own humility out of sight
under the girl’s crumpled skirt. Wayne threw up a blind to observe the
weather and called them to see the snow, which lay white under the
electric light of the streets and had transformed the hedge into a
stern barricade of white masonry. The jingle of sleigh-bells stole in
upon them as they turned to the fire.
The storm served a distinct purpose in eliminating from the
possibilities the chance of interruption. People had been in the
habit of dropping in in the evening--it was an attention that Colonel
Craighill liked; but as her departure had been duly gazetted by the
society reporters it was hardly possible, Mrs. Craighill reflected,
that anyone would brave the storm merely to leave a card at the door.
By half-past eight Mrs. Craighill had begun to be bored, and it was
upon this trying situation that the maid entered with Wingfield’s and
Walsh’s cards. These gentlemen had found a sleigh for the journey
and the tinkle of bells in the carriage entrance cheerfully preluded
their arrival. Their appearance had been accomplished with so much
expedition that before Mrs. Craighill could hand the cards over to
Wayne the two gentlemen were within the library portières, rubbing
their hands at the sight of the blaze and exhaling an air so casual and
amiable as to disarm suspicion.
“It was Walsh did it,” began Wingfield. “He took me for a sleigh-ride
and when I complained of being cold he said we’d go into the
Craighills’ on the chance of finding somebody at home. It’s always
Mr. Walsh; you never can say no to him. I’ve undoubtedly contracted
pneumonia and they’ll be pumping oxygen into me before daylight.”
Mrs. Craighill introduced Miss Morley, and Wayne’s astonishment at
seeing the men hardly exceeded his surprise when Walsh, turning from
Mrs. Craighill, spoke Miss Morley’s name distinctly and shook hands
with her.
“I have met Miss Morley before,” he said, and sat down by her.
“You see,” Mrs. Craighill was saying, “the papers tried to send me to
Boston, but here I am, and glad not to be up there in the blizzard.”
“Nothing could be cosier than this! That is hickory; there’s a
particular charm in hickory, but my mother will have none of it; she
sticks to pine knots.”
Nothing had escaped Wingfield’s keen eyes; but the sigh with which he
settled himself was half an expression of relief. The presence of the
third figure in the scene satisfied him of the baseness of Walsh’s
assumption, and added, moreover, an agreeable novelty to the call. Mrs.
Craighill was a clever woman; his interest in her increased; he paid
her the tribute of his sincere admiration. As to the girl’s identity,
he could wait. As he discussed current social history with Mrs.
Craighill he appraised Jean with a connoisseur’s eye. Wayne had been
tinkering the fire, and when he rose he sat down between Mrs. Craighill
and Wingfield.
Walsh, his face reddened by the wind, was giving his attention to
Miss Morley, and the others caught only occasionally a word of their
conversation.
“So your grandfather’s still in town? I supposed he would be going home
before this.”
“He’s waiting to finish up the Sand Creek matter. He wants to know
what is going to be done about that before he goes back. It’s worried
him a great deal, and he feels that he must press it now while he can.
He’s an old man, and not well. I’ve tried to get him to abandon it
altogether, but it’s on my account he’s doing it. He wants to get the
money for my sake, but I’m afraid he will only be disappointed.”
“Have you ever seen Colonel Craighill yourself? Do you know what he
says to your grandfather?”
“Only that he puts him off--he never really tells him anything.”
“Um!”
Walsh rubbed his bald pate reflectively. The trio nearer the fire were
well launched in frivolous talk. Wayne seemed in excellent spirits;
Mrs. Craighill had entered into the spirit of Wingfield’s banter with
zest, and Wingfield was enjoying himself immensely.
“I didn’t know you were acquainted with the family in this way. Does
Wayne know?” continued Walsh.
“It’s just an accident, my being here. It was Mrs. Craighill’s
kindness--I had never seen her before; and Mr. Wayne Craighill I knew,
slightly. I met him at Ironstead, at Father Paddock’s settlement there.”
Walsh bent closer, as though he had not understood, and when she
repeated her last sentence he drew his hand slowly down his cheek.
“Um! Is Wayne going in for that kind of business? I hadn’t heard of it.”
“He was out there one night when Father Paddock had an entertainment.
Mr. Craighill brought me and a friend of mine home in his motor.”
Walsh found a handkerchief and blew his nose vigorously. When he had
settled his pudgy frame back in his chair he asked abruptly:
“What do you think of him?”
“Why--I don’t think!” said the girl, and her laugh reached Wayne--her
light laugh of real mirth that had the ease of a swallow’s flight.
“Are you afraid of him?”
“No; I’m not afraid of him. We’re hardly acquainted. I’ve only seen him
three or four times.”
“Oh! The meeting at Paddock’s place wasn’t the first?”
“No. I had seen him before--the first time at the Institute; you know
I’m studying there.”
“He didn’t hesitate to speak to you without an introduction, did he?”
persisted Walsh, though with a good-humoured twinkle in his little eyes.
“No, Mr. Walsh, he did speak to me, but it was all right. The
circumstances made it all right.”
He was amused by her readiness to defend Wayne, who was just then
chaffing Wingfield about something for Mrs. Craighill’s edification,
wholly unconscious that he was being discussed.
“They always do,” said Walsh.
He turned round in his chair so that he looked directly into the girl’s
face. There was no insolence in his gaze; it was merely his direct,
blunt way of looking at anything he wanted to see. His eyes were not
satisfied with surface observations; they bored in like gimlets. Jean
met his scrutiny for a moment and turned away; but Walsh’s eyes dwelt
still on her head, then he glanced toward Wayne, then back to Jean
again. He seemed satisfied with this inspection and asked her how she
was getting on with her studies. When she had answered, his “Um” was so
colourless that she smiled; his mind had been on something else all the
while.
“Your grandfather had never talked to Wayne about the Sand Creek
affair, I suppose?”
“Yes,” she replied with reluctance; but on second thought she answered
him fully. In spite of Walsh’s gruffness and his grim countenance,
people trusted him. His sources of information were many because
he never betrayed a confidence. His mind was a card catalogue. If
an obscure corner grocer at Johnstown mortgaged his home to buy
an automobile, Walsh knew it first. The office systems that Roger
Craighill delighted in installing had always annoyed Walsh. Now that
he was managing his own business his office was conducted with the
severest simplicity. He checked his own trial balances; he would,
without warning, throw up a window and demand of a startled drayman
the destination of a certain crate or cask, to which he pointed with a
sturdy, accusing forefinger.
It was not for Jean Morley to withhold information from Tom Walsh; it
seemed the most natural thing in the world to be imparting it.
“These people have no idea that I am related to Grandfather Gregory.
Mr. Wayne Craighill has no idea of it; Mrs. Blair doesn’t know it--she
knows me only officially, you might say; she’s on a committee of the
Institute that looks out for young women students who have no homes
here. It’s strange that I should have fallen in their way; and now
I’m here in Colonel Craighill’s house! It wouldn’t do for grandfather
to know that--it would make him angry. But grandfather talked to Mr.
Wayne about the Sand Creek Company matter just a few days ago. Colonel
Craighill wouldn’t see grandfather; he sent word to him that he could
do nothing and that he’d better see a lawyer. Mr. Wayne met grandfather
leaving the building and took him back to his own office. He was very
friendly and offered to help arrange a settlement; but grandfather
refused. He’s very indignant at Colonel Craighill and says he’s going
to make him settle. It’s because he’s known him a long time--many,
many years, I suppose--that he’s so bitter. He says it isn’t the money
now--it’s the injustice of it.”
The girl had spoken eagerly and she paused now and turned to see if the
others were observing them. She concluded in a lower tone:
“I don’t know about it; it may not be a just claim. I sometimes think
grandfather isn’t sane on the subject; he acts queerly and keeps coming
to town to see Colonel Craighill. I went with him to see you in the
hope that you might tell him to quit bothering about it. He didn’t
understand that, having been with Colonel Craighill so long, you
wouldn’t want to discuss his affairs, now that you have left him. And
you couldn’t do anything about the claim--of course.”
“Um! I couldn’t do anything for your grandfather; that would be bad
faith to the Colonel; but--Um!--I might do it for you. That would be
different!”
He looked at her kindly, enjoying her mystification.
“I will tell you this, just as a favour to you and because--because you
are not afraid of Wayne Craighill; I’ll tell you that the claim against
the Sand Creek property is good in law. Wayne knows it; the Colonel’s
lawyer told him so; but the Colonel is so high and mighty that he
doesn’t want to pay any attention to it. He’s a great negotiator, the
Colonel; he wants to wait until Mr. Gregory gets real hungry, then fix
it up with him in a large spirit of generosity--do the noble thing for
an old friend in adversity. But this is treason, young woman, right
here in the Colonel’s own house. Your grandpa had better take Wayne’s
offer. I think we’ll move over there with the others.”
He rose in his heavy fashion and Wingfield, who had been waiting his
opportunity, sat down beside Jean. Wingfield’s face showed the least
annoyance when, a moment later, having seen that Mrs. Craighill and
Walsh were taking care of themselves, Wayne drew in beside him.
“It’s well you joined us; we were about to say the most dreadful things
of you, weren’t we, Miss Morley? But now we’ll discuss the diplodocus
in the museum, the greatest of Pittsburg topics. Mrs. Craighill has
just been telling me of your studies. Can you enlighten me as to
whether you students of the graphic arts really take an interest in
music--and the other way around? I have my doubts of it; one art’s
enough at a time.”
“Oh, the students at the Institute all go to the concerts because they
like music and it helps. I went to the Wagner matinée and it quite
inspired me; I wasn’t so bad for several days.”
“Ah, you were there at that matinée! I had expected to go myself, but
my nerves had been screwed up like a fiddle-string by the rumour that
the harpist was threatened with a felon on her thumb; I couldn’t have
stood that. The troubles of an orchestra are innumerable, I assure you,
Miss Morley. I’m always bailing out some fiddler who has beaten his
wife. And the oboe is a dreadful instrument; they say men who elect it
as their life work always go insane: the strain of piping into so small
a hole bursts blood vessels in the brain. Think of a man giving his
whole life to perfecting himself on an instrument that sends him, just
as he pipes his most perfect note, to a mad-house for his pains.”
“For mad-house you might substitute jail,” remarked Wayne. “The oboe is
not my favourite instrument.”
“You don’t know an oboe from a parlour melodeon. Please don’t take Mr.
Craighill’s musical criticisms seriously, Miss Morley. He and I are
on the programme committee--perhaps it’s only fair to the rest of the
community to say that we are it! We wrestle with the conductor about
what we shall give the dear people, and because we don’t give ‘request’
programmes every time with Sousa and Beethoven hashed together, the
newspapers jump on us hard.”
When at ten o’clock the door closed upon the callers, Mrs. Craighill
declared that she was tired, and carried Jean off to bed. Wayne
understood perfectly, however, that he was to await Mrs. Craighill’s
further pleasure, and he lighted a cigar and made himself comfortable
before the fire. In a few minutes he heard the murmur of her skirts on
the stair, and she entered quickly with accusation in her eyes. He
rose and leaned against the mantel-shelf. She was very angry in her
pretty, pouting way. She flung herself into a chair and broke out at
once:
“What do you think of _that_? Wasn’t the girl enough without those two
men? The most hateful, hideous persons I ever met!”
“But, Addie, you don’t suppose I asked them here? You’ve got to be
reasonable about this. The girl _was_ unfortunate; but if we hadn’t
picked her up we should have been in a box if these men had come here.
It strikes me that we’re in the greatest luck.”
“But why did the men come at all? That man Walsh doesn’t go to people’s
houses; he’s a malevolent old fellow; he has the most dreadful eyes I
ever saw. And your friend Wingfield, how often does he call here in the
course of the year? I doubt if he was ever here before. You told him I
was away, didn’t you? Please answer me that!”
“Why, yes, Addie, I believe I did,” and he paused blankly. There was
no doubt but that he had told Wingfield of Mrs. Craighill’s absence
that morning when he fully believed that she had gone; but that fact
only added plausibility to Wingfield’s story that he and Walsh had
been driving and had dropped in for a brief respite from the storm.
Wingfield did the most unaccountable things; this was undoubtedly one
of them. Having said as much, he felt that the matter might be dropped,
but the evidence in rebuttal was immediately thrust upon him. Mrs.
Craighill picked up four visiting cards and held them out for his
inspection.
“They asked for your father and me at the door--I called the maid
upstairs to ask. Why do you suppose they did that if they just came in
here to get warm or to see you?”
“My dear Addie, it’s as plain as daylight that they were driving; that
Wingfield--it’s just like him--got cold, and Walsh suggested that they
come into the house to get warm; and Wingfield--well, you simply don’t
know Dick--he’s the most formal person alive. And when you come to
think of it he did the right thing in asking for everybody. If we were
all in Egypt and Dick stopped at the house to warm himself he would
leave his cards. He would have a feeling about it; Dick’s a fellow of
nice feeling; and besides, it would only be decent to the servants.
Please don’t worry over this! You’re attributing motives to those
fellows that are beneath them. Do you suppose they would have turned
up here to-night if they had thought you and I were just sitting here
playing checkers together. Not on your life, Addie! And assuming for an
instant the preposterous idea that they came thinking we were alone,
why, they must have felt pretty cheap when they found that you had a
young lady guest in the house. There’s nothing to trouble over, I tell
you.”
“I like your cheerful way of disposing of the whole business! It
doesn’t seem to me so easy as you think. Did you ever hear of those
men going calling together before? I don’t believe you ever did.”
“Well, there are lots of things I don’t know about Walsh, and
Wingfield, too, for that matter. Dick’s always studying somebody. He’s
as bad as Fanny for fads, though he chases his in gum shoes; and just
now he thinks he’s struck a new type in Walsh. Oh, Lord, but it’s
funny! It’s a cinch that Walsh has Dick under the microscope. Those
fellows going sleigh-riding is too sweetly pastoral for any use. It’s
enough to make Walsh’s thoroughbreds laugh.”
Mrs. Craighill shrugged her shoulders and her eyes brightened with a
rekindling of her anger, coloured now by what seemed to be a genuine
fear.
“Wayne,” she cried, “what is there about that man? He’s an evil being
of some kind. That first time I saw him at Fanny’s he affected me just
as he did to-night. I have a feeling of suffocation, of smothering,
when he looks at me and those little eyes of his dance like devils.”
“Oh, now, Addie, that’s coming pretty rough! Walsh is a bully old
fellow. He can’t help not being handsome, but he’s the real thing;
there’s no punk in Tom Walsh. He’s a rare fellow and he’s been mighty
kind to me. You’d better forget all this--it’s all right. That girl
can be relied on--she isn’t going to blab--why should she? And Walsh
and Wingfield are not out on snowy nights looking for a chance to
injure anybody. Don’t work yourself into a morbid frame of mind about
these things; we all had a good time and let it go at that. Why, old
Tom Walsh made a point of talking to you; he isn’t the fellow to bore
himself, I can tell you!”
“Oh, Walsh!” she wailed. “That hideous monster! What do you think he
has asked me to do!”
“Well, not to elope with him; I’ll wager he didn’t propose that.”
“He asked me to go driving with him! He said there would be such
sleighing to-morrow as we rarely see any more. He said he would show me
the hills and that I’d see we had winter scenery here just as good as
Vermont.”
She offered this, it seemed, as a last proof of Walsh’s depravity, and
having launched it in half-sobs she waited for Wayne to mitigate its
evil if he could. The laughter with which he greeted her announcement
added an unneeded straw to her burden and she wept bitterly, bending
her head upon the mantel-shelf. She was an effective study in grief,
but Wayne’s humour had been too sincerely touched to leave any room for
pity.
“Oh, Addie! Walsh asked you to drive with him! He asked you--he asked
you----”
He exploded again, but when, tearful and scornful, she turned toward
him, he subsided to demand:
“Well, what did you say?”
“Oh, I said I’d go! I was afraid to say no!”
CHAPTER XXI
SOUNDINGS IN DEEP WATERS
She left him abruptly and ran up to her room. He lighted a cigarette
and pondered the rapid succession of events that had so filled the
afternoon and evening. He tried to find a natural explanation for
everything, but the effort left him vexed and confused. He had reasoned
with Mrs. Craighill plausibly enough, but the appearance of Walsh and
Wingfield had been extraordinary; it was wholly unaccountable, and
he did not like it. That these men should be spying upon his actions
passed belief; but what did this odd alliance between the men argue?
He roamed the rooms restlessly. All was silent above. Under the same
roof, here in his father’s house, were two women, unrelated and
irreconcilable, pointing him to different paths. He flashed on the
lights in the dining room and leaned in the doorway, gazing at the
empty table and recalling the dinner hour. Jean Morley had sat there;
the soft overhead light had fallen like a benediction on her head; her
grave voice still sounded in his ears, her questioning eyes still spoke
to him when, turning off the lights, he stood a moment staring into the
dark.
Then he struck his hands together and went to the back hall whose
windows looked toward the garage. The lights were burning on the second
floor and passing out through the kitchen he ran across the snowy court
and up the rough stairway to Joe’s room.
Joe lay sprawled on his narrow iron bed with his face to the wall.
The room was lighted by a single electric lamp that hung from the low
ceiling. He sat up and rubbed his eyes as Wayne spoke to him.
“What’s the matter, Joe? Are you sick?”
“Well, I wasn’t feeling very well. I guess I got a cold.”
“I came in to speak about your behaviour this afternoon. You were
annoying a young woman out there at Rosedale; you must have been
following her from the time she left town; she is a friend of my
sister’s and I’ve got to explain to both of them just how you came
to be frightening a woman in that fashion. What have you to say for
yourself?”
Joe threw his legs over the side of the bed and shook himself together.
He passed his hands over his face wearily.
“Oh, my God, I don’t know! That’s what I’ve been lying here thinking
about ever since I brought you home. I don’t know why I did it. I meant
her no harm. She and I were friends together up in the anthracite
country where I come from. We went to school together; I’ve known Jean
a long time.”
“That doesn’t give you any right to scare her to death. I ought to
fire you for this. It puts me in a nice position, having my chauffeur
running after one of my sister’s friends. If she should tell Mrs.
Blair what you did you’d have to go. My family are not so warm for you,
anyhow.”
“Yes; I know that. The Colonel doesn’t like having me round, and I
guess you don’t need me; but you don’t have to bounce me; I’ll quit. I
guess I’m all in. I’m no good, anyhow.”
His dejection was complete; his tame submission blunted the edge of
Wayne’s wrath.
“This isn’t a good job for you; there isn’t enough to do. You say”----
He hesitated. Many questions as to Jean Morley thronged through
his mind; but the girl was a guest in his house; he could not seek
information about her from a servant. Joe, as though divining his
thoughts, straightened himself suddenly.
“She’s a fine girl; there ain’t a finer in the world. She ain’t like
me--she’s smart, she’s got ambition and she’ll make good. You don’t
need to think because I followed her that I meant any harm to her. I’m
watching her; I’m looking after her. If any man means any harm to her
I’ll kill him; yes, by God!”
“Don’t be a fool; you seem to be the only person that’s trying to
injure her,” replied Wayne coldly. “Just another such performance as
that of this afternoon and you’ll give her friends cause for wonder.”
Wayne had spoken quietly, for Joe was utterly unlike himself. He was
either ill or drunk and Joe’s record for sobriety was flawless. The
chauffeur rose now and pointed an accusing finger at Wayne, crying out
huskily:
“I want to know why _you’re_ takin’ so much interest in her! I’d like
to know what she is to you! She’s not for you rich chaps that think
you can get any poor girl you want with money! I tell you, Mr. Wayne
Craighill, you can’t have her. If I can’t have her, nobody can. Now,
you remember that; remember it or it’ll be the worse for you!”
“Shut up, you fool,” cried Wayne, closing the door. “You needn’t shout
to the whole town. Now, I’m done with you; I want you to clear out; I
don’t want to find you on the place to-morrow.”
“What you’re doing,” cried Joe, not heeding, but intent upon some
train of thought of his own--“what you’re all doing is to try to jolly
that girl so she’ll keep old man Gregory off of you. I know about that
business--how the Colonel swindled him and lied to him. And now it’s
your sister, and now it’s you and the Colonel’s wife that’s trying to
fool her. It’s rotten, it’s rotten, the way you’ve all of you treated
the old man.”
Wayne sat down on the single chair in the room. He was quite calm, for
it was clear that Joe was really ill; the fever shone in his eyes and
his voice was hoarse and strained. But there was something here that
required explanation.
“Sit down, Joe, and stop shouting. You seem to be about half out of
your head. Now what has Miss Morley to do with old man Gregory and how
do you come to know him and his affairs?”
“How do I come to know?” Joe, huddled on the edge of the bed, stared
stupidly.
“He’s Jean’s grandfather--her mother’s father. They live up there in
Denbeigh. Old man Gregory used to live down here; he had a little mine
in the Sand Creek district, and ran it himself, but he couldn’t make
it go. Then the Colonel got it away from him to put into the combine.
He told the old man it was no good anyhow, but to help him out he’d
pay him something down and more on the tonnage if they ever opened it
again. See? Gregory had run a grocery on the side and bought goods of
the Wayne-Craighill Company away back there. But the old man thinks the
Colonel handed him the chilly mitt. And now the old man knows he is
about all in and he wants to get what’s coming for Jean. And he’ll play
the game out--he’s that kind. Every time he’s got ready to land one on
the Colonel the Colonel side-steps--he side-steps, see? And Gregory’s
a fine old gent that everybody’s robbed all his life. And if you
didn’t know he was Jean’s grandfather, why have you all been chasing
her--what’s she to you, say?”
Joe had flung much scorn into his recital--the fine scorn of his
kind, with much use of the stiffened right arm and hand by way of
gesticulation.
“This Gregory matter is none of your business, but to straighten you
out a little, I’ll tell you that this is the first I knew of Miss
Morley’s relationship to Gregory. As for my sister, I doubt if she ever
heard of Gregory. Her interest in Miss Morley is pure friendliness
and good will. And my father has never heard of Miss Morley, I’m sure
of that. I’m telling you this not because you are entitled to it,
but because you’ve always been a decent fellow and if you know these
people it’s just as well you should have the straight of it as to our
treatment of them. If old man Gregory has a just claim against my
father it will be paid; and Miss Morley has nothing to do with it. And
if you weren’t sick I’d give you a thrashing for speaking of that young
woman as you have. I ought to do it for your outrageous conduct this
afternoon anyhow. That’s too rank to be overlooked.”
“Well, you let her alone, you let her alone; that’s what I say! I saw
you walkin’ with her; I followed you that night you took her home from
the concert. I tell you, you can’t do it; you can’t do it! It’s all
right about what you’ve done for me; I ain’t forgot it, and I ain’t
goin’ to forget it. But you can’t have her; you can’t have her! And I’m
goin’ away from here; I ain’t goin’ to work for you any more.”
Wayne rose to the spur of his own dignity. He could not be placed
in the position of accounting to a half-delirious servant for his
attentions to a young woman. He looked down at the crumpled figure on
the bed contemptuously.
“You poor damned fool,” he said, and walked slowly toward the door.
He had not been in these upper rooms of the old barn since he
had played in them as a child, during the reign of a favourite
coachman. He glanced about for traces of the old times. There was an
old-fashioned bureau between the windows littered with Joe’s humble
toilet articles. Photographs of mighty lords of the diamond were tacked
to the walls. With his hand on the door, Wayne’s glance fell upon the
framed likeness of Jean Morley--a face younger than that he knew and
sweet with the charm of young girlhood. The eyes met his; the lips
smiled wistfully. He bent his head slightly and went out.
Joe crossed to the window and pressing his face to the cold pane
watched Wayne running swiftly toward the house. Then he drew down the
shade and snatched the picture from the wall. He gazed at it long and
earnestly, with awe and wonder and fear alight in his eyes; then he
restored it to its place with shaking hands and crept back to bed.
CHAPTER XXII
A CONFERENCE AT THE ALLEQUIPPA
On their return to the Allequippa Club Walsh and Wingfield sought a
quiet corner of the smoking-room and sat down to take account of their
adventures, Walsh with a steaming hot whiskey before him, Wingfield
with his usual glass of koumiss, which he sipped sparingly. They were
silent until Walsh’s cigar had begun to burn satisfactorily. It was he
that spoke first.
“That little Estabrook mare has good wind; I never tried her in the
snow before. There’s zip in her legs, all right.”
“It was a good idea of yours, the sleigh-ride. I wish I had your knack
of telling a horse from a goat. The beasts they always sell me wouldn’t
make good glue.”
“Um.”
A proper interval was necessary to set the mare apart from other
subjects, and they played with their glasses.
“She’s a little brittle--‘Fragile; handle with care,’” remarked Walsh
presently.
Wingfield blinked behind his glasses.
“That mare--oh, no, I see!”
“That woman up there. She’s like glass--bright, tolerably transparent,
and easily smashed.”
“I don’t know about her being so transparent. It seems to me she’s
pretty clever--a little subtle, maybe. She doesn’t seem to have been
anybody in particular, yet she landed the Colonel with an artificial
fly.”
Walsh shook his head.
“You’re in wrong. _She_ didn’t land the Colonel. She couldn’t have done
it. She wouldn’t have had the nerve. An older hand played the line and
made the cast; but she was the pretty fly, all right.”
“Well, of course I didn’t know,” replied Wingfield humbly, wondering
again at the ramifications of Walsh’s knowledge.
“Should you say she had the come-hither in her eye?”
Wingfield had spoken lightly, but he was rebuked by the unmistakable
displeasure in Walsh’s face. The old fellow shrugged his shoulders but
when he spoke there was kindness in his tone.
“She’s kind o’ pathetic to me. There’s nothing hard in her. As I said,
she’s like glass, and when that kind break it’s just get the broom and
sweep out the pieces, that’s all. But I don’t like to hear the tinkle
of broken glass. There ain’t much satisfaction in seeing human nature
topple and fall off the shelf--men or women. The strong ones, the heavy
pottery, can drop hard and roll some; clay’s coarser; but these weak
ones--it makes you sick.”
Walsh was silent for a moment, then, seeing that he had checked
Wingfield, he asked:
“How did the situation up there strike you?”
“It was proper enough--quite beautiful and domestic. I don’t suppose
Wayne ever spent a whole evening at home before in his life. How do you
explain the other woman--a sort of chaperone rung in to improve the
looks of things?”
“It doesn’t make any difference how she got there; that ain’t our
business; but I felt better when I saw her there. She’s a good girl;
she’s all right.”
Walsh’s omniscience would have annoyed Wingfield if he had not so
greatly admired it. It seemed that Walsh not only possessed much
information as to the private affairs of the Craighill family but that
his knowledge covered also the casual stranger within the Craighill
gates.
“Who’s the girl?” he ventured carelessly; and Walsh’s “Um” seemed for a
moment to have been interposed as a rebuff. But Walsh stirred his glass
slowly and replied:
“It certainly beats hell how things come around. That girl’s
grandfather is one of these old fellows that ought to have been rich
if he’d had any sense. He owned a lot of coal land around here years
ago but he swindled himself out of it in one way or another. He got
cleaned out down here and moved up into the anthracite country where
he never did any good. He’s got a claim against the Colonel on account
of a coal-mining company that the Colonel took over and merged with a
lot of other small concerns about ten years ago. He and the Colonel
were old friends, and Gregory, this Morley girl’s grandfather, thought
the Colonel so great and good that he wouldn’t do even a blind and
deaf and dumb beggar in a horse trade. The facts were that the Colonel,
being smooth on negotiation and an impressive party to send out to
make deals, was ‘used’ right along by the fellows he was in with. The
Colonel didn’t know he was doing the other fellow half the time--it was
so easy and his associates told him what to do. Gregory was practically
the sole owner of the Sand Creek property; he had worked it himself
and failed to make any money, and the Colonel offered to take it into
the combination just as a favour to an old friend. They wiped out the
old Gregory company--took over the stocks and bonds--but the Colonel
made a personal agreement with the old man, as a sort of sop, that
at the end of ten years, if coal should be mined in the property, he
should be paid a royalty. There was no contract--he wrote a letter
about it. Well, they’re working Gregory’s property all right--found a
lower vein, and it’s fine coking coal, which they mine economically
through the old workings. The Colonel is only a figurehead now in the
new corporation--his name looks good when they want anything done
at Harrisburg--see? And the real powers in the company can’t hear
Gregory--don’t know anything about the Colonel’s promises--say the
agreement was made without authority--and there you are.”
Walsh breathed heavily and lighted a fresh cigar.
“If it was a personal agreement, of course it’s no good if the Colonel
won’t see it! But we don’t expect the Colonel to do that sort of
thing--the soul of honour and all that!”
“The soul of punk and piffle!” grunted Walsh. “Mr. Wingfield, it’s
worth remembering that we’re all human beings--poor, damned, stumbling
sinners, even you and me. The Colonel’s a good man; he means well, but
he hasn’t any more influence with that corporation than the waiter who
pours soup in this club. In all these corporations Craighill’s in, they
don’t pay any attention to him except when they’ve got something that
he can do, like appearing before investigating committees and that sort
of thing. He hardly remembers that he ever knew Gregory, and his lawyer
has interpreted that agreement to mean coal mined on the property as it
existed when it was taken over--which doesn’t touch the lower vein. Do
you get the idea?”
“Didn’t the Colonel know about the lower vein? And didn’t Gregory know?”
“I doubt if Gregory knew--he dates back to the time when anybody with a
pick and coal scuttle could go into bituminous around here. He’d been a
preacher or a school-teacher or something like that, and really didn’t
know mine-run from Easter eggs.”
“So it’s not a business proposition strictly, but a matter of personal
morals--which is far more interesting. Thank you for the information.
The Colonel interests me deeply; he presents rare psychological
problems. This incident confirms one of my impressions concerning
him--that he’s not an acute person, and that he might even go far
wrong--through his vanity and conceit--and be utterly unconscious of
it.”
“Um.”
“And the girl?”
“Oh, the girl’s down here studying art. Mrs. Blair seems to have taken
her up. Just how Mrs. Craighill got hold of her I don’t know, but it
isn’t important. I could see it in Mrs. Craighill’s eye that she was
glad the girl was there. The girl and her grandfather were down to
see me the other day about the old man’s claim, but I couldn’t give
him any encouragement. An old chump like that oughtn’t to have any. I
don’t pose as a philanthropist, Mr. Wingfield, and it wouldn’t be loyal
to the Colonel, considering the long years I spent with him, to give
comfort to his enemies.”
Walsh lifted his head virtuously and lost himself in a prodigious
cloud of smoke. Wingfield, watching for a reappearance of the heavy,
inscrutable face, could have sworn that he saw a smile curl the old
man’s thin lips.
“Oh, of course! You have always been loyal to the Colonel. Nobody would
question that.”
“I couldn’t do anything for Gregory, the poor old ass, but I gave the
girl a tip to-night to tell him to go ahead.”
Wingfield, with his elbow on the table, stroked his beard. Walsh was
really the most interesting person he knew.
“Well, she’s a pretty girl, and I don’t blame you,” he remarked,
leadingly.
“All girls are pretty,” growled Walsh. “But she seemed sensible and she
has fine teeth. By the way, I’m going to take the madam out driving
to-morrow. I made a date with her to-night. You see, the Colonel won’t
be home until the next morning and--well, you don’t get a snow like
this every winter--no-siree!”
Walsh poked the lemon peel in the bottom of his glass with a spoon
while his announcement sank into Wingfield’s consciousness.
“I must say that you have your nerve! Have you ever appeared in public
with any woman since you came to town?”
“Nope; but it is time I was beginning. I like Mrs. Craighill; she’s the
wife of my old employer and I’m an old man and she’s a young woman. If
I can’t take her driving behind the best roadster in Pennsylvania I
should like to know why! Besides, if she’s driving with me she ain’t in
any mischief. I guess I’m safe!”
Their eyes met; it was perfectly clear to Wingfield that Walsh had
asked Mrs. Craighill to drive with him merely to occupy her time and to
impart to her a sense, thus delicately conveyed, of his espionage.
“She’s not stupid; she knew why I asked her to go,” said Walsh, chewing
his bit of lemon peel. “It made her hot. I was afraid for a minute that
she would blow up; but she didn’t dare. She’s afraid of me.”
Wingfield was trying a new medicated biscuit, which the Club kept for
his benefit, and Walsh took one and ate it slowly. He seemed unusually
well pleased with himself.
“What do you think Wayne will do to us?” asked Wingfield.
“Nothing; he’ll not say a word. The joke’s on him, and when he takes a
second thought he’ll be much obliged to us.”
“It was rather raw--our doing it. That Morley girl _is_ pretty, isn’t
she--something really noble about her?”
“Um! Too bad the art microbe’s in her system. She’s too good for that,”
and having disposed of Miss Morley’s ambitions, Walsh rose and shook
the trousers down on his fat legs and declared that it was time to
go to bed. Wingfield lingered at the table speculating, over a fresh
bottle of koumiss, as to the means by which Walsh had learned that Mrs.
Craighill had abandoned the Boston trip.
Above, in his own room, Walsh re-read the telegram which had brought
this information, re-read it several times, in fact, and then tore it
into many pieces which he flung into his grate fire.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE END OF A SLEIGH-RIDE
It pleased Mrs. Craighill to breakfast in her sitting room the
following morning. Wayne, finding himself deserted, drank his coffee
alone in the dining room, with the newspapers for company. His father’s
chauffeur sent word to the house that Joe was sick and Wayne ordered a
doctor summoned before going to his office.
Mrs. Craighill had spent a bad night and no very pleasant thoughts had
visited her pillow. The preceding day had been the most disagreeable of
her life. She felt herself shut in and trammelled in a thousand ways.
The snowy vesture of the urban landscape disclosed by her windows, the
renewed and purified world that lay bright in the full glare of the
winter sun, awoke no response in her heart. In her prettiest of morning
gowns she seemed to Jean Morley the loveliest and most fortunate of
beings; but to her the girl was only a reminder of yesterday’s untoward
events. Jean’s steady, grave eyes, tranquil from restful slumber and
her freshness--the glow of her skin from the bath, her appearance of
zest for the new day’s business--only irritated Mrs. Craighill as they
sat at the tiny table that had been improvised before the sitting room
fire.
One thing must be done and done quickly: Mrs. Blair must be advised
of her presence in town. She must plead illness as her excuse for not
having gone to Boston. Before the breakfast was finished she went to
the extension telephone in her bedroom and called the Blair house.
“Mrs. Blair is not at home. She went South last night with Mr. Blair.
His mother is ill in Georgia and they left in a hurry. They didn’t know
when they’d be back.”
This information, conveyed by Mrs. Blair’s maid, was only half a
relief. Here was still Jean Morley to reckon with; and it flashed upon
her at once that the girl was now essential to her. She returned to the
sitting room and concluded her breakfast. Her manner was decidedly more
friendly. When Jean rose to go she protested cordially.
“Oh, you have been very good to me! I have enjoyed this visit more than
I can tell you, Mrs. Craighill. And I am sorry to put you to so much
trouble. I was very silly yesterday and made a lot of fuss that wasn’t
at all necessary. I usually do better than that. I hope you won’t think
the worse of me for what happened.”
“You dear child, of course I shan’t,” cried Mrs. Craighill, seizing
her hands. Her spirits lifted as she saw that Jean was intent on her
own plight; that probably she had been thinking wholly of the strange
figure she had made in her flight to the club-house, and that the fact
of there being anything unusual in the presence there of another woman
and a man had not occurred to her.
“Such a thing is likely to happen to any of us,” declared Mrs.
Craighill, laughing. “And there we were--Mr. Craighill and I--just as
lost and forlorn as you were! It was so silly of us all to get lost in
the storm that I think we’d better not tell anyone about it--don’t you?”
“You may be sure I’m not proud of my part in it,” declared Jean; “but I
must send back the housekeeper’s shoes, and get my own.”
“Oh, don’t think of it!” exclaimed Mrs. Craighill, to whom, in
the new confidence established between them, a mere item of shoes
seemed the most negligible thing in the world. “I’m going to get
you to accept--please!--a pair of shoes from me--a souvenir of the
occasion--and I’ll see that the borrowed ones get back to Rosedale.”
“Well----” began Jean, taken aback by Mrs. Craighill’s animation.
“Of course these shoes must go back; and we’ll have the shop send up a
lot for you to choose from this afternoon. And now I’m going to ask a
great favour of you, Miss Morley. I don’t like being alone, and I wish
you would come and dine with me again to-night; I shall very likely
be all alone--you know my husband is in Boston, and Mr. Wayne is very
uncertain. We can have a fine, long evening together. You know I’m just
a little bit jealous that Mrs. Blair has a share in your work, and here
am I, quite on the outside!”
“I shall be very glad to come,” said Jean; “only, it will spoil me, so
much splendour! I’ll have to go down to my boarding house from school,
but I’ll come here late in the afternoon.”
“That is very dear of you. If I’m not in when you come you will be
expected; and do make yourself perfectly at home. That strange Mr.
Walsh has asked me to drive with him in the park this afternoon--he’s
a great horseman, you know, and an old friend of Mr. Craighill’s. I’m
just a little afraid of him; but he really means to be kind, don’t you
think so? He seemed very much interested in you last night--he told me
you were very nice--there!”
“He’s very interesting and very kind, I think. He and my grandfather
know each other. I’ll come, then, about five.”
Mrs. Craighill sighed heavily as she saw the girl depart; but after
all, things were not so ill. The absence of Mrs. Blair was nothing
short of providential; and Jean Morley seemed the least suspicious of
young women. Very likely, by the time Mrs. Blair returned, the girl
would have forgotten the meeting at Rosedale and what, Mrs. Craighill
asked herself, with an access of virtue built upon the cheerier mood
in which Jean had left her, what was there to awaken suspicion in any
mind? Wayne she had ceased to consider at all; his conduct had been
unpardonable, and she was well rid of him. It did not matter whether
he came home to dine or not; if he appeared she would punish him by
withdrawing early, with her guest, to whom his attentions had been so
marked, and leave him to his own devices.
Her grievance against her husband for leaving her behind, for reasons
that were in themselves an insult, hung darkly in the background. She
was aware that she never could feel the same toward him; in her heart
she had characterized him in harsh terms that repeated themselves over
and over in her mind.
She had received a brief note from him, pencilled on the train, and
a clipping from a New York paper with the programme of the Boston
meeting. He had missed her, he said, and would be glad to be home
again. (There was a little sigh, she knew, that accompanied such a
declaration as this, implying weariness of public cares and a longing
for the peace worn warriors crave at their own firesides.) The clipping
she placed on his dressing-table; the note she tossed into the fire
contemptuously.
She dressed before luncheon for the drive with Walsh, and found to her
surprise that the thought of going with him had grown less hateful.
Even if he had undertaken to watch her, it was rather interesting that
one had to be watched. Her husband had sacrificed her on the altar of
his own vanity without the slightest compunction. The dignity of life,
the fine security and chivalrous protection which she had expected to
gain by her marriage had faded into nothing.
She put on her hat and coat and waited for Walsh at her sitting room
window, and punctually at half-past two his cutter whirled smartly
into the grounds and round to the porte cochère. She took account of
his burly figure and his sturdy arms holding the taut reins over the
spirited, graceful animal he drove. His cap, drawn low on his head,
made him almost grotesque.
She was about to run down, to save him the trouble of ringing, when
the maid brought her an immediate delivery letter that had just been
left at the door. She glanced at the superscription and clutched it in
her gloved fingers for a moment before opening it, as though at truce
with bad news. It was a letter of length in a woman’s hand, loose and
scrawling as though by one distraught. Mrs. Craighill raised her veil
and read; or rather she caught at the sentences which seemed to dart at
her from the paper:
“I was never so outrageously treated in my life. The idea that my
daughter’s husband should be ashamed of me! I hope you will not
misjudge me--you have not always been just with me; but I only did
what was entirely proper. The fact that he thought I had gone abroad
after your marriage had nothing to do with it, though he seemed to
think it strange you hadn’t told him of any change of plans. It was
none of his business.... I mailed him my card and a line that I would
like to see him. I read in the papers that he was at the Broderick’s,
and your note told me that you would not be here. Why you didn’t come
I still don’t understand. I sent my card to him and waited a day.
Then on the afternoon of the second day I went to the house and asked
for him. Oh, you needn’t curl your lip; I tell you I don’t intend
to have him ignore me in that fashion. They told me he was resting,
but I wasn’t to be put off. He came down and was decent enough at
first; then said he had to be excused as he was to speak that night
and needed rest. I held him long enough to tell him that I had got
tired of waiting for an invitation to visit you and that I was coming
down right away. He said that you were free to do as you liked
about having visitors; that he supposed I was in Italy. I mildly
suggested that I was a little short of money, and he shut up like a
clam. A lady--I suppose it was _the_ Mrs. Broderick you hear so much
about--you know we saw her three years ago in Paris--passed right
through the hall and he never so much as offered to introduce me. I
expect to leave Sunday night and spend Monday in New York and be with
you Tuesday. This gives you a day or two to bring him around----”
“Mr. Walsh is waiting,” announced the maid.
She thrust the letter into a drawer of her desk and went down.
Walsh was turning the cutter in the courtyard at the rear of the house
and drove into the covered entrance as she opened the door. With a
merry jingle of bells they were off. She was relieved to find that it
was not incumbent upon her to talk. Walsh’s interest was wholly in
the mare, Estabrook stock, he informed her, whose swift, even pace he
watched with delight. When, after traversing one of the boulevards,
they swept into the park, many other horsemen, making the most of the
fine sleighing, looked twice at Walsh, who, for the first time within
man’s knowledge, was driving with a woman beside him. These horsemen
did not know Mrs. Craighill; and even the few acquaintances they passed
seemed not to recognize her. Walsh bent toward her now and then,
without taking his eyes from the mare, and shouted short sentences
which she did not always hear, but he seemed to be speaking of the
horses rather than of the persons who drove them. When other sleighs
passed, the bells crashed discordantly in her ears for a moment; then
the rhythmic, tuneless jangle from the long-striding mare floated back
upon them like an echo.
The park’s undulations, agleam in the snow, the rush of the sleighs,
the liveliness and cheer of the gay pageant, were a lure to the eye and
a stimulus to the spirit. Their runners slipped over the close-packed
snow as though the splendid mechanism of the horse might--so near they
approached flight--at any moment bear them skyward.
Once Walsh asked if she were tired, but she shook her head and they
flew on again. The freedom from responsibility as they sped on was in
itself grateful; she was even able to forget herself at times, to be
quite detached from her own thoughts.
When they reached the house, she asked him, quite perfunctorily, if he
would not stop and warm himself. Much to her surprise he said he would.
She summoned a servant but Walsh went himself to blanket and house the
mare. When he returned she was waiting for him in the library.
“I’m afraid to offer a man tea, but you can have anything you like, Mr.
Walsh.”
“Nothing, thank you, Mrs. Craighill,” he replied, rubbing his
hands briskly at the fire. She rose to the need of making talk and
complimented him upon the horse’s speed and endurance.
“There’s good blood in her; and they say blood tells. She could keep up
that lick all afternoon. She enjoyed it as much as we did.”
The excellence of the mare having been agreed upon, she felt herself
faltering upon the edge of another abyss of silence. But with only an
instant’s hesitation, in which he bent the gaze of his odd little eyes
upon her sharply, he said:
“I have no wish, Mrs. Craighill, to meddle in your private affairs, but
it is possible that I may be in a position to serve you.”
She clasped her hands tightly on her knees; her heart beat fast.
“I am sure you mean to be kind,” she said, unresponsively. His little
eyes, as she met them timorously, regarded her with something akin
to pity. The lines of his mask-like face seemed softened as by some
stirring of grace within. At his next words the blood poured into her
heart as though to burst it.
“Please believe me, Mrs. Craighill, that I speak to you with the
greatest respect, and with the best intentions. You are in distress.
You have had a message to-day that annoyed you very much. It is not
important just how I came to know it; the important thing is to save
you from any trouble.”
“I don’t understand--I don’t know what you mean,” she faltered.
“Your mother is threatening you; she has had an unpleasant encounter
with your husband, and proposes now to come here and make a scene.
Please do not be troubled, madam. If it were not in my power to help
you, you may be sure I should spare you the shock of hearing this from
me.”
“How do you know--what can you do?” came from her in whispers. Her
face was white; her tightly clasped hands were eloquent of great inner
stress.
“Please do not be troubled. I want your mind to be at rest. Your mother
may come to this town, but you will not know it; you need not see
her. If she comes she will go again very quickly. She will not”--and
he glanced about the room--“she will not honour this house with her
presence.”
He rose clumsily, and turned to leave. His manner, his voice, had
reassured her. She called to him softly as he moved toward the door,
and he paused and faced her. She walked slowly toward him, scarcely
knowing what she did, and put out her hand. Her lips quivered; tears
shone in her eyes.
“I know you are a good woman,” he said simply, and left her.
CHAPTER XXIV
JEAN ANSWERS A QUESTION
Wayne had not appeared for dinner, nor had he shown himself at all
during the evening. In the morning, however, when Mrs. Craighill and
Jean came down he was waiting for them in the library.
“Your father is coming in at nine o’clock, and I shall meet him with
the car. You and Miss Morley had better go in to breakfast now; I will
have a cup of coffee with you.”
Jean was to remain until Mrs. Craighill returned with her husband;
this had already been stipulated. Mrs. Craighill had made sure of the
girl; their evening together had afforded ample opportunity for the
strengthening of ties of amity.
She had tested Jean in her own way and found her singularly guileless.
In the quiet of Mrs. Craighill’s sitting room she had thrown open doors
that revealed the narrow vistas of a happy girlhood; and a certain
forlornness due to Jean’s identification, in Mrs. Craighill’s mind,
with wet shoes and shabby, bedraggled skirts, yielded to the charm of
the girl’s simplicity and candour. It was a revelation to Adelaide
Craighill that anyone to whom fortune had flung so few scraps could
bring so brave a spirit to the patching together of an existence. She
was herself testing the reticulated threads which events had, within a
week, woven into an inexplicable pattern.
She wore her hat to the breakfast table and watched coldly the pains
Wayne took to interest the girl beside him. It was to Jean’s credit,
however, that she seemed properly embarrassed by Wayne’s interest. She
turned often to Mrs. Craighill and laughed sparingly at Wayne’s chaff.
Wayne was conscious enough of Mrs. Craighill’s displeasure. A man who
has played the rôle of love’s adventurer and is at home in the part,
does not expect to be a hero to two women at the same table.
Wayne saw Mrs. Craighill off in the motor. She did not ask him to
accompany her or offer to carry him downtown. He returned to the table
and concluded his breakfast. Jean rose at once when he had finished and
went into the library where she sought refuge in a magazine; he took
this as notice that his presence was not necessary, but after walking
back and forth between the fire and the windows several times he sat
down near her.
“There’s something I should like to say to you.”
“Well?” and she looked up without closing the magazine.
“I never knew until last night that you were Mr. Gregory’s
granddaughter.”
He had spoken the least bit tragically and she smiled.
“Yes, he is my grandfather. I understand perfectly that I shouldn’t be
here, in your father’s house, with my grandfather feeling as he does
toward Colonel Craighill; and I’m sorry about it.”
“I’m sorry, too--sorry about that unpleasant business matter. I have
offered to settle your grandfather’s claim. I should like you to know
that I acknowledge the justice of it.”
“But it’s not the point for you to acknowledge it. It’s only partly
a money matter; there’s more to it than that--at least, that’s
grandfather’s way of looking at it. Mrs. Craighill asked me to stay
until she came up from the station and I suppose I shall have to see
your father this morning.”
“Yes; I imagined she had asked you. She did it out of compliment to me!”
The colour stole into her face. She was not so dull but that she saw
why Mrs. Craighill had kept her at the house. Jean took up her magazine
and began reading.
“Please pardon me! I should not have said that.”
She nodded slightly, without looking up. Her flushed cheeks told him
plainly enough that she had grasped the whole situation at Rosedale and
he was angry at himself for having referred to it.
“There is nothing in the world so important to me as your good
opinion,” he said, standing before her.
She closed the magazine upon her hand and looked up at him.
“This isn’t quite fair of you, is it? I am in your house, and I can’t
very well run away. Please let us not talk of you and me.”
There was no sympathy in her tone; she had spoken with quiet decision
with the obvious intention of being rid of him.
“When I met you at the concert and walked to my sister’s that evening
I thought we were understanding each other. Has anything that happened
since changed the situation as we left it that day?”
“I wish you wouldn’t! Please do not! It is very unfair and unkind. You
know perfectly well that I cannot discuss such a matter with you; and
what difference does it make one way or another?”
“I have no claim on your mercy. I cannot explain anything. I want the
right to earn your good opinion; that is what I am asking.”
“But why should you be asking? What difference does it make whether
my opinion of you is good or bad? It is absurd the way we meet. Every
meeting has been a little more unfortunate than the last--if for no
other reason than that it has been another one! It is quite possible
that I have lost your sister’s friendly interest by that walk home
from the concert. You must have seen that she didn’t like it; and
she was perfectly right not to like it. Nothing could have been more
ill-advised and foolish than our going to her house together.”
“Oh, if it’s only Fanny! Fanny understands everything perfectly.”
“That isn’t very comforting, is it?” she asked with the least tinge
of irony. She seemed more mature than he had thought her before, and
she was purposely making conversation difficult. In a few minutes his
father and Mrs. Craighill would return and he must make the most of
his time. His tone was lower as he began again, on a new tack, and she
listened with reluctant attention.
“When I met you I was well started to the bad and I had every intention
of keeping on. I was going to do a particular thing and it was vile--it
was the worst. Why is it that you are standing in the way of it? Oh,
I know you don’t understand--if you did you wouldn’t let me speak to
you; but it’s because you _don’t_ understand--it’s because you couldn’t
understand, that it’s so strange that you are blocking me. And not only
that, but here you are in this house--this house that was my mother’s,
and you bring her back to me as you sit there--just where she used to
sit. The sight of you makes all these later years of my life hideous
to me: I can’t do the thing I meant to--I see how foul it was; and I’m
saying this to you now because I’m afraid of losing you--I’m afraid of
your going away where you can’t help me any more.”
She had been obliged to read much into his strange appeal; it was
as though he turned the leaves of a book swiftly, disclosing only
half-pages, with type blurred and indecipherable. She looked at him
wonderingly; there was a cry in his last words that touched her. It had
been easy the day before to simulate feeling in his assault upon Mrs.
Craighill’s emotions at Rosedale but he had no wish to deceive this
girl. Her eyes forbade it; and it was not so long ago that the sharp
lash of her scorn had struck him in the face: “_I don’t care for your
acquaintance, Mr. Wayne Craighill._” She was saying now:
“I am glad if I have ever helped you, though I don’t in the least
understand how that could be. It is not for me to help anyone. No one
who isn’t strong can help another; we must be sure of ourselves first,
and I am weak and I have made sad mistakes; I have done harm and caused
heartache. And more than that, we belong to different worlds, you and
I. I have tried to say this to you before, but we must understand it
now. Our meetings have certainly been strange, but as I told you, I’m
not superstitious. Very likely we shall never meet again, and you will
go on your way just as though you never had seen me, and I will go
about my business--and so----”
“But if you knew I was going to the bad, and you could save me and I
asked you to help, would you feel the same way about it? Maybe the
answer is that I’m not worth saving!”
She smiled at this, but his appeal touched her. He was nearly ten years
her senior, and belonged, as she had said, to an entirely different
world, and he wanted her help and begged for it. She felt his charm and
realized the danger that lay in it, and she wished to be kind, but here
was a case where sympathy must be offered guardedly. This interview was
altogether too serious for comfort and she rose, facing him with an
entire change of manner. It seemed that she was the older now, the one
grown wise through long familiarity with the world.
[Illustration: “MEN WHO WORK WITH THEIR HANDS--THESE THINGS!”]
“I’m a busy person, Mr. Craighill; I’m working just as hard as I can
and I hope to do something pretty good one of these days, in spite of
the gloomy view I take occasionally of my prospects. Now, why don’t
you go in for something? Work, work, work! It’s the only way to be
happy. You haven’t won the right to the leisure you’re throwing away.
It’s cheating life to waste opportunities as you do. I saved just half
a dollar a week for two years to get a chance to study drawing; I
scrubbed and washed dishes in a hotel and ran a machine in a garment
factory. And you may be sure that if I have to do it I’ll go back to
the sewing-machine next summer and begin all over again without the
slightest grudge against the world. I’m not going to be a beggar; I
want to earn my right to a share in beautiful things.
“Why, Mr. Craighill,” she continued with increasing vehemence, “all
the men I have ever known have been labouring men--men who work with
their hands--these things!” In her passionate earnestness she held out
her hands as though they were part of her case for labour. “My father
was an anthracite miner, and he died at work. I’ve seen sad things in
my life. I had a little brother who was crushed to death in a breaker.
He was oiler boy, and he was so eager to get time to play at noon with
the other boys that he crawled in to do his work before the machinery
stopped and he was ground to pieces--fourteen years old, Mr. Craighill!
I can’t get over that--that he was a child and he died trying to win
time away from labour to play! I’ve seen them bring bodies of dead
men out of mines all my life--my own father was killed by a fall
of slate--but I’d rather sweep the streets, if I were you, or dig
ditches, or drive mules down in the dark than just be--well, nothing in
particular but somebody’s son with money to spend--and not the least
bit of sense about spending it!”
Wayne Craighill had been scolded, and nagged, and prayed over without
effect, but this speech was like a challenge; there was a cry of
trumpets in it. And her reference to the dead men of the pit, and the
mordant scorn of her last phrases set his blood tingling. He was aware
now that it was a sweet and precious thing to be near her: no other
voice had power to thrill like hers; no other eyes had ever searched
his soul with so deep and earnest a questioning.
“If I will labour for you--if I will work with these hands for you”--he
held them out in unconscious imitation of her own manner a moment
before, looking down at them curiously--“will you take my life, what I
can make of it, and go on to the end with me--you and I together?”
She shook her head, though with a smile on her lips.
“No! That is an impossible thing. And this idea of my helping you--I
haven’t the least bit of patience with that--not the least. You were
born free but you have wasted your freedom. If once you were to labour
with your hands--to know the toil of the men down below--you would
see life differently, and all beautiful things would mean more to you.
You are big and strong and you can be a man if you want to be. But
I’m going to do a foolish thing--the most foolish thing I could do, I
suppose--I’m going to be friends with you--just as long as you will let
it be that; and I’m saying this--I wonder if you know why?”
“You are kind, that is all I need to know.”
“I’m not in the least kind--don’t misunderstand me. But,” she smiled
brightly, confidently, “I trust you; I believe in you; and I like you.
If that suits you I’m ready to begin.”
She put out her hand with a frank gesture and her smile won him to
instant acquiescence, though there were stipulations he wished to make
as to this new relationship. He caught a glimpse of the motor bringing
his father and Mrs. Craighill from the station as it flashed past the
windows to the carriage entrance. The desire to possess, to protect,
to defend this woman set his heart singing. She did not fear him, an
evil, abhorred castaway, an ugly wreck on the shoals of time; she
had spoken to him rather as a man might have done, but his response
was to the woman heart in her. His hand trembled in her clasp, and
the wholesomeness, the sweetness, the earnestness of her own nature
kindled the hope of life in his heart. He felt a new ease, as of lifted
burdens, and a light was round about him; and well for this exalted
moment that he could not see ahead into the circling dark.
“Good-bye, Jean!” He bent down and held her hand an instant to his
cheek--the hand that had known labour!
“Good-bye, Wayne Craighill,” she replied, soberly.
A moment later he left the house by the front door, unnoticed by his
father and Mrs. Craighill, who at the same moment appeared in the side
hall.
CHAPTER XXV
COLONEL CRAIGHILL IS ANNOYED
Mrs. Craighill had seen her husband manifest anger on the night
of Wayne’s departure for Philadelphia, but she had not until this
morning found him crabbed and petulant. A night in a sleeping-car is
not conducive to serenity, but a wife has a right to expect her lord
to bring a bright countenance home from the wars. Colonel Craighill
greeted Jean with his habitual courtesy, but scarcely heeded his wife’s
explanation of the young woman’s presence in the house. He excused
himself, going to his room to retouch his sleeping-car toilet, and Jean
went directly to the Institute. Mrs. Craighill bade her come often to
see her; but the invitation lacked warmth and as Jean passed out of
the grounds through the snow-walled path she wondered much about the
Craighill household. But it was not of Mrs. Craighill or the handsome,
courteous Colonel Craighill that she thought most, but of Wayne.
She walked through the crisp morning with her head high; for she was a
woman, and it was sweet to know that she had, by his own confession,
an influence over a man; that he had asked her help and that she,
denying this, had agreed upon a middle ground on which it might be
possible to meet and know him. He was less inexplicable to her now.
Knowledge of his unpleasant reputation, gathered from newspapers and
from chance remarks of ignorant gossips, filled her no longer with
repugnance. She tried to recall, over and over again as she tramped
toward the Institute, just what she had said to him about labour, and
about her belief in it as a means of grace for him; but oftener still
she remembered how he had held her hand against his face, not kissing
it, for that would have been too much, but holding it against his
cheek--her hand that had known labour! And thinking of this she smiled
so that passers-by turned to look at the tall, dark girl, with her
lifted head and face illumined by happiness.
At the Craighill house happiness was not so legibly written on the two
faces at the breakfast table. Colonel Craighill was clearly troubled,
and the urbanity with which he asked as to his wife’s health and the
state of household affairs did not conceal the vexed undercurrent of
his thoughts.
“What has Wayne been doing?” he inquired with a directness that for a
moment disconcerted her.
“Oh, he has been in and out about as usual. I have not seen much of
him. It was lonely in the house so I asked Miss Morley to stay with me.
She’s an Art Institute student that I met at Fanny’s. Fanny has been
called South, you know, by the illness of Mr. Blair’s mother.”
“Ah! I’m very sorry to hear that. So Fanny’s not at home.”
He finished his breakfast in silence and then, after a moment’s
deliberation, began:
“I’m obliged, my dear Adelaide, to speak of a very unpleasant matter.
Your mother persisted in calling on me at the Brodericks’, very greatly
to my annoyance. I was amazed that she should be in Boston; I thought
she had gone abroad.”
She was silent, wishing him to go on; she had wondered just how he
would approach her on this subject.
“I was very greatly embarrassed, I need hardly tell you, to have her
looking me up in that way. Very likely she has written you of her call.
You may be sure that I was as courteous as possible, but her manner was
not just what I should have liked to have my wife’s mother manifest
toward me. I have rarely in my life been so pained by any occurrence.”
Some reply was necessary and Mrs. Craighill was prepared.
“I don’t quite understand the spirit that prompts you to speak to me of
my mother in this way. She is mistress of her own affairs and she does
not go abroad or do anything else merely to please me. It is necessary
for me to remember that she is my mother, even though you are anxious
to forget it.”
“But, my dear Adelaide, when the visit to the Brodericks’ was so
important from every standpoint, don’t you see in what a position it
placed me to have Mrs. Allen demanding at the door to see me? It
really spoiled what would otherwise have been a very delightful visit.”
“It was unfortunate, as you say,” she replied coldly, though her heart
beat fast with the joy of her opportunity. “It was most unfortunate
and I deeply regret it. Nothing could have been sadder than for you to
have been ashamed to take me to visit the great Brodericks and then to
have my mother tumbling in on you, creating, no doubt, an embarrassing
encounter with the servant at the sacred door.”
“Adelaide! I don’t understand you--you can’t be aware of what you are
saying!”
“I am quite aware of what you have said. You had every expectation of
taking me to Boston with you. And I had every expectation of going. But
when the Brodericks wrote and asked you to their house, wholly ignoring
me, you made it very easy for me to stay at home. The whole thing was
as plain as that coffee pot.”
“You are most unjust! I didn’t believe you capable of harbouring such
thoughts of me.”
“I had to harbour them when they sailed so boldly into port. It was all
perfectly obvious.”
“You are not only unfair to me, but to the Brodericks as well. They
had just returned after a long absence and the cards announcing our
marriage had failed to reach them.”
“And you took advantage of their ignorance to accept an invitation
for yourself without daring to suggest that there was a wife to
consider. There _wasn’t_ a wife to consider--she didn’t have to be
considered!--that’s all there is to that.”
“I explained all that to you--that night when the letter came--that
I didn’t know them well enough to suggest that they include another
guest; and that, moreover, I was invited rather impersonally, and I
thought that it was to give me a chance to meet Senator Tarleton and
have an opportunity, impossible elsewhere, to interest him in our
reform work.”
“Well, did you meet the Senator?” she asked, her arms folded on the
table and her head bent forward a trifle. She was amused to find his
anger against her mother for her invasion of the Brodericks’ diverted
to herself, and she willingly accepted the situation. Her husband was
not used to answering questions propounded in this impertinent fashion,
and his resentment increased.
“Yes; certainly the Senator was there!” he answered with asperity.
“And--Mrs. Tarleton?” she asked with an inflection that did not fail of
its intention.
“Well--yes; she was there, very greatly to my astonishment. But that
has nothing to do with this matter of my going without you; the two
cases are not comparable.”
“You mean, Roger, that the lady and I are not comparable?”
“I mean nothing of the kind! Addie, you pain me more than you can know.
I had never expected you would speak to me in the tone you are using.”
“Well, I have spoken to you in this tone because I have a right to
maintain my own dignity under this attack you make upon me. I married
you with some idea that I was to be your wife, but it seems that that
understanding was on my part only. As to my mother, just what is it you
wish me to do with her?”
He was very angry now and his voice rose from its usual calm, assured
tone.
“I want you to keep your mother away from here! She is an impossible
person! She threatens to make you a visit, merely for the purpose of
annoying me--to abuse me for not having forced her upon the Brodericks.”
“But you didn’t force her upon them; you managed very cleverly to get
rid of her without letting them know she was your mother-in-law. You
had asked her to make a visit here when you thought she was going
abroad for an indefinite stay, but now that she is on the way to your
house you ask me most inhospitably to shut the door in her face--my own
mother!”
“I ask you, after her conduct at the Brodericks’, to tell her she
cannot come here, not at this time!”
“Yes; I see; it’s to punish her for not being good.”
“She asked me for a loan of money; I had hoped to spare you that, but
you force me to tell you in my own defense.”
“Do you know,” she replied with the most delicate shading of insolence
in tone and manner, “that I had never understood before the
geographical difference between Boston and Pittsburg? It seems that
I can be your wife here, but that I am not quite equal to that lofty
station among the élite of Boston. It’s a little hard on Pittsburg,
isn’t it?”
“You are outrageous--and unreasonable! I had never understood that you
were so devoted to your mother--I had thought you superior to her;
and now you take a stand with her as against me. It grieves me to be
obliged to say to my own wife that I am disappointed in her. Bring your
mother here if you like; humiliate me in my house if you want to! I
shall have nothing more to say in the matter.”
He rose and struck the table sharply, glowering down at her.
“If that is quite all,” she said sweetly, “I will tell you something.
What you have said to me about my mother is not what I expected from
you. I know her far better than you do; and now that you have discussed
the matter so frankly on your side--how absurd that we should have
taken sides!--I will be frank, too, and tell you that one of the
reasons for which I married you was to escape from her. I thought, from
your showing of respect and affection for me, that I should find in
Colonel Craighill a champion and a friend if not quite the ideal lover.
And now at the first sign of trouble, at the first opportunity you had
to prove my confidence and faith, you not only threw me aside to avoid
showing me to your critical acquaintances, but you would wound me by
flinging at me my mother--my mother who has never been anything but
hateful to me--who would have made traffic of me and sunk me low for
her own ends.”
The last words came from her slowly; tears were in her eyes as she rose
to her full height and faced him.
“And now,” she ended, “I will say to you that my mother will not
trouble you; that she will not”--and Walsh’s words came back to her and
she felt secure and comforted as she remembered him--“she will not now,
or at any other time, honour this house with her presence.”
CHAPTER XXVI
COLONEL CRAIGHILL SCORES A POINT
Colonel Craighill reached his office in anything but an amiable state
of mind. As he disappeared into his own room and closed the door the
chief book-keeper exchanged a wink with the prettiest stenographer,
and the messenger turned up the collar of his coat to signify falling
temperature.
At his own desk Colonel Craighill scanned the summarized reports that
were so sufficient to his executive sense, but this inspection gave
him no pleasure; and his personal mail disclosed matters that did not
please him. And against all precedents the cashier entered unbidden,
bearing memoranda that deepened the annoyance that Colonel Craighill
had carried to the office. And, crowning irritation, the president of
the Hercules National Bank, in which he was a director, and the cashier
of the Greater City Trust Company called him by telephone and begged
his early attendance at their offices.
In his perturbation Colonel Craighill narrowly escaped referring his
own cashier to Walsh; and the fact that Walsh would, just at this
moment, have been a substantial reed to lean upon did not ease Colonel
Craighill’s burdens. “Ask Walsh,” had been, in old times, before the
Wayne-Craighill Mercantile Company passed into Walsh’s hands, the
commonest phrase of the office; and Walsh’s successor could not, in
the nature of things, know the inner history of the many Craighill
interests as Tom Walsh had. Several times within the past month, “Ask
Wayne” had been heard in the outer offices; and this was not more
remarkable than that, when the appeal had been made, it was found that
Wayne knew!
Wayne was busy at his desk when his father entered and closed the
door behind him. He had been checking an estimate of his father’s
liabilities and he knew that Roger Craighill owed a large sum of
money--a very large sum indeed--and in December the fog of the October
scare still lay upon the land.
“Wayne, I want to see you for a few minutes,” and Wayne started
guiltily at the sound of his father’s voice and thrust his memorandum
out of sight in a drawer.
“You may not be aware,” began Colonel Craighill, “that the general
financial conditions are serious.”
Wayne’s resentment rose on the instant, as always at these implications
that he was unacquainted with the affairs of the business world. A
sharp retort was on his lips; the morning papers had contained the
latest of his father’s reassuring statements as to the brightening
outlook, but he answered:
“Well, it’s been on for some time, hasn’t it? I thought everybody began
to get to cover last spring.”
“Things tightened up in the fall but I had expected the trouble to be
over by this time, but the pinch has grown sharper than I expected. The
conditions are very unusual but they ought to adjust themselves. My
anticipations have all been correct, though our financial mechanism is
still slightly out of adjustment in vital quarters. My own affairs are,
of course, subject to general laws like everyone else’s.”
Luck is a goddess in all our mythologies, but we credit our own wisdom
when affairs prosper. Mistakes, when we assume blame for them at all,
are at the most mere sinistral inadvertences: heavier losses we charge
to the blindfold goddess and her dice-box.
Wayne knew that his father had not come into his room to philosophize,
and he groped for light as to the real object of the interview. Colonel
Craighill took a lead pencil from Wayne’s desk and played with it
nervously. Wayne was struck by the fact that his father did not look
well to-day; his fine colour was lacking and there were dark lines
under his eyes.
“You’d never know from the newspapers that there’s anything wrong. I
thought your interview in Boston that our papers copied this morning
was quite conclusive.”
Colonel Craighill glanced at his son quickly. Wayne’s tone was
perfectly respectful and he met his father’s eyes steadily. Colonel
Craighill shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
“We must do what we can to tranquilize the public mind. I was asked to
say something in the press occasionally by a number of our strongest
men. They seemed to think I was the best person to do it”; and his eyes
brightened for a moment at the consciousness that he had been chosen as
sponsor for the city’s business interests.
“I have found it necessary to increase my collateral in several places.
I don’t quite like being required to do it; the demand comes just at
the wrong time for some of my investments. You have some stock, haven’t
you, in the Mexican Plantations Company?”
Wayne’s heart gave a big throb and he smiled.
“Oh, no; I haven’t a share--not one.”
“But I thought----”
“Oh, I did have several hundred shares, but I cleaned them out last
fall. A friend of mine, a ‘Tech’ man, who’s a mining engineer in
Mexico, was in town one day, and I asked him about that scheme and he
didn’t give me very flattering reports of it. So I sold out the first
chance I got.”
“Do you mind telling me who bought it?”
Wayne’s heart was beating rapidly. The moment for which he had
longed had arrived. He wished to play with it, to delay the complete
realization of the joy now within reach.
“Well, I had reason to think afterward that you had bought it yourself.
There was one block of a hundred shares that I sold through those
Boston brokers who handle that sort of thing, and I noticed afterward
that you were credited with that number of additional shares on the
office books.”
“You might have spoken to me before selling when it was at my
suggestion you went in. It strikes me that your selling in that way was
a reflection on my judgment in recommending it. Your conduct was not
filial.”
“You can hardly construe it that way. You recommended it in good faith;
and I saw no reason for disturbing your confidence in the company
simply because I had a hint that the greasers down there hadn’t made
the vanilla beans grow.”
“Walsh was perfectly satisfied with it; he went in when I did. In fact,
he asked me to let him go in.”
“Yes; I remember,” said Wayne. “Tom went in all right.”
Colonel Craighill moved restlessly in his chair; his anger was
mounting; it showed itself in his deepening pallor and in the trembling
of his hands and lips. Ordinarily he would not have asked Wayne whether
Walsh had sold his shares in the Plantations, but the question now
escaped him, and after he had asked it his wrath increased as Wayne
smiled a little in replying.
“I’m not very well acquainted with Walsh’s affairs, but it’s my
impression that Tom let go, too. The shares took a boost right after
we bought, you may remember, and Tom promptly sold out. I’m sorry if
it doesn’t look as well as it did,” remarked Wayne, who knew that the
engineering company which had been installing an irrigation plant
for the Plantations had suspended operations owing to the financial
stringency.
“Walsh is under no obligations to me; he was merely a useful clerk in
the office; but I don’t understand this withholding of confidence in my
own son. I don’t like it. I have been aware for some time that you were
not dealing frankly with me, that your life was apart from mine; but
this sort of trickery is going too far.”
“I don’t see where the trickery comes in. A lot of your friends were
in the thing. They’ve been going down to Mexico in private cars to
admire the prospects. I sold out because I wanted to do something else
with my money. I didn’t know I had to apologize for selling my shares.
It would only have annoyed you if I had told you I was going out.
And you speak of my lack of frankness in dealing with you. I suppose
you don’t realize that I have been a little less than the office boy
here practically since I left school. You’ve never seen fit to take
me into your confidence; I’ve been worse than an outsider, and I’ll
tell you now that I’ve resented it. You don’t have to tell me that
I’ve been a disgrace to your name; I know that. I’m a rotten bad lot;
there’s no getting away from it; you can’t say half as mean things
of me as I can say of myself. You’ve assumed that I didn’t know that
the papers you sent into me from day to day were not of the slightest
importance--chaff for the waste-paper basket; but I’ve known it. I’ve
known that it was all a good joke, my being here at all. Everybody
knows I’ve made a beast of myself getting drunk, but I suppose you
thought it naturally followed that I’m a fool, too.”
He realized at once that the shot had been badly fired, and that he had
thrown away ammunition which at a fitter season might have satisfied
his thirst for vengeance; but Colonel Craighill had grown calm under
his son’s outburst. He had a reputation for tactful negotiation.
There was something that he wished to get from his son, and while the
temptation to inveigh against Wayne’s unfilial conduct in disposing of
the Mexican securities without notice was strong, Colonel Craighill
waited a moment to mark a change of subject and when he spoke his tone
was amiable.
“I’m sorry you have so much feeling about the matter. I’m a little
surprised, that’s all, that you should have left the Mexican venture
without telling me; but it’s not of the slightest consequence. But
while we’re speaking of such things--your holdings in companies that
I’m connected with--I just heard that you’ve acquired the forty shares
of Sand Creek stock that were owned by the Moore estate. Is that
correct?”
“Yes; I have them,” and Wayne’s anger burned hot again as he remembered
the spirit in which he had acquired the shares and the chiding he had
received from his father for overdrawing his account to buy them.
“I’m going to ask you, as a special favour, to let me buy them of
you, Wayne,” Colonel Craighill went on calmly. He laughed lightly to
minimize the importance of the favour he asked. He knew perfectly how
to manage such things, for whatever he lacked in other particulars
Colonel Craighill was skilled in the arts of business diplomacy. He
created an atmosphere of amity, and Wayne was angry because he felt the
spell of it. Colonel Craighill continued as though he were in the daily
habit of exchanging courtesies with his son, to emphasize more and
more the fact that this was a favour he asked. Wayne knew that he had
blundered. If his father asked for the Sand Creek shares in this spirit
he could only save his own dignity by relinquishing them.
“You see the Hercules National people helped me finance the Sand
Creek deal, and they got their friends interested. Moore was one of
our friends and it was assumed, of course, that we’d get those shares
from his estate. I’ll go a bit further with you, Wayne. The Hercules
is carrying my paper for a large amount and they were very decent in
October when the pinch came; and until I can make a turn or two in
other directions I’m not in a position to displease them. I should take
it as a great favour if you would let me have those shares--at your own
price.”
Colonel Craighill smiled into his son’s eyes.
“Certainly, father, you shall have them at the price I paid. I’ll get
them from the vault immediately.”
A few minutes later he closed his desk with a slam and prepared to
leave. He had weakly yielded to his father’s easy, conciliatory
speech and the thought of his supineness sharpened his hatred of
his father to its keenest edge; but the blade in his hand was an
incompetent, worthless thing. He was as weak as Hamlet before the gates
of opportunity. He was out of patience with himself; he had boasted
a moment before that he was no fool, but without turning a hand his
father had tamed him to do his bidding. He felt depression seizing him;
the fierce thirst cried in his blood, and there was only one cure for
that.
The telephone tinkled and he snatched the receiver impatiently. Paddock
spoke to him from the parish house at Ironstead. Joe Denny, the
chauffeur, was there, very ill, and had asked for Wayne. The current of
his thought immediately changed; he had utterly forgotten Joe, and he
at once took the trolley for Ironstead.
CHAPTER XXVII
“I’M GOING BACK TO JOE”
“He’s in a bad way with pneumonia,” Paddock explained as he met Wayne
at the door. “He crept in here this morning before daylight with a high
fever and I put him to bed and got a nurse for him. He’s been out of
his head this afternoon and he has asked for you repeatedly. It is kind
of you to come. Miss Morley came to help with the cooking class and
she’s with him now, to relieve the nurse for an hour. Will you come up?”
Joe lay on Paddock’s own bed. The room was darkened and out of the
shadows Jean rose to meet them.
“He’s asleep now, but he has been asking for you. He said he had
something he wanted to say to you.”
“I will wait,” said Wayne.
He talked with Paddock a few minutes in the hall; there was little
question of Joe’s recovery, Paddock said, but both lungs were affected
and his temperature soared high. There were many sick in the town, and
many unemployed required help. Paddock’s smile had never been so sad
but he wore the air of a man of affairs and the joy of his work was in
his dark, homely face.
“Make yourself at home. If you can stay a little while it would please
the boy, if he should know you.”
The sick man’s harsh breathing alone disturbed the quiet of the room.
Wayne sat near the door, and it was some time before the figure on the
bed and Jean’s outline beyond, her hand resting lightly on the sick
man’s wrist, became clear to him. The ticking of a watch on the table
at Jean’s side reached Wayne fitfully; and once when she bent down to
see the time her head was caught in the lamp’s glow, and the purity of
her profile and her sweet, womanly solicitude touched him. He thought
of her rather than of the stricken man who lay between them.
Not since those dark days long ago when his mother lay ill in her
familiar chamber had he looked upon sickness. He recalled those days
now--the shielded lamp, the gloom, the silence, the waiting. And then
he recurred to his interview with Joe in the garage. That had been a
day of events, surely! And much had happened since. He experienced a
pang of guilt at his neglect of Joe, who had made the long and toilsome
journey to Ironstead to find refuge with Paddock. Life, clearly, was a
mixed business, an ill-rehearsed play, where no one knew his lines and
where the exits and entrances were all haphazard.
The sick man stirred and tossed restlessly. Jean was at once alert,
bending over him anxiously. Abruptly he began to speak, the words harsh
and indistinct, breaking from him in little moans; but the sense of
what he said as Wayne caught it was this:
“He can’t have you, Jean. He’s my friend, but he can’t take you away
from me.... He saw your picture in my room, but he doesn’t know about
us.... Don’t you be scared; I’m not goin’ to hurt you. I won’t follow
you any more.... I want to go back to the hills where we came from,
Jean. I want to see Golden Bridge and the place where we played when
we were kids. I want to see the men with black faces comin’ out of the
ground.... He’s the best friend I ever had but he can’t have you....
You go on and draw pictures of the breaker boys and the dirty Dago
babies. I’ll keep away from you.... Don’t you call strikes on me, Mr.
Umpire! I tell you my left arm’s all right. I’m pitchin’ the game of my
life; over the plate, every one of ’em. All right, give him his base:
you’re rotten, you’re rotten, I say.”
His voice died hoarsely in his throat and the room seemed quieter than
ever as he ceased. The ticking of the watch rose and fell; Jean was a
shadow, silent and vague as shadows are. Wayne had risen when Joe began
to speak, looking down upon Jean as she knelt clasping the sick man’s
hands. The nurse came softly in and heard Jean’s report of the hour.
“I will come again in the morning--or I will stay now,” said Jean.
“No; you can do nothing to-night. But to-morrow at the same hour I
should be glad to have you come again.”
“I shall be here,” said Jean.
“He will be better; he will get well,” the nurse whispered,
anticipating her question. “He is very strong and I’ve seen many worse
cases recover.”
“He didn’t know me,” said Wayne, when he was alone with Jean in the
hall.
“No--but he will be glad when they tell him afterward,” she replied,
and he saw that she had been crying.
“If you are going into town you will let me go with you--please?”
“Yes; I’m going at once,” she answered indifferently.
Below they found Paddock engaged in placing cots in the assembly room.
“Boarding house burned down and I’m going to take in a few of the boys.
You might lend a hand on these chairs, Craighill--pile ’em in the
corner--good! And you, Miss Morley, if you’ll show me what to do with
these blankets, we’ll soon have a grand dormitory.”
Cots and bedding had been brought out from town and these were opened
and distributed; Wayne, glad to be doing something, did the heaviest
lifting. Jean, moving about silently, unfolded and placed the blankets.
Some of the men to be sheltered were already coming in, receiving
Paddock’s cordial greeting as they appeared at the door.
“That will do beautifully,” beamed Paddock, surveying the lines of
cots with satisfaction. “Thank you very much. Joe will be all right.
He’s as hard as nails and a mere congestion of the lungs can’t hurt him
particularly. Good of you to come, Craighill. Sorry I can’t give you
both something to eat, but we had a fine line of hungry fellows to-day
and they cleaned me out.”
The minister stepped into the crisp white night for his last words
with them. He was not a deep searcher of souls, but this man and woman
puzzled and interested him greatly. He noted their fine height, their
vigorous, free walk; and knowing much of both their lives he was moved
to pity for them.
On the long journey into the city they spoke little. Jean was
preoccupied and Wayne was glad to be silent. What had Joe and Jean been
to each other? Whatever the relationship it had meant much to the young
man, as proved by his incoherent murmurings. Jean and Wayne had the car
to themselves much of the time, but she did not speak except to answer
his occasional questions.
“It is late; you will miss your dinner. If you will go to the house I
can telephone Mrs. Craighill to have supper ready for you.”
“Oh, no; they will give me something at the boarding house. My
grandfather is there and he will be troubled if I don’t come.”
“Mr. Gregory is here again?”
“He comes and goes. I think I ought to tell you that he is preparing to
press his claim against Colonel Craighill in that Sand Creek matter.
I have urged him not to, but he is old and ill and I sometimes think
his mind is unsettled. I ought to take him away. As long as I’m here he
has an excuse for coming. I ought to give up my work, and take him back
home--to our own home at Denbeigh.”
“It’s an unfortunate matter--the whole business. My father’s interest
in the Sand Creek Company is very small. He has nothing to do with the
management of the company.”
“That’s where the trouble comes in. It’s not the business side of it
any more; it’s the feeling grandfather has that it was a personal
matter between him and your father. He insists on looking at it that
way.”
“I think there’s a real claim. I will see what I can do with the
officers of the company. It will be no trouble whatever,” he said,
roused at the prospect of serving her.
“Please do not! I don’t think that would satisfy grandfather at all.
He wants the offer of a settlement to come from Colonel Craighill. I
appreciate your kind feeling about it, but please do nothing; it would
not help.”
A Russian woman with a shawl wrapped round her head entered the car
dragging a child of three by the hand. The little boy, planted on a
seat directly opposite Jean, fixed his great, wondering eyes upon her.
“The poor little dear,” she murmured; “I’ve been wanting just that
type, but now it doesn’t seem quite fair to try to catch him.”
She drew from the pocket of her long coat a small memorandum book and
a lead-pencil stub and began sketching. The mother stared and frowned,
not quite understanding, but Jean was all intent on the white, wistful
face opposite, and Wayne, watching her, marked her earnestness, her
complete absorption. She had snatched off her gloves in her haste
and he picked them up and unconsciously smoothed them as he watched
her hand fly over the paper. The lurching car did not trouble her;
she finished one sketch and began another, tearing the first sheet
from the pad and thrusting it into her pocket. Finally, she held this
second attempt up and inspected it, turning it so that Wayne might
see. It was his first glimpse of any of her work and he was amazed
at her cleverness; her few bold strokes had brought the sad little
face to paper; the folded baby hands were there, with pathos in their
tiny clasp. Jean thrust it away in her coat and crossed the aisle to
speak to the mother, who supplemented her scant English with smiles of
appreciation as the stranger praised her child. A little later as the
mother left the car Wayne dropped a silver dollar into the baby’s hand.
“You must always pay a model for sitting. What are you going to do with
the sketch?”
“Oh, I have use for it. Maybe you will see it again some day.”
They transferred to another line to complete the journey to Jean’s
boarding house. Wayne had expected to leave her at the door. He was
surprised when she asked him in.
“I would like to see you a moment, Mr. Craighill, if you can wait.”
She turned up the gas in a dingy parlour whose shabby upholstery
retained the vague conglomerate odours of boiled vegetables. The place
was hot and he threw open his coat but she did not ask him to sit down.
She closed the door and stood beside it, as though to emphasize the
brevity of the interview.
“I must tell you something--something you have a right to know. I ought
to have told you at your house the other morning, but I could not do
it then. It pleased me--I may as well tell you that; it can make no
difference now--I was pleased that you wanted my friendship, that you
asked me to help you. It flattered me, I suppose, but I knew at once
that it was all wrong. I had known from the first time you spoke to me
and even after we met again at the parish house, that we must not know
each other. It was all wrong, very wrong. And to-day you heard what Joe
said. He was delirious and didn’t even know who we were; but what he
said about me had a meaning. We were born in the same town--up there at
Denbeigh. His father and mine both worked in the anthracite mines; we
went to school together; I went to the high school, but Joe had to stop
and go to work. When I was eighteen we ran off and were married by a
minister in Scranton. I think he really loved me and I was fond of him,
but I had been better educated than Joe. He was a miner, but had quit
that to play baseball. He was a good player, they said, and could make
more money travelling about than by working in the mines. But it was
a mistake, our marrying, and I saw at once that it wouldn’t do. After
three months I wrote to him while he was away that I would not live
with him--that it was all ended. My grandfather got a divorce for me--I
know now that was wrong, too. Joe did nothing to prevent it; but after
I came to Pittsburg last fall I began meeting him, and he would follow
me sometimes. He had taken it hard, poor Joe! And I was anxious to go
on with my studies--that was the real trouble; and Joe didn’t know or
care about those things. He used to laugh at my pictures and say they
were very pretty; but he was never unkind to me. He was a good boy--a
clean, upright boy; and I brushed him out of my life as you would sweep
dust out of a room. It was not right--it was not right--it was not
right!”
She stood rigidly against the wall, her plain, long coat thrown open
and disclosing her simplest and cheapest of gowns. When she had spoken
to him in his father’s library of the nobility of labour it had been
with an exultance that thrilled him; she had told him this pitiful
little story in hurried whispers, dry-eyed but with uplifted head.
“I am glad you told me; but you are taking it hard now because Joe is
so ill. You have no right to accuse yourself; you and Joe are wholly
different; your marriage was a boy-and-girl affair and utterly unfit.
The law has freed you, as it should free people who make such mistakes.
You have the ambition and ability to do something in the world. Joe is
a good boy but he could never tiptoe up to you. You did only the right
thing,” Wayne ran on glibly. “Your life is your own to do with as you
like: you would have no right to throw it away or waste it.”
The unreality of a situation in which he was weighing right and wrong
for another was not lost on him; and he was fully conscious that his
words made no impression on her. She was intent with her own thoughts
and her eyes rested upon him unseeingly. She had hinted before at
reasons why they should not know each other, but he had assumed that
these were chiefly his own reputation and the divergent paths to which
they were born. But he knew now that she was a divorced woman; she had
been the wife of a coal miner, a ball player, his own servant. These
facts swept in review before him and he met them with full gaze, giving
full value to every point. She was young, and they exercised on each
other an attraction with which it might be possible to trifle; and yet
no evil thought came into his heart. She had opened the slender book
of her life to its marred page; her life, like his, had failed at the
start; but into this knowledge he read a new kinship between them.
He attempted to reason her out of her position and failed.
“It was wrong; it was a great sin,” she persisted.
Suddenly he stood at her side and seized her hands.
“Jean! Jean! You are a free woman. You mean all there is in the world
to me of purity and goodness and sweetness. I need you! I need you! And
I believe you need me. Let us begin our lives again, Jean. I will be so
good to you; I will love you so much--so much.”
But she flung open the door behind her.
“You must go,” she said, with averted head; “you must go!”
“But you are wrong; oh, you are very wrong, Jean! You care; I know you
care. I want you to belong to me,” he whispered.
“I have my own duty; I see it clearly now. I have been wicked and
selfish. I thought only of myself when I left Joe; and if he should die
now it would be my fault, my sin.”
Her distress was great and the tears coursed down her cheeks. Then she
threw up her head in the way he loved. Her lips trembled but there was
no mistaking her words.
“I’m going back to Joe; I’m going back to him.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
CLOSED DOORS
Wayne stood uncertainly on the boarding-house steps, glancing up and
down the bleak, deserted street. The night was cold and a keen wind
whipped his unbuttoned ulster round him. The woman watching him through
the blind, so near that he was within arm’s reach of her, felt the
tragedy of this hour. Her sense of responsibility for one man’s life
had prompted her confession in the ugly little parlour; but there stood
another, whose need of her was not less great. She had sent Wayne
Craighill away and she must always think of him as he stood there,
outside the threshold of her life as it was to be, blown upon by winds
of destiny. A bit of paper, whirling in the blast, was not more a thing
of chance than he.
A succession of trolleys passed as Wayne lingered, staring out upon the
street. He was hardly conscious of the conflict that raged within, the
turbulent spirit, the appetite already thwarted once to-day, uncoiling
like a serpent and demanding to be satisfied. His heart was in
rebellion against whatever gods he knew. No one in all the city was so
lone as he; but there was always the great resource. He glanced toward
the heart of the city; a car was approaching and he took a step; it
was approaching rapidly and he started to run. It stopped with a harsh
grinding of the brakes, and he put his foot on the step, then swung
round, leaving an angry conductor swearing on the platform, and walked
rapidly toward home. Jean, waiting at the window, saw and read with
relief the meaning of his changed decision.
The spirit of the storm was not fiercer than that in his own heart as
he strode away and as his blood warmed with the exercise he began to
enjoy his buffetting in the gale. He had started up the long avenue
toward the East End, widening at every step the distance between
himself and the haunts he had known in drink. The internal struggle was
less strenuous, now that his body fought the gale; and the remembrance
of Jean nestled bird-like in his heart. She was a woman, unlike any
that had ever been before in the world, and she had opened her soul to
him for a fleeting glimpse and closed the door forever.
He strode on until midnight, with the bare boughs of the trees bending
over him under the lash of the blast; and he found himself at last
quite near home, and suddenly tired and weak, for he had eaten nothing
since his slight luncheon. When he had gained the house and let himself
in he flung himself down in a chair in the hall, and sat there, too
weary to go further. The weakness of hunger was a new sensation and he
felt so strange that he wondered if he were ill, and nothing that had
happened seemed real or possible.
He became aware of a light step on the stair but in the dim light
from the single hall lamp he saw no one. A moment later the switch
clicked and Mrs. Craighill stood gazing at him as he sat in one of the
high-backed hall chairs, his ulster falling loosely round him, his hat
on the floor at his side. There was no mistaking the meaning of her
accusing glance.
“Wayne!” she cried, “what are you doing here?”
He rose and clung wavering to the chair, confirming her impression that
he was drunk.
“I’m all right, Addie. I haven’t been drinking--not a drop. Don’t make
a fuss. I’ll go up to bed in a minute. I’m a little knocked out, that’s
all.”
He shook her off impatiently as she tried to help him out of his coat.
“Please run along, Addie. I’m tired to death, and I guess I’m hungry.
I’ll get some crackers.”
Nothing would serve now but that she must find something for him to
eat; and he followed her into the dining room where she lighted the
alcohol lamp and prepared to make tea. He protested, as she came and
went with things for his luncheon, that far less would do. She moved
about softly in her slippered feet, her dressing gown fluttering about
her, while he sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his
hands, unheedful of her questions. She brought a chair and sat down
near him to tend the kettle and waited what seemed an insufferable time
for him to speak. Finally she said:
“Your father came in only a little while before I heard you. There was
a meeting of the directors of the Hercules National to-night. He seemed
very much troubled when he came home.”
Wayne lifted his head. “Yes; I suppose he is.”
“Have the business troubles affected him? He says there is no panic.”
Wayne roused himself at this and grinned.
“You might be sure father would take a sanguine view of the situation.
That’s his way. It doesn’t make any difference what you call it--a
panic or a shortage of currency or anything else--the country’s been
scared to death and the fright isn’t over yet.”
He drank his tea and ate hungrily the sandwiches she had made. The
news that his father had been at the bank until midnight interested
him; he knew that the Hercules carried his father’s paper for a very
large amount, and that it was maturing. Seeing that the mention of the
financial stringency had interested Wayne, Mrs. Craighill jumped to
the conclusion that the Craighill fortunes were in jeopardy and that
Wayne’s condition was due to the anxious state of affairs downtown.
She had believed her husband very rich and the thought that he might
experience reverses was not pleasing. She had passed an unhappy
day after her interview with her husband that morning touching the
unfortunate Boston excursion. She had spent the evening alone and,
though Wayne did not know it, she had telephoned to the Allequippa Club
and to the Penn and asked for him. She had much to tell him and as he
seemed more like himself, now that the hot tea had warmed his chilled
body, she was quite ready to prolong this interview for her own relief
and pleasure. She was charming _en neglige_ and her hair in long braids
added its note of intimacy.
“It’s nice to see you. If you won’t tell--really and truly--I’ll
confess something.”
“Well?” he scowled.
“Dear me, you’ll have to do a lot better than that, Waynie, dear.”
“Don’t call me Waynie; it makes me sick.”
“Oh,” she pouted and threw herself back in her chair.
“What is it you wanted to tell me?” he demanded.
“Nothing.”
“Then don’t make so much fuss about it. You’d better go to bed.”
“I’m comfortable right now, but I’ve been lonesome and unhappy all day.
I hoped you would come a long time ago. I kept a fine fire going for
you--really just for you--in the library, and now you’re as cross and
uninteresting as you can be. I didn’t suppose you Craighills were all
cross.”
“So father was cross was he?” asked Wayne, scowling into his cigarette
case.
“Oh, terribly cross. I tried to be polite to him and he went into his
room and slammed the door. He was very cross this morning when he came
home from Boston. He saw my mother up there.”
Wayne’s manner changed.
“That’s perfectly bully! If you have any more news like that, Addie,
you may go on and tell me. Let’s move into the library.”
He stirred the fire into life and threw on fresh wood. He was refreshed
by his luncheon and it was the curse of his temperament that he never
ignored the nearest pleasure. Addie was a pretty trifle of a woman and
it was not unpleasant to find her in a receptive mood. She crouched
beside him, so close that he could have placed his hand on her head.
“This is very cozy, isn’t it? It must be hideously cold outside. Your
father was going to take me to Bermuda for Easter, but I suppose we may
all be in the poor-house by that time.”
“Stranger things have happened. But they wouldn’t take you at the
alms-house. You are young and capable. I don’t just see you sitting on
the bench with the old ladies, knitting socks. It would not become you,
Addie. If the worst comes you would go out like a brave little woman
and support your husband.”
She flashed a frightened look at him; she had no idea that her
husband’s difficulties were serious, though she assumed he might
be temporarily embarrassed, as men often were, without finding it
necessary to change their manner of life. She remembered that the roof
over her head belonged to Wayne and she sought to reassure herself as
to the permanence of the arrangement by which Colonel Craighill had the
use of it.
“You wouldn’t let them turn me out-of-doors, would you Wayne?”
“Well, if father went broke it would hardly be up to me to carry on the
house here; it’s an expensive establishment to run. I might have to
sell it myself.”
“Yes; I suppose your interests and your father’s are identical. What
hurts him would hurt you.”
“Not at all! Our interests are anything but identical. We belong”--he
said, with an irony that was for his own satisfaction--“we belong to
different schools of finance. Father’s a plunger without knowing it;
I’m a Wayne and the Waynes were always true Scots and kept what they
had and sat on it. Father likes to be director of things, and the
things liked to have him. He’s been used a good deal as bait--that’s
what it amounts to. He’s just paid about two hundred thousand dollars
for the privilege of sitting with a lot of solemn gentlemen up at
Boston who organized a big corporation to raise bananas or grape
fruit or something in the torrid deserts of Mexico. You know father
well enough by this time to understand how that idea would appeal to
him--irrigation to water the desert and make it blossom as the rose! I
went in for a few thousand and so did Walsh; but we quit, and to-day
when I told father I had sold out he was wounded. Tom Walsh is about
the shrewdest old party there is around here. We sold out at the same
time and both made money.”
He laughed softly to himself and slapped his knee.
“If you knew your father had got into a bad thing you ought to have
told him--don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” he mocked her, still chuckling; “we ought to have told the
Colonel he had bought a dead horse--and been gently kicked for our
trouble. We know the Colonel, Tom and I. You notice that Tom bought
out the mercantile house. Tom’s wiser than a serpent; he knew it
was the best thing father had. Tom likes me. Isn’t it funny? He’s
always settled all claims for damages against me when I’ve ripped
things loose--and done it economically and quietly--never said
anything, but just asked later for my check and said ‘Um’ when I
thanked him. I caught the old rascal once giving an organ to a church
somewhere--Vermont or New Hampshire; I guess it was Vermont, come to
think of it. He was terribly bored when the bill strayed in to my desk.
It was in memory of his father and mother and he growled fiercely
because I got on to it.”
“He’s a strange man; I don’t understand him,” remarked Mrs. Craighill
carelessly.
“By the way, how did you come out with your drive with Tom? Of course
you told father you had been out riding with another man. I don’t know
just how he would have taken it; you see Tom was only a sort of clerk
in father’s office; father never knew him socially. I’ll wager you
didn’t tell the Colonel.”
“No; I didn’t tell him. He was so angry about mother having spoiled his
visit to the Brodericks’ and threatening to come here for a visit that
I couldn’t have told him if I had wanted to.”
“Ah! I suppose you’ll wire her not to come, like a good little girl.”
“No; I’ll do nothing of the kind; but she won’t come.”
Her tone caused him to look at her quickly; but she met his gaze
quietly and asked:
“How did you get on with Miss Morley after I so considerately left you
alone this morning? This has really been a very busy day, hasn’t it?”
Wayne’s heart sank at the mention of Jean. It was in this room that
very morning that heaven had seemed so near. Mrs. Craighill had
followed her inquiry with a glance to see why he ignored her question.
He had turned forward the table by which Jean had stood when he took
her hand and held it to his face. He did not answer her question but
stared dully into the fire where the events of the day mocked him in
kinetoscopic flashes. Mrs. Craighill raised herself to her knees and
brought her face close to his.
“Are you in love with her, Wayne?”
“What if I am?” he snapped, stirring uneasily and drawing slightly away
from her.
“I’d be sorry if you were in love with anyone, I think; but you musn’t
let her hurt you. I shouldn’t like that. She is too handsome for a poor
girl; I suppose I was too,” she concluded with a sigh.
She found and caressed his hand. The faint, elusive perfume of her
silken robe, the light touch of her hand, the fine precision of her
profile, the pretty red lips and heavy-lidded, smiling eyes combined to
quicken his heartbeats. She was here, quite within his reach, a wounded
bird, with bruised wings, asking shelter. The revenge he had carried in
his heart since the night he read her letter announcing her engagement
to marry his father was attainable--he knew it by all the manifold
testimonies of his senses, the response of his nature to hers. She was,
as Tom Walsh had said, fragile, like glass; and he was a veritable
weathercock, the wind’s plaything. His hand closed over hers, she drew
nearer and her head lay on his breast, and he stroked her fair, bright
hair.
“It’s good to be happy. I wish I belonged to you. If things only went
right in this world I should, and we should have dear times together.”
Her bare arm stole about his neck; the touch of it kindled his blood
like flame.
“You are tired of it?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yes,” she answered softly.
“You’ve been cheated; you paid a big price for the happiness you didn’t
get.”
“He doesn’t care the least bit. I don’t interest him. You might think
he would talk to me when he was in trouble, but he keeps as far away
as he can. But--I’m really not so bad--am I, Wayne? I’m not ugly, or
stupid, or so very foolish?”
He pressed her hand for answer.
“Don’t you think I’m as nice as Jean? She’s big and strong and
handsome--and she’s interesting--I can see how she appeals to you; but
there’s so much she doesn’t know. Don’t you believe I know more than
she does?”
His hand relaxed; she was aware that he drew away from her. He rose,
almost flinging her away.
“For God’s sake, Addie, don’t talk to me of her; don’t speak of her.”
“Oh!” It was the exclamation of a rebuked child. “Of course I didn’t
understand,” she pouted. “You seemed lonely and I was trying to be good
to you. Of course, then, she is wiser than I am. If I’d known how it
stood with you I shouldn’t have spoken of her at all.”
“She knows what you don’t know; she knows me.”
“Then she must be very wise!”
“She knows ten thousand things you never dreamed of; she has watched
them bring dead men out of the pit; she has heard grimy children crying
for their dead fathers. She knows the real things; but life to you is
only a candy box with pretty pictures on the cover.”
“This may be very interesting,” she remarked coldly, “but I’m afraid
you’re going to bore me. I don’t think I care to hear about dead men
and the pit and children crying. Good night.”
He was safe for the moment. Her reference to Jean had steadied him, but
he was not sure of himself. He felt that Jean was there by the table
where he had pressed her hand to his face; the viol-like chords of her
voice were in his ears; he saw the light of her countenance and felt
the benediction of her spirit.
Mrs. Craighill had never understood him less than in that instant when,
half turning to leave, she saw the far-away look of his eyes, the
straightening of his figure and the indifferent glance that showed his
acquiescence in her departure.
It was at this moment that the lights in the hall, which they had
turned off when they sought the library, flashed on again. Mrs.
Craighill sprang to the switch inside the library door and darkened the
room. The hall lights fell only faintly across the library threshold,
but as she peered out through the portières Mrs. Craighill saw her
husband slowly descending, clad in his dressing gown, some papers in
his hand. Her heart tore at her breast as she waited. When he reached
the hall she was quite sure that he would come into the library and
she put her hand over her mouth to stifle her frightened breathing.
But he turned toward the little coat room and she heard him at the
telephone. She was faint from fear, but Wayne caught her wrist and held
her. Colonel Craighill was dictating a message to the telegraph office;
cries for help these messages were, Wayne knew, to friends in New York
and Philadelphia, and they added testimony to the worst Wayne knew of
his father’s plight.
“Come,” Wayne whispered to the shrinking woman--“come.”
He drew her across the room and through a little-used door that
communicated with the rear of the house, to a circular stairway that
led to the upper floors, and waited until he heard the door above open
and shut softly. Then he went back to the library and saw his father
pass into the lighted area of the hall and mount the stair slowly.
The lights were snapped out from above and the house was still. Wayne
sighed deeply and sought in the dark the chair in which Jean had sat
that morning. When the light of the late winter dawn crept in grayly he
was still there, his head bowed in his arms on the table.
CHAPTER XXIX
“YOU LOVE ANOTHER MAN, JEAN”
It was two weeks later that Jean, paying her daily visit to the parish
house, found Joe sitting up in bed. The nurse was to leave the next
day, and Joe was impatient to be about again. The room had taken on a
brighter air from Joe’s convalescence. A light had been so arranged
by his bed that he could read and he had gorged himself with sporting
supplements which Paddock had collected for him. Life had begun to
interest Joe again. The philosophers of the diamond were already
speculating as to the disposition of players, great and small; strategy
boards were in session wherever “fiends” congregated, planning the
campaigns of the approaching season. Pittsburg’s chances of winning the
pennant were, even in December, a burning issue among men of apparent
sanity.
Jean drew off her coat and sat down near him. She had brought three
carnations and gave them into his hand to hold while she found a glass
for them.
“They’re nice flowers. Thank you, Jean.”
She moved about the tidy room, doing useless and unnecessary things to
satisfy her inner sense of duty. He did not know that her heart was
beating fast or that her hands trembled. She was almost as white as he
when she sat down beside him. There were many questions that he wished
to ask her, but he was not sure to what new ground of relationship his
recovery had brought them.
“I’ve given everybody a lot of trouble. Kind o’ tough turnin’ Father
Jim out of his own bed. He’s the real stuff, all right. I guess I’ll be
some time squarin’ this. He says”--he hesitated a moment and the smile
died away from his good-humoured mouth--“he--Father Jim says my boss
was out here.”
“Yes,” Jean replied. “Mr. Craighill came out here when you were sick
and sat right there beside you. He was very kind and has had things
sent out--many nice things to eat. The nurse has been giving them to
you; she didn’t know where they came from, probably.”
“How long ago did he come?” asked Joe, the apprehension showing in his
face, and she understood.
“That was when you were first sick. There was a chance that you might
never get well and you were delirious and kept talking about him and
calling for him. So Father Paddock telephoned him to come.”
“Where is he now?” Joe asked presently; and Jean met his eyes and
answered:
“I don’t know. I think he’s gone away somewhere.”
Joe shook his head weakly on the pillow.
“I guess I ought to be up and lookin’ out for him. I could always
handle him when he was bad. You better get Walsh on the job.”
“Mr. Walsh and Mr. Wingfield both understand. You needn’t trouble about
Mr. Craighill.”
“I guess Whiskers--that’s Wingfield--is all right,” remarked Joe
reflectively. “Wingfield and Walsh are good friends of the boss and I
guess they’ll look out for him. But he’s pretty fierce to handle when
he gets goin’.”
“You may be mistaken,” said Jean. “I don’t believe it’s that.”
“Well, he’s due all right. If Whiskers and Walsh are both lookin’ for
him he must be pretty bad. I say, Jean.”
“Yes, Joe.”
“You know what I did out there at Rosedale--followin’ you that way.
I guess I was sick then, and my head wasn’t right. It seemed kind o’
funny to be takin’ you a ride in _his_ machine with _him_. And the
widder, too. It was kind o’ funny, him and the widder bein’ out there.
I ain’t onto the widder but she’s a good looker all right. But the
Colonel--say, he’s frosted fruit. He ain’t got much use for me. I can
see it in his eye. But Sister Fanny--that’s Mrs. Blair--I’m strong for
her. She’s the human featherduster, all right, but she means good.
You know I never lived round rich folks till Mr. Wayne set me up as
chauffeur and moved me into the garage. Guess I might ’a’ been rich
myself if I hadn’t fell off the bus at Harrisburg and cracked my right
pipe. But say, Jean, I never tell the boss, but I can pitch with my
left arm just as good as the right. I got a new southpaw ball that
would worry the boys some if I went into the game again. But I told
Father Jim I would cut it out and hang on to chaufferin’, which ain’t
what you might think with the speed limit what it is, if he thought Mr.
Wayne needed me. You see I’m onto his curves and know how to handle
him.”
“Yes, Joe; I’m sure you have repaid him for his kindnesses to you.”
It was not easy to hear Wayne Craighill spoken of in this way. If
it had not been that she realized the depth of Joe’s fidelity and
devotion to Wayne she could not have stood it. For Joe saw in Wayne’s
lapses only the pardonable escapades of a young man of fortune whose
spectacular performances were free from the ignominy that attaches
to drunken outbreaks of the poor and obscure. Joe felt that he was
not saying the right thing; Jean’s inattention warned him to stop.
Her hands were clasped in her lap, and her lips had been shut tight
during his wandering recital. When she and Wayne had sat here in this
room with Joe between them she had resolved upon a course that would
abruptly change the channel of her life--that might blight and wreck it
irrecoverably. She had already made her purpose clear to Wayne and that
had been hard; and she had Joe to tell now and that was more difficult,
for while Wayne could understand what it meant to her, she knew that
Joe was incapable of understanding. She had brought herself by slow,
difficult steps to the high altar of duty and was ready now to make
confession and yield up her sacrifice.
“Joe, there’s something I must tell you. I’ve been waiting to tell you
until you were well enough to hear.”
“I’m all right, Jean; go ahead,” he said, turning so that he might see
her better.
“You know, Joe, that when I left you it was because I felt that we
had made a mistake, and that we could never be happy together. I was
honest about it; I felt that it would be a great sin for us to go on
living together when I found I didn’t care. I was young and so were you
and we had never thought about life seriously. You were the nicest,
manliest boy in our town, and you thought I was the nicest girl, so we
ran off and got married. It wasn’t necessary to run away, but it seemed
romantic and it was childish, like all the rest of it.”
“We were kids, all right,” murmured Joe.
“But when it was done and we were married I saw how serious it was and
I saw the mistake, too. Just to live on with you, and to work for you
while you were working for me and to go on that way till we died--I saw
right away, Joe, that wouldn’t do. And there was the fear of children
coming--you know what the children of the poor in mining towns are
like, and the thought of that was a terror to me, Joe. I don’t think
you ever understood how I felt about that. And more than anything else
I realized that I wanted to go on with my work--that it meant more to
me than you did, Joe. I’m speaking of these things because it’s only
square to myself that I should go over them for a minute. You were as
kind as could be; you cared--cared as I did not and could not.”
“Oh, I know that, Jean--I know it. But let’s not talk about it--it’s no
use talking about it.”
“We must talk of it--or I must, and I want to do it now. You never
did one thing that was not right. You were a good, clean, honest boy
and you would never have done anything to hurt me. It was I who hurt
you. You were generous and kind and I was selfish and hard. I saw
only my own happiness and the chance of doing something in the world
for myself. And I put you away from me as though you had done me some
great wrong--or as though you had been a bit of ribbon I didn’t want
any more. A woman has no right to treat a man that way when he has
never harmed her or done any dishonourable thing--when he is kind and
gentle as you were. It seems a long time ago that it all happened, and
I supposed you didn’t care any more. But after I came here and began
seeing you again I saw that you had not forgotten and that it hurt you
deeply. I suppose I never felt quite right about it. It felt like a
fraud on people who thought I had never been married, but I told the
friends I made here--Mrs. Blair and Mr. Paddock. I suppose that in my
heart I knew all the time that I had done wrong. I had set myself up as
better than you were, and I had broken my oath to you; the law could
never make that right, but I never understood it until that evening I
came here first and saw you sick, and other people taking care of you.”
The old ache had come into his heart. It had never hurt him so much as
now and in his weakness the tears stole down his cheeks, but he shook
his head wearily on the pillow.
“It’s all over; I’m sorry I bothered you and that I ran after you that
day in the snow-storm, but I guess I wasn’t quite right in my head
then. It was this sickness coming on. But it’s all done, and you don’t
need to trouble about it, Jean.”
“But, Joe,” and she bent nearer and took his hand, his big battered
hand, with his fingers twisted and bent by mine labour and the
punishment of the ball field; caressed it and went on in the same low
tone with which she had begun. “It isn’t over, Joe. I’ve talked to Mr.
Paddock about that. He says the court’s making me free and giving me my
name again doesn’t really count. You know how good and kind and gentle
he is, but he was very firm about that. He said I had sacrificed my
duty to my ambition--that was the way he put it--and now, Joe----”
And this was the hardest thing for her to say; it was bending her neck
again to the yoke from which she had been free; and there was a pain
in her heart that was not for herself but for him, for he had been the
sufferer; it was he that had cared. But she knew, as she believed
he could not, how impossible it would be for them to find the lost
path in which they had begun to walk together. He would take what she
offered without knowing at how great a cost she gave it, and her mind
leaped on at a bound across the long years before them to the end of
their lives. She saw her hopes for her work crumble into dust, and
the world of beauty which the dawning consciousness of her powers had
illumined before her, the joy of success, the stimulus of applause, the
acquaintance of people who would appreciate her skill--all these things
she would sweep away by a word and forget that they had ever been her
dreams or that life had ever held anything better for her than being
Joe’s wife, and living on with him, and eating the bread won for her by
the hand that lay there in hers. Suddenly, before she could finish and
tell him she would go back to him and renew the broken tie, she felt
his clasp tighten and she took it that he understood and that this was
his acceptance of what she meant to offer. She did not look into his
eyes at once and she hoped he would not speak, for anything he could
say would only cause her pain.
“Jean.”
“Yes,” she said bravely.
“It’s no good, Jean. I can’t let you do that; we quit, and if that was
wrong we can’t fix it now. You don’t need to feel sorry for me. I’ll
be out o’ here and all right pretty soon. And I ain’t goin’ to drag
you down. You talk about doin’ me a wrong, but that’s no reason why I
should do you a bigger one. We meant well when we started out, but it
would never have been any good. Don’t you feel sorry about it--it’s all
right, Jean. It’s like the good girl you are to offer to take me back,
but it’s all done and over. I want you to be happy and go on with your
work; but I’m not goin’ to be a dead weight on you. We ain’t for each
other, Jean.”
He dropped her hand, as though the matter were concluded; but what he
had said was not a release, it only sent her back to the beginning of
her task.
“You love me, don’t you, Joe--just as you always did?”
He turned his head away and did not answer.
“And if you do, I owe it to you to go back to you. I had no right to
throw your love away after I had taken it and pledged you mine. The
only way I can make it right--the only thing there is to do--is for me
to come back.”
He was silent a long time and when he turned toward her he asked slowly:
“Do you love me--do you care for me, Jean, even a little bit, as you
did when we were married?”
In the long silence that followed she did not see the tears that
brightened his eyes; but he drew himself up slowly, drawing the pillow
under his arm for support.
“You don’t care any more, Jean. You didn’t care when you left me and
got the divorce; and you don’t care now. But that’s like all the rest;
it’s past and over. Maybe sometime I won’t care any more either. You
love another man, Jean, and that’s all right, too. He’s my friend and
he’s been kinder to me than anybody else ever was. He needs you--I
guess you know that. And it’s all right, Jean, it’s all right.”
The mention of Wayne had filled her heart with wild tumult, and she
made no reply. Joe knew the truth: that she did not care for him, and
that if she had ever cared greatly she would not have left him. She
could not lie to him; for duty cloaked in deceit would be only false
and ignoble.
The nurse came in, ending the interview. On her way out Jean asked for
Paddock, but he was in the city. So she went back to her boarding house
with a troubled heart.
CHAPTER XXX
THE HOUSE OF PEACE
Wingfield, Walsh and Paddock sat in melancholy council in Walsh’s glass
box of an office. The Blotter had been at it again. Wingfield had
suggested bringing Paddock into the matter, though Walsh had demurred
that it was hardly decent to use a preacher as a policeman. It was
Walsh’s idea that Wayne--who had used his motor car as a battering ram
against the austere walls of the county jail--should be dispatched to a
sanatorium for treatment. Paddock shook his head.
“Please--not yet!” begged the minister.
“But you’ve got to come to it sooner or later. It’s a disease in that
boy and we may as well handle it on that basis.”
Wingfield, who had consulted several medical friends as to the
treatment of dipsomania, confirmed and supported Walsh. Paddock smiled
sadly.
“I happen to know that he had been tried a good deal of late. He
has had a staggering blow or two. He had been straight for several
months--made a new record. And he ran against a very serious
proposition that was too much for him.”
“What’s that?” demanded Walsh bluntly.
“He told me last fall that he had decided to go to hell--in just those
words--he’s disappointed; he’s found out that it’s not so easy as he
thought.”
“Um,” grunted Walsh, feeling in his pocket for a cigar to chew.
“I mean,” said Paddock, “that he’s too much of a man for the devil to
handle. There’s real manhood in Wayne Craighill; he would be lonesome
in hell. And besides, the road downward isn’t so easy as it looks.
Please understand me, gentlemen, I’m not talking religion; I’m merely
stating the plain truth from my own observation and experience. I had
the same idea once myself. I’m not proud of it and mention it only to
illuminate my point. I used to get most beastly and hideously drunk, so
I don’t take a purely academic view of such cases, but where there’s
any manhood left in a fellow he can’t be as wicked as he wants to be.
I’ve had my eye on Wayne all winter. Good influences have touched him.
But with the good came unhappiness and he saw no way out but the red
door that pushes in on greased hinges. He’s like a child. When he can’t
get what he wants he vents his rage by getting drunk and trying to tear
the town to pieces. He will profit by a brief rustication in a safe
place where no one will bother him and where he won’t feel the shame of
being hustled into a drunkard’s cure somewhere. We can always fall back
on the doctors. Let’s send him to a place I know over here in Virginia
where they’re practising a new idea in just such cases----”
“Hypnotism, psychotherapy--what is it?” asked Wingfield.
“Bless you, no! It’s the idea I’ve already suggested, which was
developed by a friend of mine in the ministry, that no man can be
as base as he wants to be--an attack on sin on the score of its
futility. Wayne had begun to catch glimpses of that a little while
ago. He thought he saw a straight road right down to the bottom, but
he was surprised to find that it wasn’t such clear sailing after
all. Something happened very unexpectedly to make him pause; then he
couldn’t get what he wanted so he decided it was all off again and
he’s been drunk and disorderly. Now if you’ll let me have him for a
couple of weeks, I’ll see if we can’t give him a new idea or two, and
when you’ve interrupted the downward course several times--a score
if necessary--he’ll begin to understand that we don’t really fashion
our own lives at all. As I said before, we can’t be as wicked as we’d
like to be--assuming, of course, that we are not utterly depraved and
abandoned and that there’s still something left to nail to. All this
isn’t my idea--Paul Stoddard suggested it.”
“Stoddard--the Protestant monk,” remarked Wingfield doubtfully.
“Not in the mediæval sense, however,” replied Paddock. “He’s an
original, up-to-date monk. He takes cases that everybody else has given
up--and he has no failures.”
“Um. If you think praying over Wayne Craighill will cure him of
drunkenness you can do it,” growled Walsh, who had with difficulty
rescued Wayne from the clutches of the police only the night before.
“I’d rather try some other kind of medicine.”
“You needn’t be afraid of Stoddard. He won’t pray over Wayne or scold
him or preach to him.”
“You spoke of some hard blow Wayne had recently. Was it a woman?” asked
Wingfield.
“Yes,” the clergyman answered.
“What was the matter with her?” growled Walsh resentfully.
“I suppose it was my fault,” Paddock answered. “She is a fine
woman--but she wasn’t quite free, as we look at it in the Church.”
“And of course the Church couldn’t sacrifice itself,” Walsh grumbled.
“It wasn’t as easy as that, Mr. Walsh. There were three people to
consider, leaving the Church out entirely.”
“Well, I’m for trying the monastery,” said Wingfield. “It can do no
harm, and he may resume operations while we sit here talking about it.”
“Mr. Paddock,” began Walsh, as his visitors rose, “do I understand you
to say that a man can’t go to the bad if he works hard enough at it?”
Walsh frowned so fiercely that Paddock laughed.
“Oh, not so broad as that! But there are good influences at work in the
world--you see evidences of them all around--and they are increasing
all the time. And they make things harder for the ambitious sinner;
he’s engaged in a sort of obstacle race.”
“Um,” was Walsh’s only comment. He threw up the window of his cage
that looked upon the wintry street and watched Wingfield and the
clergyman picking their way cautiously through a battery of noisy
trucks. The porters and clerks saw his bald pate hanging ominously
above them in the crisp air, but the window closed with a bang without
the usual malediction. Walsh growled to himself for a while and then,
seeking an outlet for his emotions, summoned a frightened little
stenographer whom he had threatened with dismissal that morning and
raised her wages two dollars a week.
* * * * *
Wayne Craighill followed Paddock from the train at a station high in
the Virginia hills. The poison had been steamed out of him, but his
mind was still dull from its latest punishment. He had been glad in
the first hours of his reaction to have Paddock’s sympathy and he had
agreed to leave town with the minister without quite comprehending
where they were going.
A buckboard was waiting and they were soon off, threading their way
through the snowy hills. Wayne stared ahead indifferently, and when
they reached a lonely stone house, perched high on a rough crag, he
accepted this as their destination unquestioningly. And so he came to
the house of the Brothers of Bethlehem.
Stoddard himself flung the door open--a tall man of thirty-five, alert,
quick of movement and ready of speech. It was, it seemed, the most
natural thing in the world that Wayne Craighill should be there--no
questions asked, no discussion of the reasons for his coming, no time
fixed for his departure, no laying down of rules.
“We want you to make yourself perfectly at home, Mr. Craighill. The
walks are fairly well cleared in the neighbourhood and the air is the
finest on earth. We call this the House of Peace--no newspapers, mail
once a week, and telegrams are almost unknown. We have the place for
ourselves and our friends to rest in. You will find a schedule of the
day’s events in your room but don’t let the religious offices disturb
you. They go on all the time and it is not in the least necessary for
you to attend them. Please be free to do as you like. You and Paddock
are St. John’s boys--I’m one, too--five years ahead of you, though.”
He led the way to a small bedroom on the second floor, whose windows
framed at the moment the ruddy winter sunset. The room was severely
simple, its woodwork white and scrupulously clean, the furniture
limited to essentials.
“The best thing about the room is the view,” observed Stoddard and in
a moment he had gone, for it was the hour of vespers and the brothers
were already assembling in the little chapel below.
Wayne turned gloomily from the window.
“Stung! Kidnapped and smuggled into a monastery! Well, Jimmy Paddock,
you have your nerve! It’s all right with me, but how about that big
fellow--what is he, the abbot?--if he knew what an outlaw had got into
his joint he’d probably drop me into the valley down there. Are you
going to leave me here alone with nothing to do but say my prayers?”
“Sorry I’ve got to go, but I’m off to-night.”
“So you’ve brought me here to lose me! How long am I in for?”
“You can leave any time you want to and you can do as you please while
you’re here, just as Stoddard told you.”
“Thank you,” mocked Wayne. “I’m going to fool you by staying.”
The novelty of his situation, the strangeness of the life of a
religious house, and the quiet good fellowship of the men who gathered
at the common table of the refectory, clad in their brown robes,
interested Wayne in spite of himself. The brothers were all young
graduates of American colleges, vigorous, manly fellows, who did not
discuss religion to-night, but social and political questions just then
before the world. Stoddard asked Paddock for an account of his own work
at Ironstead and the minister described the general social conditions
of Pittsburg, throwing out questions to bring Wayne into the talk.
Wayne’s presence was accepted as a matter of course; no particular
importance attached to him as a guest, and he had not for a long time
felt so wholly at ease as among these young priests, whose aims were
utterly different from any idea he had ever entertained of religious
work. There were only ten of them and they had assembled for a period
of rest and discussion with their leader before separating to continue
their work in various parts of the country immediately after Christmas.
One of the brothers who particularly attracted Wayne had been a sailor.
He had spent his summers sailing in coastwise ships to earn his way
through college. Another had been a ranchman in Colorado and was to
leave shortly for work in Montana. At the end of the meal as at the
beginning they stood in their places and recited prayers, making the
sign of the cross. All but Stoddard, the Superior, went about their
affairs at once. He asked his guests into the library, a comfortable
lounging room where they continued the talk of the table until a
brother appeared to carry Paddock to the station.
Wayne rode down with them, returning to what seemed to be a deserted
house; but as he stood uncertainly in the hall he heard from the little
oratory the deep voice of Stoddard reciting compline. He went to the
door and peered in upon the brothers at prayer. The room was quite dark
and there were no lights for this service on the tiny altar. Stoddard’s
voice boomed through the little chapel; the kneeling priests in the
rough choir stalls responded in the antiphonals with deep, hearty
voices. There was nothing spectacular or theatrical in the scene; the
setting was too bare for this; and these men, Wayne reflected, were
seriously commending their souls to the mercy and protection of a God
in whom he did not believe. He went out into the night and followed the
rough road that climbed farther into the mountains, pausing now and
then, where breaks in the woodland offered clear, moonlit vistas, to
gaze across the valley to the hills beyond.
In the depression following his latest plunge into the depths, while
his head ached and his hands shook, a dark thought had crossed his
mind and it came back upon him now. A slip on the edge of one of these
iron crags and he would crash into oblivion, and that would be the end
of his troubles. If Paddock had lodged him here with the idea that he
might be won to a belief in religion he had made a stupid blunder. The
religion of emotion might in certain circumstances have appealed to
Wayne Craighill, but the religion of service as practised by Stoddard
and Paddock struck him as vain and futile.
The road followed a sharp defile and the sheer depths below invited
him. It would be quite decent of him to free the world of his wretched
self, that had given him no joy and that had become a byword and a
hissing wherever his name was known. He wondered why he had delayed so
long. Life was a prison-house and the labour was hard; below, there
in the snowy ravine, lay peace. He stopped abruptly by a clump of
cedars, clutched them and bent over to scan the depths. He could see
no bottom, and the place was so lone that they might not find him when
it was over. He felt that he had never before been so wholly master
of himself, and the thought steadied him; if he had ever been sane
it was now, when he was about to take French leave of a dreary and
unprofitable world. The moon looked down upon him coldly; the snow-clad
hills were indifferent; the wind lay still, waiting for this life to
slip away like a pebble into the gorge. The place was fitting; he chose
his spot and made ready for the leap.
Steps sounded behind him as of someone walking, but whoever came moved
deliberately along the shoulder of the hill toward the top. There was
no reason for delaying; ample time remained in which to step into the
gorge and be done with it. Wayne clung stubbornly to the slippery edge;
but the moments passed. The tall figure of Stoddard, the priest, drew
nearer, his head bowed and his arms folded under a long cloak. His
shovel hat gave a bizarre note to his costume. He gained the crown of
the ridge and lifted his head.
“Ah, you came out to watch the moon to bed! That, Mr. Craighill, is my
own privilege.”
Wayne stood doggedly by the ravine edge. It was on his lips to berate
the priest for appearing at this crucial moment, and Stoddard’s calm
manner angered him.
“This is the best view possible anywhere about here,” the priest
continued. “You have an eye for landscape, but the wind is rising; let
us walk on into the wood and get away from it.”
“Father Stoddard, you have done me an injury. If I had not heard your
step when I did I should be lying at the bottom of the gap.”
The reaction had been sudden and he was all unstrung. His voice was
strange in his own ears.
“Oh! You had intended doing that? I really can’t believe it.”
“You might as well believe it; it is quite true,” persisted Wayne,
irritably.
“Those things do occur to all of us sometimes,” replied the priest
calmly. “But in your own case it is quite impossible. I advise you to
dismiss the matter from your mind.”
“I tell you I was going to do it; a second more and I should have been
a dead man.”
The priest readjusted his cloak, throwing an end over his shoulder.
“Well, why don’t you go ahead?” he remarked carelessly. “I give you my
word I shall never mention it. But see--you haven’t the will to do it.
You yielded yourself for a moment to the absurd hallucination that your
life was a complete and finished thing, but it is not; I take it upon
myself, my dear Craighill, to say that it is not. There are many rough
edges; the design is incomplete. You will have to wait a little, my
friend. The will of God has not had its divine way with you yet.”
“The will of God!” cried Wayne, hardly knowing in his anger that he was
following the priest away from the precipice; “do you think I believe
any of that rot?”
“Then,” the tall priest replied, speaking brusquely, as was his way,
“we will say the way of the devil, if that pleases your humour better.
The devil, then, hasn’t made a very good job of you yet. He has his
sense of artistic completeness, and he can hardly look upon you as one
of his _chefs d’œuvre_. Even the devil requires time. It doesn’t strike
me off-hand, from my observation of his patterns, that he’s made much
headway with you. He would undoubtedly accomplish more in time; but you
are not ready for his collection yet. Let’s continue our walk. We must
have a good many ideas in common. In your day at St. John’s did they
afflict you with roast veal every Thursday? They did in my time and it
was always a trial to me. I remember----”
A light way, indeed, to treat the heroic impulse of a man ready, a
moment before, to plunge into the dark; but Paul Stoddard was not
without his wisdom.
He wrote a note to Paddock that night in which he said: “Craighill is a
good fellow and there is hope for him. He is a man in search of his own
soul and he will find it in time. Pray for him.”
* * * * *
The days passed. At the end of a week Wayne expected to leave; but the
freedom and peace were sweet. He was enjoying a luxury of unhappiness.
Christmas came, but it brought him no joy, only unhappy memories.
He kept clear of the oratory, where the recitation of offices was
interminable. The priests were happy souls to be able to believe in
such things! Brother Azarius, the sailor, asked him to walk to the
village for the mail after the midday meal, which was amplified into
a feast by gifts from the farmers of the valley. A novel Christmas
this, for Wayne Craighill, dining with priests in a mountain monastery,
but they were cheerful, wholesome fellows and he liked their talk,
which was utterly unaffected and interesting. He set out with Brother
Azarius for the village in the valley soon after dinner. When the
mail-bag was handed out at the general store Wayne felt a pang of
homesickness--his first--at beholding this tie between the quiet hills
and the throbbing world below. He had sent no message of any kind to
Fanny, who had always included him in the Christmas celebrations at
her house; she was still South when he left and unless Wingfield had
told her, she did not know his whereabouts. He wrote a telegram in the
railway station wishing her and her household a merry Christmas. “Don’t
trouble about me; I am perfectly well.”
He began a message to his father, paused uncertainly when he had
written the address, and tore it up, the old resentment on fire again.
He left the station but paused in the highway and went back. “Best
wishes for a happy Christmas,” he wrote to Jean at her boarding-house
address. He could not for the life of him add a word to this, though
he wasted half a dozen blanks in futile trials, while Brother Azarius
tramped up and down the station platform. Poor Wayne! Too bad life
isn’t all spelled out in the nursery picture books that we might know
the worst at the beginning and be done with it! It was well that
Brother Azarius had that capital story of his shipwreck off Martinique
up his sleeve for emergencies like this or Wayne might have found the
memory of Jean’s hand on his cheek too much for him--that dear, brave
hand that had known labour!
The brothers cut their own fuel and the next morning he found an axe
and plunged into the snowy wood. The priests had scattered widely and
only two remained at the house. Stoddard had gone West to be absent a
month, but Wayne was beginning to enjoy his security and isolation.
By noon he had blistered his hands, but he kept manfully at work. In a
few days he had developed skill and viewed the increase in his daily
product with satisfaction. His bodily health had never been so good. At
times he was almost happy and went whistling about his work. This was
what Jean had told him to do: find labour with his hands. And all these
days Jean was never out of his thoughts, never out of his heart.
So the weeks passed and Wayne lingered at the House of Peace, taking
long walks over the hills; talking with the brothers, whose circle
changed frequently; felling trees in the snowy wood, and performing
such other manual labour as offered. He saw the earliest vanguard of
spring steal into the hills, resisted, flung back, but camping at last
on the summits, smiling conquerors. He watched the swelling buds and
bore proudly home the first furtive arbutus. His blood was purified,
his spirit lightened in the lustral air. He read much, sending away for
books and periodicals; he wrote letters to Jean and tore them up; he
brooded, pondered, wondered, and walked the ridges with the stars.
One evening, near the end of April, Stoddard, who had just returned
after a long absence, came into his room.
“I’m sorry, Craighill, but your time is up. You must go home to-morrow.”
“But I’m not ready to leave yet! If you’ll let me go on chopping wood
and carrying water I’d like to stay. I’m a failure down below there--I
don’t want to go back; I can’t go back.”
“That is good; I’m glad you feel that way about it.”
“I can’t lie to you: I don’t believe in God. You’ve done a good deal
for me and I see things better; but I’m likely to stumble and fall
again the day I leave here.”
“That is quite likely, as you say,” said the priest. “There may be some
further struggles and difficulties; your old friend the devil isn’t so
easily shaken off; he has the pride of his craftsmanship, as I told you
the night you came. There are some men who, if they asked to be allowed
to remain here permanently to escape the dangers and temptations of
the world, I should not refuse. I should feel that way in the case of
weaklings, failures or cowards; but you are different, Craighill. You
do not fall within these classifications. The House of Peace is not for
you; you’ve got to go back into the world to wrestle with it, to get
under the devil’s heels perhaps, but to find your feet finally and in
time to become a man, honoured, respected and loved by men. I am not
a prophet, and have no knowledge of your future that I don’t read in
yourself; but I am not alone in my feeling about you. These members of
the Brotherhood see and feel it and they are, you may say, experts
in cases like yours. Without trying, you have made them like you. We
are all your friends. You don’t believe in God--the God we preach--and
I’m not going to discuss that with you. It is barely possible that you
are incapable of belief; but those things are a good deal a matter of
phrases and words. No two men of our brotherhood have exactly the same
idea of the person of God. No two souls are just alike any more than
the eyes of two persons respond to the same test. When I read I am
obliged to use a pair of glasses which would probably blind you utterly
and it would be absurd for me to force you to use them. And it is
equally far from my intention to force my religious ideas upon you.”
Wayne was silent for what seemed a long time, for he was half-ashamed
of the question he wished to ask.
“How did it happen that you found me that first night when I was
actually at the point of tumbling over the cliff out yonder?”
“My dear Craighill, I wish you wouldn’t ask me hard questions like
that,” laughed the big priest. “You may call that chance, if you
please. I did not follow you by intention, or know as a matter of fact
that you had gone in that direction.” Stoddard was silent for a moment;
then he laughed happily. “You don’t believe in my God, you tell me,
but, my dear fellow, I believe in yours!”
Wayne’s hand shook as he drew it across his face.
“Don’t send me away from here,” he pleaded huskily.
“This isn’t the place for you, my brother, my friend. The world isn’t
wholly bad--not by any means--you must go back to it,” said Stoddard
kindly. “If you feel at any time that I can help you, send for me; the
doors of this house are open to you day and night. We are often widely
scattered--only one brother remains here always and you can come at any
time without notice. But to-morrow you must go back and take your place
in the ranks of the fighting men.”
The priest rose. For a moment he rested his hands lightly on Wayne’s
shoulders.
“Good night. God bless you, Wayne Craighill.”
* * * * *
Wayne returned immediately to Pittsburg and to his father’s house.
Mrs. Blair, to whom he reported promptly by telephone, greeted him
in her usual excited fashion, but, having been charged by Wingfield,
through her husband, not to force Wayne to discuss his banishment, she
was obliged to forego the pleasure of acquainting herself with her
brother’s experience of the monastic life. His Christmas gifts from
her house were still piled on his dressing-table where he found also
the haberdashery his father always bestowed upon him; and there was a
book inscribed “Addie to Wayne, Christmas, 1907.” His father greeted
him with that urbane tolerance with which Wayne had long been familiar.
The prodigal’s place at the table was waiting, and no painful questions
were asked as to the cause of his absence. Mrs. Craighill showed her
brightest face, and no chance visitor would have known that the son
of the house had last appeared in it on the eve of a prolonged spree.
There was no exchange of confidences, no confessions, no exhortations
behind closed doors. Colonel Craighill talked of social affairs and of
the events of the new year, and Wayne added a word now and then when
Addie’s eyes beseeched his. He was sorry for Addie, who did not know
or care what progress was making in disarmament or whether the African
slave traffic had really been abolished.
The ways that had known Wayne knew him again. He returned to the
office, where little had changed; he met Wingfield at the Club and
learned all the gossip of the city. Walsh, in his glass cage, discussed
the profits of the mercantile company, and brought Wayne to date as to
the financial situation, over which he growled characteristically. He
answered Wayne’s questions as to Colonel Craighill’s affairs guardedly,
but from his manner Wayne assumed the worst. Walsh was reluctant to
discuss these matters, but he proposed, in his usual blunt fashion,
that Wayne join him in the management of the mercantile company.
“I’ve got too much to do down here. You can name your own salary, and
create your own job. We can double the territory we work now and it
would be a big help to me to have you. You’ve got your oats sowed now
and when I curl up with apoplexy some day you will be ready to continue
the business at the old stand.”
Wayne, touched by the old fellow’s generosity, asked a day or two to
think it over.
From Paddock, who called on him at the Craighill offices, Wayne learned
that Joe had recovered and had found employment with a sporting goods
house; but he asked no questions and Jean’s name was not spoken.
It was finally agreed that on the first of May Wayne should assume an
active part in the management of the mercantile company; but Wayne’s
life was not so easily to be brought to tranquil waters, as we shall
see.
CHAPTER XXXI
WAYNE SEES JEAN AGAIN
Richardson, the distinguished editor of that admirable magazine,
the _Hemisphere_, was a guest of the Allequippa Club, and Wingfield
exercised the right of an old friend to demand the reason for his
descent upon Pittsburg. The editor led the way to his room and produced
a portfolio of pen and ink and water-colour sketches of children. These
he disposed about his room and invited Wingfield’s admiration. There
was undoubtedly genius in the things; the key of pathos and humour was
struck with a true, firm touch. Most interesting of all, there were
babies--a group of them--types of half a dozen races.
“We cried over that bunch at the office. We don’t find the real thing
every day and when it comes it’s always out of the dark. It’s a woman
and she lives here. I suppose you never by any chance heard of her.”
Wingfield had already taken off his glasses to read the name scrawled
at the bottom of one of the drawings--a newsboy with an infectious grin
on his face.
“Jean Morley,” Wingfield read aloud. “Oh, certainly I know her. It’s
really most remarkable that you should have recognized her talent.
I suppose you have come here to offer her a dollar apiece for her
sketches--I advise you not to lay yourself open to the humiliation of
her scornful rejection of your offer. The girl is wonderful--wonderful!
Anything less than a thousand dollars for what you have here would be
preposterous; I would give her more myself and hold the drawings as an
investment. And I happen to know that _This Busy World_ has already
offered to make a contract with her covering a term of years,” he added
carelessly, readjusting his glasses.
Wingfield would not have lied to a stranger, but he had known
Richardson all his life; and besides, Jean was a pretty girl and Dick
Wingfield’s soul was not brass. The situation was much to his liking.
Richardson was a man of distinction, a poet and essayist of high
attainments, and as such Wingfield would take good care of him for the
honour of Pittsburg. He was already wondering whether his mother would
undertake a dinner in Richardson’s honour, with two or three girls he
knew, and with Jean present--the surprise of the occasion. It was not
an opportunity to miss. He had planned the dinner before Richardson had
ceased praising the drawings.
“I would appreciate it if you would help me find the girl. I’m in a
hurry; we want her to illustrate a series of articles we’ve got in
type--‘The Child as a Wage-earner.’ These drawings strayed into the
office just as we were discussing illustrators and she’s first choice.
The matter is urgent. I must find out if she will undertake it and get
out of here to-morrow.”
The larger prospect faded; but Wingfield called Mrs. Blair by telephone
and the Lady of Difficult Occasions rose as he knew she would. The
editor of the _Hemisphere_ was a celebrity, Jean was her own protégée;
there was every reason why Mrs. Blair should bring them together at her
own board, and Wingfield was to be of the party--he did not have to
suggest it. Whether Wayne should be included was a question Wingfield
left to Mrs. Blair and she deemed it best that Wayne and Jean should
not meet. For while Wayne was wrestling with his spirit in the hills,
Mrs. Blair and Jean had seen much of each other and Jean had told her
friend the whole story of her acquaintance with Wayne, and her belief
that she was still bound to Joe. Here was a complication that gave even
Fanny Blair pause!
She hurried Jean to a shop to find a ready-made gown for the occasion
and otherwise exercised the right of guardianship. As Fanny Blair’s
last girl fiddler had eloped with a cornetist who already had a wife or
two, her faith in budding genius needed this restoration.
“But Lord bless you, I don’t know Mrs. Blair,” cried the editor when
Wingfield told him that they were to meet the artist at the Blair house.
“That’s nothing. You are ignorant by so much, that’s all, and Mrs.
John McCandless Blair is a liberal education--a post-graduate course,
in fact. It would be impossible for Miss Morley to negotiate with you
without her. And I myself have taken the deepest interest in the girl
from the beginning. The prettiest girl in Pennsylvania--and I am not
ignorant of the processions of beauty you can see in Philadelphia on
Saturdays at high noon, if you have an excuse for being in Chestnut
Street as the divinities seek lobster and ice cream at Vertini’s.”
Mrs. Blair wept--it was her way--when Jean’s drawings were displayed
in her library; those sketches did have heart in them! The editor
of the _Hemisphere_ was less emotional, but his praise of Jean’s
work was ample. He explained the character and scope of the text to
be illustrated. Jean would have to visit the South and West to find
the types needed, and it would be necessary to begin at once. After
dinner the editor and Jean discussed details, with proof sheets of the
articles before them. They were bound to make an impression; they were
the work of specialists, and comprised a careful economic and social
study of child labour and were to be embodied in a book following their
use in the periodical; the commission was important to the artist and
all concerned. The editor had prepared a schedule of the drawings
he thought most desirable, with a memorandum of the times at which
they must be delivered. The amount named for the work was generous;
Wingfield, graceful liar that he could be, had helped here, and after
Jean had taken counsel of Mrs. Blair in a corner, a contract was
signed--Jean’s hand a little wobbly for one who could draw so well.
Mrs. Blair’s instructions that no one should be admitted that evening
were conclusive enough as against the world in general; but her door
was never shut in her brother’s face. Wayne, having missed Walsh,
had dined alone at the Club and afterward sought Wingfield vainly by
telephone. He was restless and unhappy and set out for his sister’s
merely to have something to do. That he and Jean should be in the
same town and not see each other struck him as the bitterest irony.
He missed the peace of the mountains and the daily discipline of his
wood-chopping.
It was in this humour that he came upon the animated scene at his
sister’s that had Jean for its central figure--a new Jean, with the
happiness of renewed youth bright in her countenance. She had seen him
before he made her out from the doorway, and she prepared herself for
the meeting while he was making the editor’s acquaintance. She had
wondered all these long days since she had watched him from the window
of the boarding-house parlour how it would be if they ever met again;
but she had not expected anything like this. The most her imagination
had conjured had been a chance meeting in the street.
Wayne was taken into the great secret by Mrs. Blair and ran his eyes
over the drawings before he spoke to Jean.
“It’s splendid, perfectly splendid!” he cried, but Mrs. Blair got him
away for the time being. Her father’s business affairs had given her
great concern and she seized the moment to attack Wayne in regard to
them. But Wayne was not to be disposed of so easily; his eyes followed
Jean, and when she laughed at some of Wingfield’s banter he stopped
abruptly in his answer to one of Mrs. Blair’s questions and the look
in his eyes told the story, and would have told it to a less observing
woman than Fanny Blair. She sighed as he rose and moved across the
room to where Jean sat turning in her hands her copy of the editor’s
contract. It would hurt nothing this once--so Mrs. Blair suffered him
to talk to her.
“I’ve been away,” he began, “and a great deal seems to be happening;
here you are at the point of being famous. I always felt that it would
come--that you would make good, and you have rung the bell at the first
shot.”
“But it wasn’t the first. I had sent portfolios of drawings to a lot of
publishers and editors who didn’t care for them at all. And of course,
Mr. Richardson was only interested because he happened to be looking
for that kind of thing.”
“There are other artists doing that sort of work--good ones--of
established reputation--and the _Hemisphere_ prefers you. You can’t get
away from that.”
“Well, it’s nice, anyhow. And now I must do the work; it will keep me
very busy, if I finish in time.”
“You will do it and it will be a success; there is no doubt of that.
And we shall all be proud of you. It’s something to know a genius these
days.”
This success would, he knew, raise higher the barriers between them,
and he was jealous of her art as he had not been of Joe. Her work
meant more to her than Joe had meant or could mean. It was preposterous
that this woman should bear the burden of an obligation to a man like
Joe Denny. Her new gown clothed her in a fresh vesture of youth. She
was no longer the obscure, forlorn and shabby art student, but a young
woman whose name would go far and whose eyes were bright with the
elixir of success--that most potent of cordials. He wondered whether
he should see again the gray mist of the sea steal across the lovely
violet of her eyes; and upon the thought the soft shadow fell and the
sweet gravity that became her so well came into her face. The change
seemed to bring her back to him; and he grasped at the fleeting mood
eagerly.
“I have seen things differently since I saw you last,” he began,
and all unconsciously her head bowed as though under the weight of
remembrance. “I let go of myself again--it was hideous; you heard of
it?”
“Yes, I knew. I was sorry.”
“But Paddock took me away to the house of some friends of his; they
were good to me. I sent you a telegram Christmas--I wonder if you got
it?”
“Yes; and I was glad you remembered me.”
She did not tell him that she had cried over it in her dingy room or
that at Paddock’s settlement house, where she had gone to help in the
children’s entertainment, she had learned from the minister where he
was, or that the knowledge that he was in a place of safety had been
the real peace of her Christmas.
“It was a lonely place up there in the mountains and the first
night----”
He had felt that he must tell her everything, but he could not do it;
he could not confess how narrowly he had escaped taking himself out of
life by the back door. Her own fine courage, the success now crowning
her endeavour--these things taunted him; he could not tell her how near
he had been to throwing down his sword in the face of the enemy. With
courage, sincerity and industry she was storming the citadels of a
world that had heaped favours upon him only to magnify the humiliation
of his failures. He must speak with confidence of his to-morrows to
this woman if he would hold her respect.
“I’m going to try harder. I guess I’ve never tried at all. I’ve got a
job: Walsh is going to take me into his office; you’ve seen him, he’s
a grand old fellow. While you are off making your drawings I shall be
trying to learn how to sell groceries. Isn’t that most uninteresting?”
She bent toward him eagerly.
“Oh, no, it is fine! It is just the right thing. I am glad--so glad!”
His heart bounded as he saw how pleased she was--no cloud now on those
violet seas; and she smiled that quick rare smile of hers.
“Please don’t grow too famous to remember a poor struggling jobber in
canned goods and such. You see, you’ve rather put it up to me to do
something. I shan’t get very high--I couldn’t--but I’m going to do the
best I can. A man I met up there in the hills--a minister--a priest, he
would call himself, made me feel my lack of importance in the world in
a new way. He said he thought the devil wouldn’t care for my soul--that
I was a clumsy piece of Satan’s practice-work, not worth putting on
exhibition in the hall of fame down below. That took the conceit out of
me; I had imagined myself a superior article.”
“Well, when you’re at work you won’t have time to think of such
things,” she answered, not sanctioning his way of joking about it.
“But I shall think of you every day, and I shall wonder where you are
and how your work prospers; and sometimes I shall see you----”
“We shall always be good friends, of course.”
But he would not take warning of her words or her manner; this new
career was drawing her away from him and the thought of losing her was
intolerable.
“If you haven’t taken that step, if you are still free, won’t you give
me my chance?”
“No, no! Please don’t spoil this evening for me; I know you don’t mean
to be unkind--but you are!”
“But why should you throw away your freedom; you owe something to
yourself!” he pleaded. “See what has come to you; think of what you
would lose if you let this imagined duty to Joe interfere with your
success.”
“I made up my mind that night when I told you my story; and I shall not
change it. Poor Joe! I had hurt him so that he doesn’t want to take me
back--but the tie exists. Nothing you could say would ever change my
feeling about it.”
The lines of his face hardened and his jaw set. Having, like a child,
resolved to be “good,” he saw no reason why he should not at once pluck
the stars for his reward. The penitent is never so humble but that he
demands immediate share in paradisiacal joys.
“You will be leaving at once. I suppose I shall not see you again,” he
remarked, the dejection showing in his face.
“Yes; I shall be going in a day or two, but I shan’t forget you. You
are one of my friends; we mustn’t let anything spoil that.”
Mrs. Blair’s eyes were upon her and she rose. Richardson and Wingfield
were leaving, and the editor had some last words for Jean. Mr.
Blair was to take the men down in his car and Jean left with them,
wrapped--for the good woman would not be denied--in Mrs. Blair’s ermine
opera cloak.
Wayne was pacing the floor, smoking, when Mrs. Blair came back from
seeing Jean off. She threw her arms about her brother impulsively.
“Oh, Wayne; there are not many women like that! I always wondered
if you would ever really care, and what she would be like; and now
this--this----!”
He was not surprised that she knew it all; Fanny always knew everything.
“And to think that when she offered to go back to that vagabond Joe, he
wouldn’t have it that way--wouldn’t listen to it! And here she is left
high and dry with her preposterous conscience; it’s that wretched Jimmy
Paddock that’s responsible. I didn’t suppose I could ever feel that
divorce is right in any case; but here were two silly young children
eloping. And a girl with this beautiful genius in her, seeing the
awfulness of what she had done, fled from it. If Joe hadn’t nearly died
of pneumonia and if Jimmy Paddock hadn’t convinced her that marriages
are made in heaven and that the courts of Pennsylvania haven’t any
jurisdiction over them--well?” she concluded irrelevantly.
“Nothing, Fanny; only the spectacle of the Pennsylvania courts assuming
jurisdiction of the heavenly kingdom tickles me. I’m sorry that I can’t
talk about Jean--not now. It’s great that she’s struck it, and that
must be enough for me, I guess. Good night; I’m going to walk home.”
CHAPTER XXXII
AN ANGRY ENCOUNTER
“I’m leaving the office on the first; I’m going down to the mercantile
company with Walsh.”
This was the first intimation Wayne had given his father of the
proposed change. He had purposely waited until this last hour before
making the announcement, to avoid discussing the matter. Colonel
Craighill looked up from his desk quickly and compressed his lips
before speaking. It was a blow he had not expected and he did not meet
it at once. Wayne turned uneasily and as his father made no response he
added:
“You remember that I kept my interest there and Tom says I can be of
use to him. I am of no use here--and never have been.”
“In other words, you prefer Walsh to me as an ally. Very well, I might
have expected it. This is the last irony of my parenthood and it is
quite fitting; quite in keeping.”
In the silence following the announcement Wayne’s heart had been
tenderer toward his father than in many a day. It was not so easy after
all to leave him; at a word he might have relented; but the swords of
resentment unsheathed with a sharp clatter and his spirit declared war.
“What’s quite fitting; what’s in keeping?” he demanded.
“Your desertion, your apostasy. After these years of humiliation you
have brought me, you throw me off as lightly as though you were a clerk
who had worked here a week and left to take another job. But it’s what
I deserve for my forbearance. It’s too bad you didn’t go sooner. But
it’s quite characteristic that you should wait till there was a chance
of your being of some service to me, as age comes on and a son’s right
arm would mean much--you wait for a strategic moment and then fire your
last volley and leave. No servant ever served me so ill. But I deserve
it; go to Walsh; very likely you and he will find yourselves well
suited to each other.”
“Walsh did your work for you for twenty years; it’s rather base of you
to visit your contempt on him now. If you don’t know it, every man in
Pittsburg knows what Tom Walsh was to you--he was your brains.”
Colonel Craighill jumped to his feet, the blood suffusing his face.
“You ungrateful dog--the reason I dispensed with Walsh was that he’s
crooked--he’s a man of no principles, he’s a rascal!”
“But it took you twenty years to find it out--twenty years of faithful
service and you gave a farewell dinner to a rascal, _your_ rascal, and
bade him God-speed.”
“I didn’t know then what he was!” roared Colonel Craighill, “but I
have learned since. He lied about the mercantile company to get it away
from me. He falsified the statements and I sold to him on an inventory
he made himself. No doubt you were in collusion with him and now you’re
to be paid for robbing your father. It’s all of a piece; it’s what I
have trained you for and my reward for shielding you and bearing with
you all these years.”
“For your prayers, your hypocritical snivelling, for wearing the
martyr’s crown because you had the ill luck to be my father! Every
time I got drunk you re-sanctified yourself; you were glad when I
went bad because it brought your own virtue into higher relief. You
never met me like a man, because you’re only the outer shell of a man;
there’s no heart in you; no soul in you! And don’t be too sure you
deceive the people of this town; they know you and just now they’re
sneering because they know you’ve been in trouble and they’re glad to
find that anything as perfect as you are has clay feet. Walsh never
said a word of ill to me of you; he served you with the humility you
demanded and the best things you ever did he managed and you got the
glory. And he left you because you wanted to sail out into showy
schemes like that Mexican fake and he knew where they would land you.
The finest testimony of your high character is poor old Gregory who
trusted you--trusted you like a child because you were the great Roger
Craighill who could do no wrong; and when you had got that Sand Creek
deal through you didn’t know him any more, but turned him over to your
lawyer. And he’s sitting out there now in the reception room waiting
for you to see him; he’s been trying to see you all winter, but you
won’t let him in. And Addie, poor Addie up there at the house, you
deceived her, too, for she thought she was marrying a man; and the
night you went to Boston without her because you were afraid to spring
her on the Brodericks, she found you out.”
“I should strike you down for this--for speaking to me of my wife in
such infamous terms. The fact that you assume the rôle of her champion
is an insult to her--a flagrant, unpardonable insult!”
“It’s you that insulted her; you were ashamed of her; men treat their
mistresses better than that! She deserved better of the great Roger
Craighill.”
Suspicion and distrust were warmed in the fierce flames of Roger
Craighill’s anger.
“Why are you so eager to champion her? How dare you speak of her?”
“I’m sorry for her, that’s the reason; more than that, I knew her
before you did--a poor girl with a hideous mother tied about her neck,
and she married you in the mistaken belief that you would honour and
respect her, and when your passion cooled a little you began to treat
her just as you have treated me--as an encumbrance to be borne and
suffered. And don’t you believe, because I never told you I had known
her, that she’s not a good woman--she’s so superior to you that you are
not worthy to fasten her shoes--that’s what I think of her--and this
is what I think of you.”
The door slammed upon Wayne as he returned for the last time to his
own room, and began collecting the papers in his desk. He had burned
his bridges and there was no retracing his steps. His heart was still
hot; he experienced no contrition, though he regretted immediately his
reference to Addie, which could only react upon her. But in the main he
was satisfied that he had settled accounts with his father at last.
The door was closed between Roger Craighill and his son, blown shut
by the winds of wrath. Colonel Craighill sat staring at the wall
that separated them. These last weeks had tried him sorely and his
head sank upon his breast and he remained there late, pondering his
affairs. The stringency of the fall and winter had pinched hard; his
own buoyant optimism had been badly shattered by it. The control of
the towering Craighill building had passed from the Colonel’s hands.
When the banks demanded additional collateral on loans that had been
carried easily for several years he found that the securities in a
number of his enterprises were looked upon coldly by discount boards.
Even the Hercules National, in which he had been a director since its
organization and which had always readily accommodated him, called his
loans on a hint, it was said, from the comptroller’s office. It was
trying to Colonel Craighill’s pride to be summoned to the private rooms
of banks to discuss his own affairs with men who had suddenly ceased
to be admiring friends and were now gravely inquisitorial. They did
their best for him, though; even his bonds and stock in the Craighill
building corporation were “deposited”--that was the disingenuous
term--with three trustees for the benefit of creditors and this was a
salve to his wounded vanity. With a breathing time and the return of
confidence Colonel Craighill declared he would reclaim them. His faith
in the great Mexican plantation scheme was unshaken, and his colonial
investments would yet prove his wisdom. He begged his inquisitors, in
their austere mahogany cabinets, to have patience and all would be
well; values were intact; credit only had been stampeded; and he cited
world conditions with his accustomed familiarity, which, however, did
not relieve the immediate pressing fact that he owed a large sum of
money which he could not pay.
An unexpected attack in another quarter had disturbed him greatly;
and oddly enough it was the Reverend James Paddock of the parish
house at Ironstead who had fired an arrow into the weakest plate
of Colonel Craighill’s armour. The minister had written a letter
to the authorities directing attention to the vile condition of a
group of tenements in Ironstead, not knowing who owned them, and it
happened that one of the objectionable buildings belonged to Colonel
Craighill. The _Mail_, a vigorous young independent newspaper, made
the most of this opportunity in its reddest ink. The fact that this
leading citizen, well known for his labours in behalf of the negroes
in the South and for other notable philanthropies far removed from
Pittsburg, should thus ignore the squalor at his own door, aroused
the _Mail’s_ righteous indignation, and it demanded an investigation
by the local branch of the Municipal Service League, of which Colonel
Craighill was the national president. “Colonel Craighill”--to quote
the _Mail_--“is an excellent type of the after-dinner reformer, posing
in the lime-light abroad, but avoiding the discomforts that attend
sincere, vigorous participation in home affairs. It is not our esteemed
fellow-citizen we are after; it is the smug complacency and cant of
many men of similar high position in our American cities, who wax
eloquent in bemoaning our political depravity, but through cowardice or
their own culpability are never heard from when there is any real work
to be done.”
Paddock was sorry to have caused this explosion and he called on the
Colonel to explain; but Colonel Craighill’s rage was not appeased. He
wanted to sue the newspaper, but his lawyer advised against it; the
conditions in the tenement were about as the _Mail’s_ artist portrayed
them, and there was no disputing the fact that the Colonel owned the
property, though, to be sure, he had lately mortgaged it. The refusal
of the _Star_ to spring to his defense astounded Colonel Craighill.
It was not the _Star’s_ business, he learned, to correct the _Mail’s_
mis-statements, and the _Star_, smarting because the _Mail_ had scored
a “beat,” began, out of sheer pique, a vigorous attack on the city
administration.
Colonel Craighill believed himself sincere in his devotion to reform
work, and the _Mail’s_ assault was unfortunate in that it evoked echoes
of the familiar cynicisms against all movements for our political and
moral uplift. Gentlemen in white waistcoats at banquet tables cannot
re-create mankind by resolution; nor do their failures mean that the
people are unsound. Politics and government are practical matters.
Democracy is an ideal. And as such it can never be fully realized. It
gathers strength through successive experiments and reincarnations. The
goal, always a little further on, is sought in faith and abandoned in
despair, but its changing light can never outshine the hope in man’s
heart.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE HIGH MOMENT OF THEIR LIVES
Wayne dined at the Club with Walsh the next evening and told him of the
break with his father. Walsh listened in frowning silence to the end.
“It’s a mistake; it’s a great mistake. I’m sorry it’s happened.”
“There was no other way; it had to come. He had no right to jump me
because he’s in trouble. I’m not responsible for all his mistakes; I’m
one of them myself and it’s enough. He’s hot because he let go of the
mercantile company; he has to find some excuse now for doing it and he
says you tricked him into selling. The money you paid him went into the
hole without making any impression on it.”
“I paid him a fair price and he knows it. The figures were all checked
by the audit company. But you had no business breaking with him. I
don’t like it. He means to be square; he’s taken his business too easy
and now that some of these fancy schemes he’s in have gone bad and the
banks are worrying him you oughtn’t to have allowed him to get hot. You
oughtn’t to have done it, boy. And, besides, you might have helped him.
You must be good for nigh on to eight hundred thousand dollars--all
good stuff. It’s all clean. You don’t owe anything, do you?”
“No; nothing worth mentioning.”
“You ought to help him. It would be the fine thing to do. He’s your
father--you can’t get away from that.”
But Wayne was not in a mood for magnanimity. Walsh dwelt at length on
his duty, on what was, in the old fellow’s phrase, “the right thing.”
He indicated concrete instances of what might be done to help Colonel
Craighill back to a firm footing. Certain things should be dropped as
worthless encumbrances; the real estate ventures would work out in
time; various stocks now pledged as collateral should be redeemed.
The pledging of half of Wayne’s estate would strengthen his father
immensely with the creditors and might save him from ruin. Wayne
listened attentively to Walsh; he saw that it might be done, but he
felt no impulse to act on Walsh’s suggestions: he was Roger Craighill’s
son no longer.
“Sorry I can’t see it your way, Tom, but I have my side of the case,
too. That row yesterday proves how far apart father and I have been.
If our relations had been right and what they ought to be he would
have asked me for help, or I would have gone to him. But he’s always
taken that high and mighty way about things, treating me as though I
were a fool, incapable of understanding. He doesn’t really appreciate
the serious trouble he’s in. He hardly admits that it’s a temporary
embarrassment; you know his way. No, Tom, I don’t feel called on to
do the dutiful-son act and dump down on his desk the good assets I
inherited from my grandfather and have added to a little bit on my own
account. I don’t owe father anything--not even money. I’ve ordered my
cars sent to a public garage; I’m going up now to pack my things.”
“The house is all clear; that’s yours.”
“Yes,” replied Wayne with sudden asperity; “it’s my own house I’m
leaving.”
“Um. I hope these troubles of the Colonel’s won’t be hard on the little
woman up there.”
He spoke half to himself, and when Wayne asked what he had said, Walsh
grunted “Um” and rose from the table.
Wayne found a letter in the club office. It was from Jean, written in
New York. A large, plain sheet of paper with the writing confined to a
square in the centre; the handwriting small, even, distinctive. It was
the first message he had ever received from her and he carried it to a
quiet corner of the lounging room to read.
“My grandfather is again in Pittsburg. He persists in pressing his
claim against your father, though I have begged him to drop it. I am
sorry to trouble you about such a matter, but if you can see him I
wish you would try to persuade him to go home. He has brooded over
his claim until he is no longer himself, and he insisted on staying
there at the boarding house when I left.
“The Richardsons have been kind to me in every way. I am at their
house and shall be here all the time I spend in New York. I go to my
work over on the East Side every day, and the settlement house people
look out for me and help me find the models I need.
“I hope you are well and that the new work with Mr. Walsh will
prosper.”
Many readings could not torture into this unexpected message any
personal interest in himself. This was one reflection, but it was
something that she had thought of him in her perplexity. Her shabby
old grandfather, with his long-neglected claim, was an unfortunate
encumbrance; it was too bad the girl had to be bothered with him. It
flashed upon him that he might go to New York and see her, but he
dismissed the idea at once. It would only distress her, and he was
Wayne Craighill, and to call on Jean at the Richardsons might injure
her--a bitter reflection, but one he met squarely. In the end, after he
had studied it in all possible angles, he felt happier for this contact
with something that had touched her hand. It was almost like her own
presence, this sheet of paper with its simple, straightforward message,
and the block of script that showed the artist’s “touch.” He would find
the bothersome grandfather to-morrow and settle the old claim out of
his own pocket and send him back to Denbeigh.
Wayne ordered a motor from a public garage, and rode to his father’s
house. It had been his intention to get his things together and
leave without seeing his father again. The lower floor was deserted
and he kept on to his own room. The remodelling of the house shortly
before his mother’s death had made no change in the rooms that had
been set apart to him in his youth. There were things there--pieces of
furniture that had been in his grandfather Wayne’s house, a number of
old engravings and some books, that he could send for later. He packed
his trunk as for a journey; making a pile of the excess clothing to
be called for later by the club valet. Then he filled a suit case and
portmanteau and rang for the house man to carry them down. As he stood
at the door taking a last look at the walls that had known him so long,
the little travelling clock on the mantel, which had timed him during
his years at St. John’s and at the “Tech,” tinkled nine, and on the
hint, he picked it up and reopened the portmanteau to make room for it.
The clock on the stair was still chiming as he closed the door. He
was rather sorry now that he had not made an effort to say good-bye
to Mrs. Craighill--poor Addie; this was, in all the circumstances,
almost desertion, this leaving her to fight her troubles alone. To his
surprise her sitting room door was open and she stood just outside it,
leaning over the stair rail, as though intent upon something below. She
raised her hand warningly.
“What’s the matter, Addie?”
“There’s someone in the library with your father. I heard you when you
came, and then a moment later this card was brought up. Your father
was in my sitting room talking and he seemed very angry at being
interrupted--it was a matter of business, he said, and the man had no
right to follow him home.”
Wayne took the card which she had in her hand; it bore the name of
Andrew Gregory written in pencil. The old claimant, denied access to
Colonel Craighill at his office, and smarting under his wrongs, had
sought audience here.
“I have heard angry voices once or twice. You had better see what’s the
matter.”
She stole downstairs after him. The portières in the library doors were
drawn, but voices could be heard quite distinctly, and Wayne recognized
the shrill pipe of Gregory raised in angry denunciation; Mrs. Craighill
was greatly perturbed and clung to Wayne’s arm as the angry debate
continued. The discussion seemed to be approaching an acute phase, and
Wayne strode toward the door. Gregory had not been treated right; Wayne
had felt that from the beginning, and for Jean’s sake he had meant to
effect some adjustment with the old man; but Gregory’s presence in the
house created a new situation. Jean’s letter was in his pocket, asking
him to see that no harm came to her grandfather. It was his first
commission from her hand and the thought of this sent him on to the
door. Gregory was not sparing of vituperation; he heaped harsh Saxon
epithets upon Colonel Craighill, who roared back at him angrily.
“Get out of my house! You had no right to come here with your
preposterous claim; I told you my lawyer would attend to you!”
“You didn’t send me to your lawyer when you wanted my property, you
lying hypocrite. And I’m going to publish you to the world now for what
you are. There’s no bigger scoundrel in the State of Pennsylvania than
you; but now----”
There was a dull sound as of a blow struck and a heavy fall as Wayne
flung back the curtains. Colonel Craighill stood there, gazing down at
old man Gregory, who lay upon his side, very still. Colonel Craighill’s
arm was extended, his body pitched slightly forward, as though palsied
at the moment the blow had been struck. He turned a white face toward
Wayne, who sprang into the room, with Mrs. Craighill close behind.
Wayne straightened the crumpled figure on the floor and Mrs. Craighill
brought water and brandy from the dining room. The two bent over the
fallen man, whose breath came in hard gasps. His eyes opened and shut
several times and he tried to speak; then his muscles relaxed and he
lay still. The marks of death were on him. Wayne and Mrs. Craighill
exchanged a glance. She was perfectly cool and said calmly:
“It looks bad. Shall I call a doctor?”
“Wait a moment.”
[Illustration: “THERE WAS A DULL SOUND AS OF A BLOW STRUCK”]
Wayne turned to his father, who had sunk into a chair and was
cowering there, his eyes staring at the silent, inert figure stretched
out on the floor. He knelt and put his head to Gregory’s breast.
“He’s dead, father,” said Wayne quietly.
“Oh, God! he can’t be dead! My blow could never have killed him!”
“There’s no pulse--it’s all over. We’d better think about this pretty
hard for a minute. It will be too late when the doctor comes and the
servants find out. We must know what story you want told about it.”
Mrs. Craighill still crouched by the old man, and she put her hand to
his heart now and satisfied herself that it had ceased to beat. She
remained where she was, while Wayne stepped to the doorway and flung
the curtains together.
“You struck him, and he is dead; what are we to do about it?” he
demanded of his father.
“Why, it isn’t possible, Wayne!” cried Colonel Craighill. “It was
more in the way of pushing him from the room than a blow; it may have
been on the breast--perhaps over his heart; I can’t remember, but it
couldn’t have killed him--it’s a faint--he will come around again all
right. Try the brandy, Addie. If we call a doctor----”
He was pitiful in his agitation and kept twitching at his collar and
wringing his hands.
“The man is dead,” said Mrs. Craighill. “We must have the doctor; but
Wayne is right: before he comes you must know what you are going to
say to him; the matter will be reported; we must know what to say.”
“It was heart disease; the blow could never have killed him,” muttered
Colonel Craighill.
Wayne knelt again by the quiet figure and laid his ear to the pulseless
heart. Mrs. Craighill watched him as he rose, waiting for him to tell
her to call the doctor. It was the high moment in all their lives, as
she fully realized.
“The situation is just this, father,” and Wayne’s calmness seemed to
reassure Colonel Craighill.
“Yes, yes!” he faltered.
“A man has died here in your house. You admit you struck him; and no
matter whether death resulted from excitement or from your blow, the
thing is ugly. A doctor must be called. Addie, go and telephone for
Dr. Silvan, for Gardner, too, and for Wynn--try their houses. Silvan
is nearest; call him last. There’s no time for quibbling--what are we
going to tell them when they come, and the coroner and the police? It’s
for you to say.”
“Oh, my God, Wayne, what am I to do? I tell you I didn’t kill him; I
couldn’t have killed him, it was more--why Wayne, you know----”
“The man’s dead, in your house, and you confess that you struck him.
What are we going to say about it?”
Mrs. Craighill could be heard in the telephone room calling the
doctors. Colonel Craighill paced the floor nervously. He whirled round,
his face twitching with excitement, and caught Wayne by the shoulder.
“If we could ignore the blow--if we could say--the man--died--dropped
dead--that would be true--quite the truth.”
“But you told me you struck him.”
“Yes, yes; but it was the slightest touch of the hand--it was more in
the way of pushing him from the room--you could hardly say I struck
him--you could hardly call it an assault, could you, Wayne?”
It was the plea of a man begging for mercy; but contempt and scorn were
gathering might in Wayne’s heart. Mrs. Craighill was calling the third
doctor, who lived nearest, and the time was short.
“You are Roger Craighill. What you say of this matter will be believed.
But when the doctors ask how it happened, wouldn’t it be as well to
remember that I was in the house--and that I have no reputation to
lose?”
The peace of the dead man at their feet hung upon the room. Colonel
Craighill lifted his head, but he did not face his son.
“I don’t understand you,” he gasped.
“Yes,” said Wayne, “I think you do understand,” and he spoke the words
slowly, with a sharp precision, but he smiled slightly. He forgot
himself, his own life and its better aims; the new aspirations that had
visited him during his long self-communing in the hills; the thought of
his own honour; the precious faith in life and love that Jean Morley
had roused, in him--all went down before this undreamed of, this
exquisite vengeance. He had offered to assume responsibility for the
death of this old man who lay stiffening there on the floor, and Roger
Craighill--his father--would suffer it, would accept the sacrifice and
connive at its fulfilment!
Wayne’s eyes were not good to see as he watched his father for some
sign. A long silence followed in which neither moved, and when Colonel
Craighill turned toward his son it was with a guarded, furtive glance,
as though he had hoped to find him gone.
“The doctors are on the way, all of them,” said Mrs. Craighill at the
door. “What else is there to do?”
“Nothing,” said Wayne, “but this: when they come, if there’s any
question of a blow having been struck, I did it--_I did it_. And,”
he deliberated, “you’d better call Tom Walsh at the Allequippa Club
and tell him to come up. He’s a good hand with the newspapers and the
police. Good night.”
* * * * *
Wayne rode back to the city in the motor that had carried him home, and
at the garage Joe, gossiping with the loafing chauffeurs, heard him
order out his racing machine.
They had not met since Wayne’s long absence in the hills, but Joe had
learned from Paddock that Wayne was in a place of safety. Wayne’s
appearance at the garage and demand for the racer brought Joe up
standing, and he took charge of the machine without a word.
Wayne hardly noticed him, so deep was his preoccupation; and this in
itself seemed ominous to Joe.
“So you’re going are you, Joe? Well, we’re likely to be gone a long
time,” Wayne said, throwing his bags into the car. At the Allequippa
Club he cashed a check for a thousand dollars and supplied himself with
cigars.
And so they plunged into the night, over the rough roads of spring.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE HEART OF THE BUGLE
They came to Harrisburg, with the sun low in the west and a soft haze
enfolding the capitol dome--that proud assertion of a commonwealth’s
strength and power that greets the eye of western pilgrims bound for
Washington, and speaks of the pride of statehood--and no mean state,
this!
The iron bones of the ponderable earth shook mightily when Pennsylvania
was born. No light day’s business, the bringing forth of this empire!
Mountains to rear and valleys to cut; broad rivers to set flowing in
generous channels; forests to marshal and meadows to unroll, fair and
open and glad with green things growing. Winter, running before the
hounds of spring, hides snow like a miser in a myriad pockets of the
hills and flies northward across the blue lakes to escape the gleeful
laughter of freed springs and singing brooks.
Scratch the crust and you may kindle the world’s hearth; scatter seed
and fields were never so green. A fair prospect for the eye, but
greater the hope in the heart of man. Fortunate nation this, to have so
secure a keystone in the arch of states! The spirits of the pioneers,
haunting the hilltops, gaze down in pride upon the teeming valleys.
You, sober ones of the broad brims, the axe has gone deep into the
forests you came to people; and you in whose blood the Scottish pipes
skirl and in whose heads flash the wit of Irish mothers, no land ever
received sounder or saner or nobler pilgrims. And you, too, plodding
Dutchmen, far-flung drift of the Rhenish Palatinate, you were not so
slow and dull after all, but wise in your sowing and reaping. And call
the roll of names dear to the Welsh hills and mark the lusty response.
The soundest race-stocks in the world are grafted here. Let us be wary
of these tales of plunder and corruption. The soil that knew Franklin
is not so lightly to be yielded to perdition. Let us have patience,
sneering ones; the last lumbering Conestoga has hardly faded into the
west, and the making of states is rather more than a day’s pastime!
Verily, you paid dearly for this house of your law-makers--marble and
bronze and lapis lazuli forsooth! But have a care that Wisdom and
Honour are enthroned in those splendid halls--and with no pockets in
their togas! Then let him that defileth the temple perish by the sword!
* * * * *
Wayne and Joe sat on a bench in the capitol grounds and fed the
squirrels. They had inspected the building with care and Joe pronounced
it good. The mood of depression with which Wayne had left home clung to
him, but Joe, watching him narrowly, felt that the cloud was less dark
to-day.
“This is nice grass,” Joe observed. “I wonder why town grass is always
nicer than country grass?”
Wayne smiled, and Joe was encouraged.
“You rankest of cockneys! There was good grass in the world before the
day of lawn mowers. What do you think we’re going to do now?”
This question had troubled Joe since their flight. He had an immense
respect for Wayne; it was inconceivable that Mr. Wayne Craighill,
a gentleman of property, a member of clubs, and a person otherwise
indulged and favoured by Fortune, should not weary of this idle
adventure and go home. He was confident that his companion would come
to himself soon, but he would follow him to the world’s end. Just now,
as evening stole over the town, Joe was hungry and Wayne’s indifference
to the stomach’s pinch was inexplicable. He did not dare propose that
they seek food. Wayne was chief of the expedition and it was not for a
mere private in the ranks to make suggestions.
“Did you ever try tramping?” Wayne asked presently.
“I can’t say that I ever did, sir. You mean followin’ the railroad and
dodgin’ the cops? Sleepin’ in barns and jails and takin’ a hand-out
and a dog-bite at back doors. I ain’t choosy, but I ain’t for it, Mr.
Wayne. I like the varnished cars myself.”
Wayne did not debate the matter. He did not see his future clearly;
the world was bitter in his mouth. He was fumbling the alphabet of
life like a child with lettered blocks, soberly piling them in false
positions with the X of unknown quantity in the middle. Once more he
had suffered defeat at his father’s hands. The newspaper accounts
of Andrew Gregory’s death, on which he had pounced the day after his
flight, had been the briefest: he had dropped dead while calling at the
home of his old friend, Roger Craighill! Cheated again in satisfying
his hatred of his father, the knowledge that Roger Craighill had lied
to the doctors was poor consolation. He had submitted himself, a
willing Isaac, to be laid on Abraham’s altar, but the right to perish
had been denied him. He was utterly morbid; there was no health in him.
He was still, in Stoddard’s phrase, a man in search of his own soul,
though he did not know it. He had stood between the pillars of life
without power to shake them down. He sat, as it were, on the steps
beneath the high arch, a defeated Samson. But he would never go back;
that was definitely determined; and by continuing his exile he might
perhaps intensify his father’s penitence, for Roger Craighill had,
he assumed, some sort of conscience that would rest uneasy under the
suppressed fact that he had laid violent hands on Andrew Gregory.
He felt, at times, a pity for his father’s wife. She knew! And a man
of less imagination could not have failed to picture the new relations
of Roger Craighill and his wife with the common knowledge of that
night hanging over them. There were people who might feel his loss
out of their world; there were Wingfield and Walsh, and there was
Paddock--he believed they would be sorry and miss him, but one man
more or less in the grand sum of things is nothing. He had failed in
good as in evil intentions--failed even Jean who had asked him to care
for her grandfather and save him from any such catastrophe as that
which must now have brought misery upon her, for the old man’s death
had undoubtedly interrupted her work, and she must hate him for his
worthlessness. He accepted his fate sullenly; his life was ill-starred,
its ordering futile.
He recalled Joe from his contemplation of the squirrels and they went
to a hotel that Joe had known in other days, and lodged for the night.
Wayne had let his beard grow, and his clothes were the worse for rain
and dust. But the differences between them were reconciled by these
changes, and they looked like two mechanics in search of employment.
The thousand dollars with which Wayne had left home had melted slowly.
The bulk of the small bills was an embarrassment and he divided them
with Joe.
The idea of losing himself in the world, of wandering free in the
spring weather, took hold of his fancy. He had watched tramps from car
windows with indifference or contempt, but he had read of men of wisdom
who forsook the life to which they were born for the open road. Perhaps
in the general sifting processes of nature and life this had been his
predestined fate! He did not care one way or another. He was willing
that henceforth Fate should shake the dice and he would abide by the
decision. The lords of destiny might pass any judgment they liked
upon him: he was Wayne Craighill, and he would make no defense to any
indictments they might lodge against him in their high tribunal.
He bought a pipe as better suited to his new rôle as a man of the road
and they set out for a walk in the streets of Harrisburg. Laughter
flashed out from open windows; boys and girls went sweet-hearting
through the quiet streets; gay speech, floating out from verandas
and doorsteps, contributed to the sense of spring. A girl’s voice,
singing to the strumming of a banjo, gave him a twinge of heartache.
He was an alien in a strange land and the openness and simplicity and
sweetness of the town life drove in upon him the realization of his
own detachment from the world of order and peace. They went down to
the river and listened to the subdued murmur of the Susquehanna moving
seaward under the stars.
Wayne suddenly remembered Joe, sprawled on the grass beside him.
“See here, Joe, you’re a good fellow and you’ve been bully in standing
by me. But you’d better cut loose here. You must go back home to your
job. It’s not square to drag you along with me; I’m a busted community
and I don’t know where I’m going to land. I’m not ready to go home
yet--you ought to understand that.”
“I’ve signed my papers,” replied Joe. “I’m not playin’ for my release.
I’m not much stuck on walkin’, but if that’s the sport, I’m in. If
it’s crackin’ safes or burnin’ barns I’ll divide the job. I’m no
quitter.”
Wayne said nothing, but he laid his hand for a moment on Joe’s arm.
They went back to the hotel--not of the best--where they played
billiards for an hour and went to bed. Wayne did not know it, but Joe
watched until well past midnight to make sure that Wayne did not go
down to the bar; then he scrawled and mailed a postal card to Paddock.
“All O.K. and sober. Don’t follow; I’m on the job”; a message which
Paddock bore promptly to Wingfield who passed it on to Walsh. Poor
Paddock! His sad little smile gained in pathos those days! Wingfield at
the Allequippa was better let alone; he leaned on Walsh, who had found
a new and blacker cigar, and would not speak of Wayne.
“We’ll leave the machine here until we want it again,” said Wayne in
the morning. “And we can express the suit cases to the next stop. We’ll
travel incog, as Jones and Smith. I’ll match for the Smith; it’s a name
I’ve always admired.”
He flipped a coin and pronounced himself Jones.
“Where shall we send the stuff?” asked Joe.
The porter was at that moment announcing a train in the hotel office
and Wayne caught a name.
“Send it to Gettysburg,” he said.
They stepped into the street and were at once launched upon their
expedition. A shower in the early morning had laid the dust and
sweetened the air; the sky was never bluer; the young leaves
brightened in the sun; the horizons were wistful with the hope and
faith of May. The country silence soon enwrapt them like a balm. Joe
began to whistle but gave it up. He looked back upon the haze that hung
above the capitol and was homesick for paved ground and the buzz of
trolleys.
“It’s kind o’ lonesome,” he observed, so plaintively that Wayne laughed.
“Oh, you’ll begin to like it after a while. When you get used to
travelling this way you won’t buy any more railroad tickets. I’ve read
books about people who walked everywhere--all over Europe--because it’s
the best way to see the country.”
“I guess we’re more likely to write home for money. I wonder if they
wouldn’t give us a bite at that house over there.”
“Not much they won’t! You’ve got to be very regular at meals when you
go to tramping and, besides, it isn’t ten o’clock yet.”
“It would be nice if apples were ripe. We tackled it at the wrong
season for fruit. I think I could eat raw lettuce out of that garden.”
For the greater part Wayne trudged in silence. They paused now and then
to rest and beside a little creek they cut themselves sticks. Morning
was never so long and at eleven o’clock Joe declared himself famishing
and Wayne mercifully agreed to seek food.
“I’ll tackle this house,” suggested Joe, “and try the dog’s teeth, but
I’ve always liked these pants,” he added ruefully.
“As we’re young at the game we’ll omit that feature of the tramping
business,” Wayne replied. “For to-day we will be two scientists
studying the farming methods of the country. We will pay for our dinner
and save our trousers.”
They chose the largest farmhouse in sight, made their appeal, and dined
at the family table. Wayne paid generously for their entertainment and
smoked a pipe with the farmer, who gave them permission to sleep in his
barn. In the morning they dipped themselves in the neighbouring creek
and paid for lodging and breakfast at a house farther on. They were a
little footsore, but finding that Wayne had no intention of submitting
himself to the indignities suffered by professional tramps, Joe went
forward in livelier spirits. He was not without his pride, and he was
ambitious that his hero should be respectable. At intervals Wayne
chaffed him in his old familiar fashion, and this brought Joe almost to
singing pitch.
“I guess this is all right,” he vouchsafed, as they lounged in the
shade and ate a luncheon purchased at a country store. A pail of milk
procured at a farmhouse graced their banquet. Sobriety, Joe reflected,
was assured so long as this life continued.
They preferred haymows to the beds that were offered them, and when
it was found that they paid their way no one denied them. It grew
intensely hot on the second day, and at night a thunder-storm swept
the land with loud cannonading. The lightning glowed at the cracks of
the loft where they had found lodging; it seemed at times that the
barn was wrapt in flame. They slept late the next morning, breakfasted
and resumed their leisurely course. They rested often and indulged in
siestas of length at noon. The wind and sun tanned them; Wayne with his
reddish beard was hardly the man we have seen at the Allequippa Club.
They came upon a becalmed automobile in which a gentleman and a number
of ladies were touring to Washington. The party was chafing at the
enforced delay; and the two wanderers promptly shed their coats and
lent assistance. When the damage was repaired the gentleman appraised
their services and tendered payment. Joe, with scornful rejection on
his tongue, was surprised to see Wayne accept the bill and lift his cap
in acknowledgment. They watched the car gather speed and dip out of
sight beyond a hill.
“I didn’t suppose we’d take tips,” remarked Joe meekly, looking at a
two-dollar bill in his own hand.
“My dear companion in misery, we gentlemen of the road refuse nothing!
And besides, it was cheap at the price. Any well-regulated garage would
have taxed him ten dollars. And it pleased me to see that I’m so well
disguised. I’ve sat at the same table with that man and he didn’t know
me from Adam. The barber and tailor make us, Joe--remember that I said
so. I’m learning something new every day and by the time we’ve walked
around the world we’ll be educated men.”
“I’m afraid you’d lose me,” grinned Joe. “I heard a train whistle a
while ago. It almost gave me heart disease.”
There were times now when Wayne seemed himself, but he was more and
more inexplicable. When he sprawled under a tree during their long
noonings Joe knew that he did not sleep, but stared silently at the
sky; and as they trudged along many hours would pass in utter silence.
And so, by devious ways, they came to Gettysburg.
They had gone astray many times when, at nightfall, they came unawares
upon the battlefield. A fog born of recent rains rose from the wet
earth and hung in broken clouds. They paused beside a fence, uncertain
of directions. Suddenly a cry from Joe arrested Wayne’s attention.
Near at hand a horse and rider seemed flung upward into the misty
starlight. The erect figure of the man, the arched neck and upraised
foot of the horse, were startlingly vivid. The weird spectacle held
them fascinated. At any moment the mystical horseman might take flight
and gallop into the enfolding fog in pursuit of his lost legion. Other
figures, equally fantastical, and ghostly monuments rose against the
starry sky out of the drifting fog-ribbons. Joe, staring about, cried
aloud in fear as he stumbled against a cannon. Wayne explained that
they were on the Gettysburg battlefield and that these were memorials
of dead soldiers.
“It’s too woozy for me,” declared Joe, and they sought the town and
found their bags and lodging for the night.
They woke in the morning to find it Memorial Day, with excursions of
veterans pouring in for a celebration. They followed their own devices,
keeping away from the crowd, and late in the afternoon rested at the
foot of Warren’s statue on Little Round Top. Wayne had bought a map and
he opened it to fix the lines of Pickett’s assault. His blood tingled
as he grasped the significance of the famous charge, gazing down upon
the field of death. He explained it to Joe and they rose as by one
impulse and took off their caps.
“They were men, Joe; it takes men with the real stuff in them to do
that.”
Scattered over the field, sightseers followed the events of the
long-vanished July days. An old man in the blue blouse of the Grand
Army of the Republic toiled slowly up Little Round Top and stationed
himself near them. He was muttering to himself, and so intent upon
his own thoughts that he did not see them. He pointed with his hat
as though demonstrating some controverted point, and shook his head,
and Wayne and Joe eyed him wonderingly. The veteran’s lean figure was
erect; he thrust his stick under his arm and looked down upon the
battlefield, the wind playing softly in his gray hair. He turned toward
Cemetery Ridge and saw the men behind him. A wild look came into his
bleared eyes and he grasped Wayne’s arm, whispering:
“It’s in the bugle! It’s in the bugle!”
“You were a soldier in this battle?” asked Wayne, not understanding.
“I was in many battles, young man. It’s the bugle that does the
mischief; pluck the heart out of the bugle and drum and men won’t kill
each other any more. Many a man I’ve bugled down to death.”
He dropped his head upon his breast. A bird sang in the thicket below.
On the heights beyond a bugle sounded, faint as though from a far-off
time. The old man shrank away; then he began to speak, in the hoarse,
broken voice of age, but coherently, as though reciting an oft-told
tale:
“We had a boy captain with beautiful brown eyes, who had left college
to go into the army. That boy, with his handful of cavalry, felt bigger
than old Napoleon and we were as proud of him as he was of us. Early
in the war we were sent out on a scout along the Chickahominy and were
going back to our brigade when we ran plump into a bunch of the enemy’s
cavalry that had been out feeling our line. They were just coming up
out of a ford, and it was a surprise on both sides, but our captain
laughed and said:
“‘The charge, trumpeter!’
“I let go with the bugle and we slapped into them right at the edge of
the water. There was a bad mess for a few minutes, then back we went
with the gray boys at our heels. We fought up and down the road, as
though we were only playing a game; sometimes we drove them and then
they drove us. On our second dash I felt my horse’s hoof plunk soft
onto a dead man, and I remember how queer it made me feel. We had to
win that ford, and the other fellows wanted it just as bad as we did.
Well, it was nearly dark when we began that foolishness, and a good
many of the boys had dropped out of their saddles, and a few horses
were running up and down with us, just for company I guess, or because
they knew the calls and followed the bugle. I remember how the little
moon hung over the trees and the stars came out, but our captain kept
up the fight. It was all like a lark, but silly, for we were in between
the lines where we might have brought on a general engagement with all
the racket we were making. I remember thinking the game would last
forever, as we charged and wheeled and flung ourselves at the gray
boys; and every time we swung at them again there were more soft thumps
where my horse struck dead men. I have dreamed about that a thousand
times--the scared little moon, and the rattle of accoutrements and the
pounding hoofs, and the yells, and the crack of pistols; but it was
mostly the sabre, splashing and cutting. I felt that now I had got the
hang of it, it would be just as easy to bugle the stars out of the sky
as to sound charge and recall there by the ford. Well, we got the ford
all right, but when we splashed through to the other side there was
only about half of us left, and I felt sick and giddy when I looked
down and saw the little captain was gone and the lieutenant was riding
by me where that brown-eyed boy had been.
“That was only the beginning and I got hardened fast enough; but when
the war was over I used to wake up at night and think of all the
battles I’d fought in, and try to count up the men I had bugled out to
die. Then I married and had a home for a while, but my wife died, and
those old times began to get bigger and bigger and now I never look
back to anything but just those days of the camp, and the fights; and
the bugle sings in my ears all the time as though it was calling to the
men I sent into battles where they died!”
“War’s an ugly business; somebody has to be killed,” said Wayne kindly,
moved to pity by the veteran’s emotion.
“I’ve trumpeted my thousands down to death,” he answered; and then,
clearing his throat, he went on:
“I dream every night that I’m on a high place--not here, but a grayish
sort of hill with a gray cloud hanging over it, and I look down and see
long lines of them marching.”
“Them?” Wayne asked.
[Illustration: “GHOSTS, THE GHOSTS OF DEAD SOLDIERS”]
“Ghosts, the ghosts of dead soldiers, marching with their heads bowed
down the way tired soldiers march at night. And when one line passes,
another trumpeter strikes up and another army of the same tired ghosts
follows right after. It’s all mighty still--you never hear any sounds
at all except the trumpet, and it’s muffled and choked--not even when
the cavalry come along or the artillery. You know how moving guns
rumble like thunder when they go along a hard road? Well, you never
hear even the cannon, but the cavalry ride with their heads down, like
the infantry, and the horses with their noses against their knees
almost; and the artillerymen sit on the caissons with their arms folded
and their heads bowed as though they were asleep. I can’t make out
where they came from or where they are going; they just came out of
nowhere and go nowhere--but they never stop coming. And the trumpeters
blow back all the men that have ever died in battle since the world
began--so that they are years and years passing by--that’s the way it
seems in my dream. Then I’m all alone on the hill, and I know it’s my
turn to sound the trumpet; and something clicks in my throat when I
try to blow, and I can’t make a sound, and as I keep trying and trying
I wake up; but I never can make them come. I can’t bring back my dead
men out of the dust the way the others did, and I sit up and cry when I
remember how I killed them.”
He ceased as abruptly as he had begun, stared fixedly at Wayne and Joe
and then slowly descended, muttering and shaking his head. When he was
out of sight the two stood silently gazing after him. Wayne drew his
hand across his forehead several times before he spoke.
“Men live for things and they die for things. That poor old fellow has
lost his mind brooding over the horror of war. They didn’t do it for
themselves--the men who fought that war--they did it for the country,
and for you and me who weren’t born. I wonder--I wonder how it would be
to do something just once that was for somebody else?”
Then he remembered what Jean had said to him in his father’s library,
that we must serve ourselves before we attempt to serve others. He
applied this to himself tentatively, wondering whether any philosophy
was really applicable to his case. Joe spoke to him; he wanted to
discuss the old soldier’s story, but Wayne did not heed him. He was
looking dreamily down upon the tranquil landscape. Then he slapped his
hands together as was his way when a new thought took hold of him.
“Joe.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I wonder how it would seem to go to work.”
“Well, there’s always your roost in the high buildin’ and buttons to
press for the slaves,” suggested Joe cheerfully.
“Don’t be a fool, Joe. I mean work--the kind that real men do, digging
or planting, or any kind of thing that breaks your back and makes you
dead tired--the workmen do who would do that----” and he levelled his
arm toward the field where Pickett’s legion had charged through the
hail-swept wheat field.
Joe was not equal to this; here was a man born immune from the primal
curse, first turning tramp and sleeping in barns, and now soberly
threatening to go to work. So unaccountable a frame of mind put Joe on
guard; very likely Wayne was preparing for another spree and Joe was
troubled.
The next morning Wayne, without explanation, laid their course toward
the north; but Joe thought he knew where they were going.
CHAPTER XXXV
GOLDEN BRIDGE
They followed the Susquehanna northward into Jean’s country--“my
country” she had called it. They saw dawn and sunset brighten the glad
water into silver and gold and bronze. They moved slowly, for it is
sweet to loiter in that lovely valley when June is young, and a man in
search of his soul may catch glimpses of it on the hilltops. When the
days were hot they tramped at night and many pleasant adventures were
theirs. We are foolish--we men--in our loving, thinking that we can
hide the blind god’s arrow when it quivers in our hearts; and these men
believed that each hid from the other his happiness in the knowledge
that they journeyed toward her hills--“my country!” They loitered the
more because Wayne knew she might not be there; she must be about her
errands in the South and West, and he had no idea what effect her
grandfather’s death might have had upon her affairs. At any rate it
would be sweet to see the hills of her youth and the places that had
known her.
They paused one afternoon at a little town to which their bags had
been expressed. They had now come into the region where the irregular
outlines of the anthracite breaker are roughly etched on the horizons,
and Joe at once found acquaintances. The prospect of a baseball contest
between the local nine and its formidable rival from a neighbouring
town thrilled the community. Joe’s eligibility as an amateur was not
discussed; the opposing nine openly boasted of a retired professional.
He was got into uniform without ado, and put his left arm in commission
with a few hours’ practice. The young fellow’s joy in this opportunity
to display his skill emphasized to Wayne the irreconcilable difference
between Jean Morley with her high aspirations and this young fellow
with his childish ideals. There was no hour of the day that did not
bring its thought of her.
Wayne sat amid a turbulent throng in the ball park and watched Joe
with pride. And is there in the history of sport another game so
exacting in its demands on skill, judgment and strength, so prolific
of surprise, as our national game? Or did ever Greek athlete bend his
lithe body into forms half so graceful as those seen a hundred times
on the diamond in every contest! The shortstop at his nimble pick-up
and throw has no points to yield to the Discobolus of Myron. Behold Joe
Denny, a master of the pitcher’s art and all its subtle psychology!
The man at the bat is less his antagonist than his victim. He plays
upon doubt, hesitation, and suspense. His good nature, expressed in a
half-ironic grin, is part of his equipment. That deliberate search
for the proper footing, those tentative thrusts of his shoe into the
earth, are features of his strategy. His glance at the bases is the
most casual--never furtive or anxious. He holds the stage, the coolest
figure in the scene. A declaration of war between powers is awaited
less anxiously than his delivery. He caresses and woos the ball, but
is at all times its master. He lifts it with a graceful sweep above
his head; arms and body are in perfect agreement; the mind has devised
the exact curve and speed of the flight, and the arm is shrewd in
execution. The world leans to the ordained, controlled flight; there
is quick after-play; and again young Atlas, a trifle bored by his
applause, takes the ball into his hands and by wit and strength lures
another batter to destruction. Whatever Joe’s right arm might have
been, his left had its own peculiar cunning. After two innings he
had the opposing batters at his mercy; his grin broadened under the
stimulus of the cheering. He struck out three men in succession and the
crowd was wild.
“They was fruit,” said Joe later, as he and Wayne ate supper in the
village hotel. “They hadn’t any eye. They fanned before the ball
started.”
“It’s too bad to waste you. You ought to go back into the game,” said
Wayne. “You’d better write to those fellows who wanted you in New York
before you cracked your arm. They’re always looking for talent.”
“Ain’t we goin’ to work? Ball playin’ ain’t work, it’s fun,” replied
Joe; but Wayne knew that the taste of the joys of the game had whetted
Joe’s appetite, and that only loyalty to himself kept him from going
back to it.
A few nights later they walked into Denbeigh. This was Jean’s country
at last and this was the town where she had grown to womanhood, and
gone to school, and seen the dead men brought out of the pit. And here
she and Joe had played together and had been sweethearts--this was in
Wayne’s thought and not less in Joe’s we may well believe. But they did
not speak her name and had not spoken it since the night Wayne visited
Joe in the garage; and that was very long ago!
Wayne, more and more inexplicable to Joe, insisted that they should
go to a miner’s boarding house, though there was a fair commercial
hotel in the place. Wayne passed well enough for an American labourer
now--big, vigorous, bearded, and shabby as to clothes. It was a
question whether Joe, who had been faithful to his razor, did not
inspire greater confidence in the beholder. A stranger in such a
community is a marked man and his motives are sharply questioned; but
Joe was on his own soil, and a power, it seemed, among the men of the
pit, and he gave satisfactory assurances as to Wayne’s intentions.
Pittsburg has few lines of contact with the anthracite country--a fact
of which Wayne had been cognizant in choosing the upper Susquehanna
for his exile, and his own name, if he had not dropped it, would have
meant little here.
Joe had believed that when confronted by a day’s real work Wayne’s
determination would weaken. Wayne was a man of whims, to be sure, but
Joe had no illusions as to the nobility of labour, and having himself
enjoyed the fleshpots of the Craighill kitchen he was confident that
the food of the miner’s boarding house would give Wayne pause, if
nothing else did. But Wayne kept doggedly to his resolution. He had
received his commission to labour from Jean’s hands, and he had come
into her country as into holy land. He was not a miner and under the
law could not go down into the earth as he had expected, to wrest
coal from its great caverns; but Joe found work for him as a teamster
at the Florence colliery, hauling timbers and other supplies, and he
himself instructed Wayne in his duties. The humour of the thing tickled
Joe; Wayne Craighill with a pipe in his mouth, driving a mule team
and running when the whistle blew, was certainly funny. And when the
day’s work was done Wayne smoked and talked with the motley crowd at
the boarding house and made them like him--as was his way. He caught a
glimpse now and then, through the office window, of Craig, the chief
engineer--a classmate of his at the “Tech,” bending over blue-prints of
the workings; but they never met face to face.
Joe had found work for himself in the mines, and came up at night
as black as the blackest, but with his cheer unabated. He watched
Wayne carefully, believing that at any time the old passion for drink
would reassert itself; and he wrote, with much labour, half-humorous
post-card bulletins of Wayne’s doings to Walsh and Wingfield. “Thumping
mules and eating boiled pork and greens with the Dagoes. Hasn’t drank a
drop,” read one of these reports; and Walsh, growling and swearing in
his glass box, gave currency to a report that Wayne was on a ranch in
Colorado; but Paddock and Wingfield knew the truth and marvelled, and
Paddock insisted that they must let the man have his way.
It must not be thought that Wayne Craighill was tamely submissive to
this new order of life. His arms and back ached for the first week, but
he profited by his wood-cutting in the Virginia hills where his palms
had been well toughened by the axe. The little room in which he slept
was without a single comfort that he had known; he had been fastidious
at table, and only the honest appetite created by his day’s work made
possible the food set before him. He was possessed by a righteous
feeling that he was punishing his body for all its misdeeds; his
spirit, too, was subjected to hourly humiliations. He had been cursed
as a fool by a dull “boss,” but had swallowed the cursing meekly. At
supper one night his neighbour produced a bottle of whiskey and passed
it down the line. It was vile stuff, but the odour of it struck home.
Wayne rose abruptly and almost ran from the room. And all this time
he heard nothing of Jean, though he had seen the house where she had
lived--a little cottage of one story, with a flower garden about it,
now sadly gone to weeds. It had last been opened, he learned, when
Andrew Gregory was buried from it. He passed it daily, picturing her
as she had lived there and wondering if the place would ever know her
again.
As his muscles hardened the day’s work worried him less, and he fell
into the habit of taking long walks at night to exhaust his surplus
energy. The goal of these was usually Golden Bridge, a point about
a mile from town. The bridge--golden in nothing but its name--was a
covered wooden structure of a picturesque type happily preserved in
this region. He used to climb out on the stone pier at one end of it
and sit there, hearing the song of the Susquehanna amid a blur of frog
choruses and chants of insects. And these times were sacred to thoughts
of Jean, for this was her country, these her hills, with their filmy
scarfs of summer cloud thrown over their shoulders, and this her river,
that had known all the years of her life. And there one night she came,
as though in answer to his longing.
He sat huddled on the pier, clasping his knees and smoking, when he
heard someone crossing the bridge behind him. He had rarely been
disturbed by pedestrians, and this had endeared the place to him. He
turned as a woman emerged from the covered way into the moonlight; and
his heart knew her even before his eyes.
“Jean!”
He jumped down into the road and stood uncovered. She drew away,
smothering a cry, for he was not the Wayne Craighill she had seen last
in his sister’s house. Toil in the summer heat had trained him fine and
his beard had aged him. They gazed at each other long, the moonlight
flowing round them; then their hands met.
“I might have known it would be here,” she said half to herself, then
aloud: “I have known this place always. They call it Golden Bridge--we
children played here, and I used to sit on the bank over there and try
to draw the bridge.”
They stood leaning on the stone barrier. She was hatless and dressed in
white--the gown spoke of her new life.
“I just came this afternoon, and I’m staying with friends until I can
sell the house--grandfather’s cottage; it’s mine now. I have work to do
here--I kept my breaker boys until the last.”
The mention of her grandfather sent his memory clanging back to that
dark night of Andrew Gregory’s death; but she seemed happy--it was her
“country” and she was at home.
“I must go back. I came out here for old times’ sake, and I’m glad I
saw you here first. I knew you were in Denbeigh.”
“How did you know?”
“Joe wrote me. He told me what you were doing--the hard work, and all
about it. I wrote to him first--I wanted him to know that my going away
to do the pictures made no difference, that I still felt bound to him,
and that I was ready to marry him at any time.”
Her contact with the world had not, then, changed her feeling about
Joe, as he had hoped it might. They turned toward town and she walked
beside him, with her free stride, her shoulders erect, her head high.
“We have never mentioned you--Joe and I--not even when we came here.
I came because you have lived here; I look up at these hills of yours
every morning and feel that I am among friends. And they have helped
me. It is because of you that I am here, Jean. I couldn’t do what I am
doing here if it were not for you.”
“Please--you mustn’t say that!”
He bent his head stubbornly; but he knew that he must respect the line
she had drawn between them.
“You didn’t go to Mr. Walsh? I thought you had made up your mind to do
that.”
“I changed it; the evil got into me again. I was not ready. I haven’t
got the devil out of my system, but the load’s a little lighter. I can
get face to face with myself now occasionally--and that’s something
I hadn’t done before. The face has changed a little,” he laughed. “I
hardly know myself outwardly.”
His dress was that of the poorest labourer; he was coatless and carried
his cheap cap in his hand.
“Nobody knows me here; I’m always forgetting whether I’m Smith or
Jones. Joe allayed all suspicions--he’s been good to me.”
“Joe is a good boy; he was always that.”
“Jean!”
He had paused in the road and the despair Joe’s name had awakened in
his heart was in his cry.
“He will never let you do it--you don’t believe yourself that he will
take you at your word. Won’t you give me my chance?”
“No! No!”
“You don’t love him--you don’t care for him, Jean.”
“That isn’t it--that has nothing to do with it. I treated him cruelly,
heartlessly, and it’s no question now of whether I care for him or not.”
“If he’s said his last word, that means that he doesn’t care--he
doesn’t realize how much you are offering him.”
“You are not just to him; he understands it--everything--and he
cares--that’s what makes it so hard!”
She ceased speaking and walked away a little and stood with hands
clenched, as she tried to control the deep feeling that possessed her.
He waited, not understanding; but the light broke upon him suddenly.
“Does he know about you and me, Jean? Is that the reason?”
“Oh, why do you ask me that?” she cried, answering by the evasion.
“That hurt me more than anything else when he was so sick; I talked to
him just before he left the parish house, and he was ill and weak, and
I told him I was ready; but he wouldn’t do it--he wouldn’t come back
because of you. You don’t understand how he loves you; how you are his
great hero; how humbly he serves you. He would die for you. He wrote
to me about it while I was away--letters that wrung my heart--they
were all of you, how you were fighting to master yourself; and he was
so proud of you for going to work here at the mines. I wouldn’t tell
you this, only I don’t want you to think of him so contemptuously, as
something to be lightly flung aside. He loves me in his foolish, boyish
way as he always did from the time we were children; but he loves you
more; it’s because of you that he never wavers in his refusal to take
me back. I tell you this because I want you to appreciate him--what he
has done for you--what he would do for you and me.”
He was touched, but not greatly, by what she said. Joe’s nobility
was admirable enough--but it did not ease Wayne’s burden or brighten
his hope. His impatience of restraint--lulled for a time by hard
labour--flashed up like a fiery torch in his heart.
She talked now of her work, and of the places she had visited, winning
and holding his interest.
“The best time I had was in the South. I went to some of the
cotton-mill towns in North Carolina, and the little coloured children
were great fun. But they were harder to do. They want me to illustrate
a children’s Christmas book as soon as this is done--I suppose if I go
on I shan’t come here any more. Grandfather was my only tie with the
place.”
“I had just received your letter about him the evening your grandfather
died. I had intended doing what I could, but my father had trifled with
his case too long, and Mr. Gregory was at the house when I went up
there that night. I had gone to the house for the last time.”
“Why?”
The question was unlike her, and he started guiltily. The truth about
her grandfather’s death was one thing she must never know; but he was
reassured at once. The question had sprung to her lips thoughtlessly.
“Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn’t mean to ask that.”
“It was inevitable. We irritated each other more and more, and then the
break came. It was better that I should not go back any more.”
“I’m sorry it happened that way,” she replied.
They were at the edge of the town, and she put out her hand.
“I am glad I met you to-night--but I must not see you again. The
people here would never understand it. But it pleases me that you came
here; it brings you”--she hesitated--“it brings you nearer, some way,
your being here in my country.”
“That’s why I came--because it is your country. We were at Gettysburg,
Joe and I, and looking down on the battlefield where men had died, I
thought of what they did there, and that brought back what you had said
about labour; so I started for this place, knowing that if I could win
my way to my own respect anywhere it would be here. And here I am, and
I shall stay a while longer. Walsh will take me when I want to go--but
I’m not sure of myself yet.”
“If I have helped, I am glad,” she said. He had kept her hand while he
spoke, for this might be a long good-bye; and she laid her other hand
lightly on his, an instant only, but his whole being tingled at the
contact.
It was only a fleeting touch of hands, but they were nearer that moment
than they had ever been before. They had gone far since that autumn
afternoon when she had spurned him indignantly in the art gallery at
Pittsburg. He lay awake until past midnight, thinking of her. Strangely
enough, in spite of her reaffirmed obligation to Joe, she seemed less
unattainable, more nearly of a world he knew. And as he sought words to
express their relation to each other, they took this form: If there be,
as men say, real differences that power and place and wealth create
between man and man, she might never have attained to the station to
which he was born; but by the sweat of his face he had climbed to hers.
CHAPTER XXXVI
TWO OLD FRIENDS SEEK WAYNE
Joe, swollen with pride at having received a telegram, hurried from the
mine to the station with the grime of the pit on his face and his lamp
still flaring in his cap. He grinned cheerfully at Walsh and Wingfield
as they stepped from the train, the worse for a hot afternoon in a day
coach. Wingfield surveyed the town with his habitual austerity as they
consulted on the platform. His linen had suffered on the journey and he
was conscious of the fact; Walsh, blowing hard, mopped his head freely.
The heat of August was trying and no trifling business could have
brought these gentlemen to Denbeigh.
“We came to see Mr. Craighill; we want to do it privately. Can you fix
it?”
“Sure I can!”
“Understand,” said Wingfield, “that we don’t want to interfere with him
or embarrass him in any way. He doesn’t expect us.”
Joe commended them to the ’bus driver and, conscious of the dignity
conferred upon himself by their arrival, hurried off.
They passed a colliery a little way from the station and the visitors
turned in the rumbling omnibus to look at the blackened walls of the
roaring breaker. And they saw, driving his mule team soberly into the
colliery yard, a man whose figure at once arrested their attention.
Wayne Craighill, bronzed, bearded, clad in jumper and overalls, a cap
on the back of his head, had finished his day’s work, and was returning
his team to the colliery stables. The pilgrims stared in silence; then
they turned toward each other slowly. Wingfield’s face, as usual,
expressed no emotion; Walsh grunted “Um” and craned his neck to get
a last view of the disappearing teamster through the rear door of
the ’bus. His thin lips smiled a trifle; the appearance of Mr. Wayne
Craighill as a driver of mules seemed not to have displeased Walsh.
Wingfield read the advertisements in the panels over the windows and
said nothing. Life, he resolved afresh, is an interesting business.
In the hotel lavatory he made the acquaintance of that dark scroll of
our democracy, the roller-towel. He was afraid not to use it, he told
Walsh, for fear of being thought haughty; but he promised to report
the matter to a Philadelphia friend of his who was a distinguished
sanitarian. Joe, honouring the occasion with a white collar, was
cooling his heels in the office when they came out from their supper,
which had been suffered gloomily by Wingfield, whom the waitress had
taken for the advance agent of a circus billed for early appearance in
Denbeigh. This idea delighted him, and he confided to her that he had
no tickets with him, but that she should not go unprovided for; he was
only the monkey trainer, he confessed.
There was a little park about the court-house, and thither Joe led
them and discreetly disappeared. Wayne rose from a bench and greeted
them. He had donned for the occasion the suit in which he had made
the journey from home, and it hung loosely upon him. He was in good
spirits and greeted them cordially, with much chaffing of Wingfield
for his temerity in venturing so far from his beaten trails. In a few
minutes Wingfield strolled away; it was Walsh, then, who had business
with him, and Wayne settled himself to listen as the old fellow plunged
characteristically to the heart of his errand.
“The Colonel’s in bad shape. Things haven’t improved as he expected;
some of the people who helped him out last fall won’t carry him any
longer. And he’s sick, too. He’s a good deal broken, the Colonel is.
I’ve been trying to help him--spending an hour a day at the office for
a week or two.”
“I like that! I suppose he sent for you.”
“Don’t get hot, son; it makes no difference if he did. You want to cut
out any feeling you have against your father--it ain’t like you--it
never was like you. He’s your father; his blood’s in you, and he’s
clear down now.”
Wayne listened in dogged silence as Walsh went into the details of
Roger Craighill’s affairs. Much might yet be saved, Walsh held, if this
new crisis could be bridged. Wayne chafed under Walsh’s recital; he
would not help the old fellow with any expressions of sympathy; but
Walsh had expected to address an unsympathetic ear, and he told his
story to the end.
“What I want you to do is to go home and give the old man a lift. I
ain’t going to argue it with you. Wingfield and I start back at ten
o’clock. If you do anything it will have to be done at once. You can
come back here afterward if you want to. It ain’t been a bad place for
you. Think it over.”
He lighted a cigar, glanced at the clock tower, and walked away to find
Wingfield, to whom Joe was disclosing the marvels of his native city.
Wayne sat gloomily pondering what Walsh had said. Walsh’s own
magnanimity in having gone to his father’s assistance had impressed
him. The old hostility toward his father had lost its edge through
successive defeats; but what struck Wayne to-night was the fact that
a higher law of compensation than any within his grasp had taken the
blade from his hands. He wondered whether it were possible that the
ledger of life is self-balancing--whether in our own efforts to bring
its accounts into agreement we can do more than confuse the items and
blot the leaf. And so he turned it over and over in his mind, sitting
there on the park bench, with the street sounds of the town drifting in
upon him.
* * * * *
Jean crossed the park on her way to the post-office. Wayne sat erect as
he recognized her tall figure in the path. The light of an electric
lamp swinging among the trees fell full upon her, but her fine, proud
carriage, the lifted head were unmistakable. His lips parted to call
her; but she passed on unconscious of his nearness, and her step on the
cement walk died away. His feeling of superstitious belief in her as an
instrument of fate quickened, giving way to the remembrance of her own
high courage, her simple belief in right for right’s sake, her faith
that good may somehow come to all. He knew well enough what she would
say if he put this new question to her. He sighed and struck his hands
together, and went to tell Walsh that he would go back with him.
* * * * *
Wingfield’s story that Wayne had been visiting a friend on a Western
ranch served admirably to explain his absence during the summer, and
it accounted also for his rugged appearance. Both friends found the
man they journeyed with to Pittsburg not the man they had known of
old--quieter, more subdued, more given to wide-eyed dreaming.
Walsh had planned various moves in the expectation that Wayne would not
refuse him; a brief interview at the Hercules National Bank; a visit
to the safety vault where Wayne kept his securities; the transfer of a
bundle of these chosen by Walsh to the bank, and the principal business
was done. Wayne went a step beyond Walsh’s expectations by taking
up his father’s notes aggregating two hundred thousand dollars in
several other institutions, and gave his own notes to which he pledged
collateral from his own strong box.
“Is that all?” asked Wayne, when Walsh had carried him down to the
mercantile company for a smoke and talk. “I’m going back to my job;
Joe’s sitting on it for me till I come.”
“No, that isn’t all; not quite. I want you to go up and see the
Colonel. I want you to tell him what you’ve done.”
Wayne fidgeted in his chair.
“Look here, Tom; this is rubbing it in! You think what we’ve done will
tide him over. If it does, all right; I’m not going up there to ask his
blessing. The thought of the house makes me sick.”
“Um! I want you to go up there. Things ain’t right there. The Colonel
ain’t well; he hasn’t been himself since old Gregory died there----”
“I shouldn’t think he would be,” snapped Wayne. “He wasn’t square with
the old man. I wish you hadn’t spoken of that.”
“Um! And the little woman up there’s troubled. She ain’t happy. It
would help them both a lot if you would see them. You can go after
dinner to-night, and then back to the mines for you if you’re happier
up there. But I wish you would come home now and take your desk in
here. You see I had a new one put in for you last spring when I thought
it was all fixed; that’s the key, and there’s your desk. When you want
to go to work you’ll find the key hanging here.”
Walsh rolled a fat cigar in his mouth and pointed his stubby forefinger
at the key suspended from his desk lamp by a piece of twine. Sentiment
in Walsh was a new manifestation, and he wore it rather shamefacedly.
He went to the outer window of his glass pilot-house and surveyed the
scene below.
“You there!” he bellowed.
The loading of a dray had been interrupted by a sparring-match between
two porters. Walsh’s wrath descended upon them furiously. He returned
to Wayne, mopping his brow and lighted a cigar to compose himself.
“I guess that’s all I got to say to you. You go up and see the Colonel.
Tell him what you’ve done for him; do it any way you please, and do it
now. I guess you ain’t been in a manicure shop lately, have you, son?”
Wayne laughed and held out his scarred hands for inspection.
“Um! I guess that’ll take the foolishness out of you. Now clear out o’
here! Can’t you see I got to sign this mail? And don’t you come back
any more till you’re ready to go to work!”
He rolled his chair in to his desk with much puffing and hid himself in
a great cloud of smoke as he grabbed his pen.
CHAPTER XXXVII
WAYNE VISITS HIS FATHER’S HOUSE
Most of the houses in the neighbourhood were deserted, but lights shone
from the Craighill library as Wayne entered the grounds. He had his
latch-key, but he was not sure that he had still the right to use it.
He had come reluctantly, and the sight of the house did not intensify
his zeal for an interview with his father. Near the hedge that marked
one of the Craighill boundaries stood a rustic summer house. It had
been a favourite retreat of Wayne’s mother, and as he debated afresh
whether he should see his father he left the path and walked toward it.
His step on the grass was noiseless. As he stood in the low doorway of
the little house Mrs. Craighill sprang up from the corner where she had
been idling.
“Oh, Wayne, have you come back?”
“I’m back unexpectedly, and only for the night. How are you--how’s
father?”
He groped for chairs in the dark.
“Your father’s not himself at all. How could he ever be after _that_?”
“Let us not talk of it. I didn’t come for that.”
“But--you know what happened?” Her voice fell to a whisper. “He let
the doctors pass on the old man’s death--and said nothing. They took
his word for it. And of course what you offered to do--he didn’t take
advantage of that.”
“He didn’t have to; the doctors’ verdict made it unnecessary. And so
we’ll never know just what would have happened. We’ll give him the
benefit of the doubt. Well, how are things going?”
“Your father’s business affairs have troubled him. He never talks to
me of them, but I know he worries. Mr. Walsh has been helping him, and
he has been very kind to me, too--in many ways. Since he began to help
your father he has come to the house a good deal. He thinks your father
will pull out in time; he’s trying to get the dead horses out of the
stable--that’s what he calls the poor investments.”
“Tom can straighten father out if anybody can. Has father spoken of me
since that night?”
“No; not once.”
“Hasn’t mentioned me at all?”
“I’m sorry, but he hasn’t, Wayne.”
“Where’s Fanny?”
“She’s at York Harbour. She was terribly cut up over your going away;
but Mr. Walsh knew where you were all the time, and what you were
doing. So he told me and I told her. Your man Joe kept Mr. Walsh
posted.”
“He did, did he?” and Wayne laughed. “I’ve been at work, Addie. I’ve
been driving mules up there in the anthracite country to try to get
the general cussedness out of my system. I haven’t tasted a drop of
anything for so long that I’ve forgotten the names of the drinks I
used to lap up so abundantly. I saw a trayful of cocktails go by me
in the club to-night, and the sight of them tickled my throat for a
minute, but I poured a gallon of ice water into the serpent and was all
right. As soon as I’m dead sure I’ve got a grip on myself I’m coming
back to go into the mercantile company with Walsh.”
In the dim light of the summer house she studied this new Wayne
Craighill, puzzled by deeper changes than those of outward person.
A new simplicity and directness, a certain self-confidence and
definiteness of aim that had been lacking in the Wayne she had known
of old set him apart. She wished to let him know that she realized the
wide sweep of the change.
“That night, that awful night in the library, you were fine; it was
splendid of you to offer to take--_that_--on yourself. I have thought
of it every hour since.”
“Oh, Addie, Addie! Please never speak of that! You didn’t understand
it. I didn’t want to stand in his place to help him, but to punish
him. I hated him. He had done a foul thing in striking old Gregory,
but by taking the blame for it I thought I should be revenging myself
on him--my own father--that was it. You see my mind had got a strange
twist or I should never have thought of such a thing; but when the
opportunity offered there that night I was ready for it. I knew that if
once he let the moment pass and I took his crime on my own shoulders,
I should have him in torture all the rest of his days. It was an ugly
thought; I had other and uglier thoughts about him, but I hope I’m not
going to think that sort of thing any more. I’ve got half a grip and
I’m going to try to hold on.”
“Have you seen Jean Morley?” she asked after a silence. He did not know
that this question had been on her lips from the moment he appeared.
“Yes, once; to talk to her.”
“Fanny’s asked her to York; she’s going there for September.”
“I’m not going to York Harbour now or in September,” he answered
shortly.
“But don’t you suppose Fanny expects you to come while Jean is there?
Fanny has been crazy to go to Denbeigh to see you. You know how
perfectly devoted she is to you.”
“Yes; dear old Fanny! It’s a good thing she didn’t see me up there. It
would have given her a stroke.”
“Fanny is fond of Jean--and proud of her,” Mrs. Craighill persisted,
and her note was plaintive. Her presence in the tea house at that hour
expressed her isolation. The tone in which she had spoken of Jean had
its pathos and it did not escape him. And the remembrance of his own
attitude toward her when she had come home, his father’s wife--his hope
that he might make her the instrument of his vengeance upon his father,
wrenched him now. This sudden revulsion brought him abruptly to his
feet.
“I’m going in to speak to father. You needn’t be afraid of what I shall
say to him. There must be peace between us all.”
She was near to tears, and she was loath to have him go. These were
dreary days for Adelaide Craighill; but Wayne had eaten of the fruit
of the tree of wisdom and knew the danger that lies in woman’s tears.
Their hands touched, and he left her.
* * * * *
Colonel Craighill sat empty-handed by the library table, staring with
unseeing eyes at the wall. He did not recognize his son at once and
Mrs. Craighill’s intimations had not prepared Wayne for the broken
figure before him; his father’s rosy complexion had given way to a sick
pallor, and he had lost flesh. He sprang to his feet and flung round
with a pitiful look of fear in his eyes.
“Good evening, father. I’m sorry I startled you; please sit down again.
I can stay only a few minutes.”
Colonel Craighill sank back into his chair--the big leathern seat that
had been his father’s as long as Wayne could remember.
“You have been away, Wayne. They told me you had been West. I didn’t
know you had come back.”
“I’m back for only a short time. I have seen Walsh, and he has gone
over your affairs with me. He is sanguine of the outcome and believes
that you will yet save a good part of your estate. I don’t mean to
trouble you by discussing these things with you. I came to help.”
“The banks have acted ungenerously,” flared the Colonel. “Men I had
thought my friends have turned against me. The worst of the depression
passed long ago, but they are not satisfied to carry me until I can
make a turn.”
“I understand it all perfectly. I have seen the figures.”
“The Hercules National people have pursued me malevolently,” continued
Colonel Craighill, his voice wavering as his anger rose, “and the
others have taken their cue from them. Walsh has done all he could; but
they are a lot of ingrates--when I have laboured all my life for the
honour and dignity of the city.”
“Yes; they have put the pressure on at a time when it seems
unnecessary; but they are all disposed to be over-cautious now, I
suppose.”
“I told them all along the stringency was only temporary, and they used
me--were glad to use my name--to help uphold the city’s credit; and
now--now----”
“Let us forget all that for a minute, father,” said Wayne, kindly.
“It’s about these loans that I want to speak to you. Walsh is trying to
save the good things until you can realize on them to advantage. The
notes now falling due will be cared for.”
“No; they say they won’t renew them! And my friends elsewhere refuse to
help.”
“It is all arranged,” said Wayne quietly. “I have taken them up myself
and given my own in place of them. You may be at ease about them. I
will carry them as long as you want me to. Here are the old notes. They
are cancelled, you see.”
He had spoken with a gentleness he had never used to any being before.
His father’s helplessness had disarmed any lingering resentment; he
faced a sadly decrepit old man in whom there was no spark of hope. Why
had their lives been so irreconcilably at variance? In the Virginia
hills and at Denbeigh he had thought much of this. Jean had helped
him; Paddock and Stoddard had lifted and urged him on; to Walsh and
Wingfield he was under definite obligations; and Joe--even Joe--had
made sacrifices for him; but his father had never dealt with him as an
individual, but rather as a type. Even in his childhood they had never
met on any common ground. He had never been conscious of a father’s
faith or sympathy. His father, with his head in the clouds, had merely
stumbled in annoyance over his son’s playthings.
But he realized now that life nobly lived is not an affair of reprisal
and vengeance, or even of measured reciprocity. What he had missed
through his father’s vanity and selfishness was nothing when weighed
against this new experience of the joy of giving and serving.
He put into his father’s hands the little bundle of notes he had
gathered up at the banks, with the cancellation marks stamped upon
them. Roger Craighill gazed at them dully. His mind did not at once
comprehend what it was that his son had done.
“That is all there is of that, but there is something else I have to
say. You are my father. I have used you ill; I have brought shame upon
you, and in my bitterness against you I have sought to injure you--in
infamous ways that I won’t describe. The night old Gregory died
here----”
Colonel Craighill lifted his head quickly and raised his hand in quite
his old authoritative manner.
“It was his heart--the autopsy showed it had been diseased for years. I
insisted on the most careful examination!”
“I dare say. I didn’t come to discuss that. That is your affair.
What I have to say concerns me alone. When I offered that night to
take whatever blame might follow his death here, it was from no good
feelings toward you, but in a spirit of evil. I wanted to place you
under a crushing weight of shameful obligation to me--that was it.
And I’ve come back to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for every hour of
anxiety and shame I ever gave you. Come, father, let us be friends!”
Roger Craighill was slow to comprehend what had happened. He tried to
get upon his feet, and Wayne caught him and lifted him up, his arm
round his father’s shoulders, and it was he who gave the handclasp,
vigorous and strong with the strength of his redeemed manhood. He had
gone low, but he had risen high. He who had been of the companionship
of dragons had come into possession of his own soul. He had still his
weaknesses, and he might yet stumble and fall; but for an instant he
stood above the clouds, master of himself and drinking deep of clean
airs of hope and aspiration.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
“THEY’RE CALLIN’ STRIKES ON ME”
Joe avoided Jean. His days were spent underground, and in the summer
evenings when he might have seen her with little trouble, he shunned
walks they had known of old together. He heard that she had sold the
little cottage that had been her only inheritance from her grandfather,
and he knew that this meant the severing of her last tie with the town.
The community, rejoicing in her success, whispered the fabulous terms
of her professional engagements.
Jean, with her trunk packed, had yet to see him before leaving
the valley, and he appeared at the cottage by a characteristic
inadvertence, leaning upon the gate as she closed the door for the last
time.
“Everybody’s sorry you’re goin’, Jean; but I guess you got to pull out.
You’ve outgrown the town and it’s you for the large cities now.”
“I have to go where my work is. I’m going to share another woman’s
studio in New York this fall. I’m going first to visit Mrs. Blair in
Maine.”
“Sure! York’s the place. The Blairs always go there,” Joe replied,
proud of his inner knowledge of the Craighills and their ways. “Walsh
and Whiskers blew in yesterday and took my boss to Pittsburg. He said
he’d be back in a day or two. He’s the busy little worker when he gets
started.”
They stood with a new restraint upon them at the gate that had known
their childhood and youth. Joe saw that his reference to Wayne had not
been fortunate, and he twisted his cap nervously.
“He’s come round all right, Jean. He’s pretty safe from the drink now.
He’s worked it off.”
“He can do anything he tries. And you’ve done a great deal to help
him. You wouldn’t have come back to the mines if you hadn’t thought he
needed you.”
“Oh, pshaw! Jean. But I guess I was stuck on him, all right, or I
wouldn’t have come back. I guess you know why he came here--it was for
you. And the goin’ to work--I guessed you did that, too. It listens
like you, Jean. And now he’s made over--and you made him. I want you to
be good to him.”
“He’s my friend and yours--that’s all, Joe,” she said firmly. “I may
not be in Denbeigh for a good while but I want to tell you before I go
that I’m still ready to come back to you. If you’ll give me another
chance I’ll do my best. I mean it, Joe, with all my heart.”
“I wish you’d stop thinking about that business. It ain’t no use, Jean.
And now you got a big chance and I’d only be in the way. You don’t want
to come back--not honest in your heart you don’t; you just think it’s
right; and Father Jim told you you oughtn’t to have left me--that the
divorce was a sin. But you’re free--and I’m not holding you.”
“If you want to come any time you can always find out where I am,” she
said. “I shall always be ready.”
“He came here because you had lived here. I guess I know him! I knew
that when we started from Gettysburg. And he’s workin’ now to please
you. You’re all he’s got. You can bet he wouldn’t take what he’s
takin’--the work and the boardin’ house diet--for nothin’. You got
him goin’, Jean; he wants you to see that he’s got good stuff in him.
He’s fightin’ off his thirst every day; that’s why he walks so much at
night. I don’t have to watch him any more--he’s got a grip on himself.
He comes into the boardin’ house after everybody’s gone to bed and
tumbles down in his bunk so dead tired he don’t hear nothin’ till the
old woman beats the tin pan. You ought to be proud, Jean, that a man
like him’s doin’ this for you.”
“Mr. Craighill’s a good man; he doesn’t need any help from me.”
“He’s the real gold,” added Joe, “and I want you to be good to him. I
want you to marry him, Jean.”
“Oh, Joe! Joe!” she cried despairingly, “don’t speak of such a thing!
You don’t know how foolish you are to talk so!”
“I’m sorry, Jean,” he answered humbly. “I want you to be happy--and
him.”
He bade her good-bye, and moved away dejectedly through the night. Jean
went to the house of the friends with whom she had been staying, and
the next morning left for New York.
* * * * *
Joe was at work in a dark cavern of the Florence colliery at the hour
of her departure. With his butty and their two labourers he had gone
to a far corner of the mine. There is no night of the outer world like
that of the pit beneath, and no atmosphere like that of the moist
air of a coal mine. The very silences have their own profundity, as
though heightened by the weight of darkness. Sounds of blasting, the
rumbling of mine cars in the gangways, the click of tools along the
coal measures--these and kindred sounds have an eerie and phantasmal
quality in the great dark. Voices are choked and muffled when men
speak, and speech in the coal world is limited to essential directions
and conferences; laughter is rarely heard. Indeed, a particular gravity
marks the coal miner, and he does not always lose it when he emerges
into sunlight. The hazard of his trade and the gloom in which he
labours under the crust of the spinning globe numb any joy he might
take in his own skill.
This life in the earth was not to Joe’s liking, and he had never
expected to return to it. Love of Wayne Craighill alone had brought
him back to the pit; otherwise the pitcher’s box or a chauffeur’s
seat would have claimed him. And to-day, with Jean vanishing into an
unknown world and Wayne in Pittsburg, whence--there was no telling--he
might not return, Joe’s outlook on life partook of the surrounding
gloom, and he was disposed to deal severely with his labourer, a clumsy
Austrian who was forever getting in the way and mislaying tools. Joe
was a skilled hand, which is to say that he knew the hundred and one
things that expert miners know, and the trick of clean, expeditious and
safe mining. His “shots” were lucky this morning, and by noon he had
shaken down his required tonnage.
As he waited for his butty to finish, Joe lounged down the gangway. He
was a social being and he found solace in watching the twinkling lamps
of other workmen along the black corridor.
Craig, the engineer, and the fire boss passed on a round of inspection
and asked him if he had seen any fresh traces of squeezing or of gas.
Both had been observed lately in the colliery, and it had even been
said that a general subsidence was in progress throughout the wide,
honeycombed acreage of the Florence property. In every great colliery
there are frequent disquieting rumours, and a collapse rarely comes
without intimations familiar to the sophisticated eye and ear, and Joe
was not alarmed.
He confirmed the fears of the engineer to-day by his own testimony.
The “working” of the pillars in his own neighbourhood had increased
within twenty-four hours, as marked by chipping. The vein above, which
was mined simultaneously, was crowding the supports of the lower vein;
in remoter places there had been complete subsidence. A car-load of
timbers roared by, sent forward to prop the roof at points where the
danger had become acute. The explosion of his butty’s last shot
boomed dully behind, and Joe continued on a little farther. There was
a feeling of panic in the air. Men hurried by in the gloom, talking
excitedly, but he felt no fear; his experience of a larger world had
made him impatient of the ignorance of many of the men who spent their
time delving underground. Most of their accidents were due, he knew,
to their own carelessness. He would himself take a look at the farther
workings where the squeeze had become critical. A trip of cars bearing
a timber gang rumbled by. He hugged the wall to allow it to pass, and
yelled at the retreating workmen derisively. His curiosity was now
piqued, and he went on, in the conceit of his own superior wisdom,
toward the centre of the disturbed area.
A foreman with a crowd of men at his heels went by at a run, but he
chaffed them on their alarm. They had been ordered out, he had learned,
by the engineer.
“There’s some men working in the new gangway back there!” one of the
panic-stricken miners shouted.
“I’ll get ’em out!” cried Joe. “Give me that lamp.”
He exchanged caps with a man who had a safety lamp and ran up the
gangway. He began to realize that the alarm was not without reason. He
paused once and sniffed the air, and held his lamp to the coal wall in
various places, without finding traces of gas: but the evidences of
squeeze became more and more apparent as he penetrated farther into
the workings. He had volunteered to get the men out of the new gangway,
and he was now intent upon fulfilling this promise. The conditions were
serious, but the overchanging strata might adjust themselves without a
general collapse; or even if the catastrophe were inevitable it might
not come for days or weeks.
He had reached a region whose lines were strange to him, and the
cracking and splintering were more prevalent; but the flow of air was
good and he kept on. He saw faint lights ahead, the lamps of the men he
sought; they had taken warning of their own senses and were retreating
toward the shaft.
“We left a man back there--a fall of slate caught him,” shouted one.
“Don’t leave him in there. There’s plenty of time,” Joe yelled; but
they scampered by, huddled together in their fear.
He crowded into the opening of the new gangway and peered about. In
a moment he heard the moans of the injured man and crawled to where
he lay. His body was half covered by débris, and hearing Joe he cried
out in a strange tongue for help. A great slab of slate lay across
his back, and this Joe proceeded to lift by the aid of a crowbar. The
sounds of the straining of the crust grew less ominous for a time, and
as Joe strove to free the prisoner he had no fear of being unable to
escape. So long as the gangway was not blocked by falling rock and the
air supply continued good, it would be merely a matter of time to reach
the shaft and safety.
Perhaps ten minutes passed before he had moved the heavy slate, but
when the miner was quite free he could not rise, and when Joe had
lifted him to his feet his legs seemed paralyzed. He was an old man--a
Pole--who begged Joe in his meagre English not to leave him.
“You can’t walk, partner; I guess you got to ride out,” said Joe. He
got down on his knees and drew the crippled miner across his back,
supporting him by the legs, and crawled out into the main gangway. It
was as dark as pitch, and the oppressive silence continued; there was
in it now something unearthly that struck Joe ominously, but he hurried
with his burden down the long tunnel. He could stand nearly upright,
but the tramway was rough and covered with particles of coal, and his
progress was slow. He was aware that the clasp of the injured man’s
arms on his shoulders relaxed suddenly, and as, with the loss of his
hold his body slipped back, Joe laid him down in the tramway and held
the lamp to his face. The man was quite dead.
Satisfied of this, Joe sprang to his feet and on the instant the walls
of the earth about him shook with a mighty commotion. Just behind him
the tunnel shut with a sharp snap as of a monster’s jaws, and the
expelled air swept by him like a hurricane, knocking him down, and he
lay very still, with his face to the ground, expecting an inflow of
gas or an explosion. He judged from the sound that the collapse had
occurred some distance behind him, and as he lay coughing in the dust
he heard the thunder and rumble of other convulsions of the earth at
more remote points. The driving blast of air had extinguished his lamp
but he thrust out his hands and found himself quite free. He had lost
his sense of direction, but crawled along the tramway to the body of
the dead miner and got his bearings and again started toward the shaft.
He had gone about forty yards when he began stumbling upon débris; in
ten yards more a wall of rock and slate rose before him.
He missed, now, the current of sweet air that had seemed to continue
after the first shock, and he suddenly felt the bite of the dread gas
in his nostrils. He threw himself flat and waited, his face pressed
against his coat-sleeve. Waves of the foul air poured in upon him
from all sides of the black, narrow chamber that imprisoned him. He
staggered to his feet and beat with his hands on the grim barricade.
His ears rang with a horrible fierce clamour; before his eyes in the
dense dark flashed lights in weird, fantastic and unimaginable colours.
“They’re callin’ strikes on me,” he muttered, and blinded, choking and
fighting for breath he began crawling back--back, as though from that
smothering poison there could be any retreat.
* * * * *
Stories of the catastrophe met Wayne on his way up the valley, though
it was said that no lives had been lost; but when he reached Denbeigh
the officials had checked their pay-rolls and Joe and the Pole were the
only miners not accounted for. No one doubted that both had perished.
Repeated efforts had already been made to penetrate into the mine, and
volunteers were not lacking. Joe had been popular with all classes and
the fact that he had turned his back on safety to succour a fallen
comrade added poignancy to the general sorrow.
A huge crowd stood helplessly about the silent breaker, and when he had
gathered the latest news Wayne sought Craig at the superintendent’s
office, where the mine officials were conferring with the State
inspectors, and made himself known. It was not a time for explanations;
Wayne bent with them over the blue-prints of the workings.
“We’ll try getting in through the upper slope as soon as it’s safe,”
said the engineer. “It’s all to the bad down there--I’ve gone myself as
far as possible, and some of my men were knocked out by the gas and had
to be carried out.”
“But the men may be alive--and one of them is my friend.”
The engineer looked at Craighill curiously. This was not the Wayne
Craighill he remembered from his days at the “Tech,” and not the man
he had heard of from time to time as dissolute and worthless. But
Wayne had taken his own courses at the Institute, and on technical
matters used the terminology of the mines; but the engineer shook his
head at Wayne’s suggestions. They were interesting, but impracticable.
The small loss of life was miraculous, considering the extent of the
collapse; there was much cause for gratitude, and the engineer’s chief
concern, it was clear, was to save the property of his employers.
“There are two men down there; they may not be dead,” Wayne insisted.
“If they weren’t crushed to death, they have been smothered by gas or
maybe drowned,” declared the engineer.
“Work only from the upper slope--turn every air fan you can get in
there--every fan in the valley, if necessary, and you can do it. Those
men must be about there,” and he indicated a point on the blue-print.
“From the stories of the men who met Joe going toward the new gangway
you can hit pretty close to the place where the fall stopped him.”
“But it might be weeks.”
“So it might. I will do it in less time if you will help me.”
“But the cost of doing it your way----”
“I will pay for it myself.”
“My superiors----”
“I will attend to them. I will pay the bills. Get every man you can use
and every fan and pump in the district.”
A big price to pay for the bodies of two dead men, they said in the
valley when the work had been begun; and the miners who had seen the
big teamster patiently going about his work a few days before did
not understand at once how he had become a leading figure in the
place--commanding, directing, himself labouring ceaselessly, to gain
ingress to the huge, black, poisonous cavern.
It was not until the fifth day that they broke into the barricade
of the lower slope, whose walls still menaced, and where wholesome
air could only be coaxed by prodigious effort; and Wayne was first
of all into the tomb where Joe had died. He found him lying with one
arm thrown across the body of the broken-backed Pole he had tried
to save. It seemed that in the hour of his death he had thus sought
companionship--Joe, who had loved light and life and the ways of cities
and the haunts of men.
Men came from far to do honour to the poor, blackened body of Joe
Denny, who had come into kinship with all heroic dead, and they buried
him--it was Wayne’s idea--beside the friendless Pole in the fairest
spot the town commanded. Mrs. Blair came with Jean, and Walsh and
Wingfield were there, too--and Paddock read the office for the dead.
But this was not enough, and at the end the minister stood beside Joe’s
grave and spoke to the great throng of the beauty of the life that had
gone out, of the nobility of its sacrifice and the glory of it, so that
eyes were wet that had never known tears. And when he had finished,
as the sun dipped low behind the hills, he raised his hands above the
crowd and blessed them, and it seemed that a great peace fell upon the
world.
CHAPTER XXXIX
WE SEE WALSH AGAIN
A fortnight later Wayne cut the twine that held the key of his desk to
Walsh’s lamp. The publicity attending his search for Joe at Denbeigh
had driven him away, and he had gone quietly back to Pittsburg and
taken his place in the glass pilot-house with Walsh. The newspapers
had not neglected him; he had spent a small fortune at the Florence
colliery in securing the body of a young miner who had been his friend,
and the event was not without its spectacular value. When Wayne left
Denbeigh a great crowd gathered at the station and cheered him, and
there was no suppressing this; and the shame of it was that he could
not explain to a public anxious to praise him the truth about Joe’s
death--that it was only through loyalty to himself that Joe had gone
back to Denbeigh and donned again the miner’s cap--that Joe had sunk
his own aims to serve and guard and protect him.
Wayne had taken a room at the Allequippa Club and lodged next to Walsh.
He had visited his father both at his office and at home, and he knew
from Walsh that the outlook for the Craighill interests was brightening
daily.
A few days after his return Wayne dined at the Club with Walsh and
Wingfield. Wingfield was almost insufferably arrogant now that Wayne
had become a hero, and he took occasion to snub persons who had never
seen anything in Wayne but the dissolute son of a distinguished father,
and who now declared that Wayne was a good fellow, but that he had been
his own worst enemy--and so on. It pleased Wingfield to have men ask
him for the facts touching Wayne’s recent exile, and on all inquiries
he turned his eye-glasses coldly. People who had been prone to kick
Wayne need not trouble themselves to praise him now--this was all they
got out of Dick Wingfield as he sipped koumiss in his particular corner
of the Allequippa smoking room, and studied the men of Pittsburg with a
mild and philosophic eye.
As they drank their coffee to-night a telegram was handed Walsh. He
read it slowly.
“Um! I got to go up to your father’s,” he said, and left them a few
minutes later.
“That man’s my despair!” sighed Wingfield after Walsh’s stout figure
had vanished through the door. “I’d give a good deal to be able to
carry off the mysterious as Tom does. With most of us life is just one
long explanation; Tom never explains anything--he just says ‘Um!’ and
lets us guess.”
Wayne smiled. He was again clean-shaven, as we knew him first, and he
was lean and rugged.
“I don’t think Tom can teach you anything, Dick, but what a dear old
brick he is! His ways at the office would tickle you; he thinks the
hands are all in mortal terror of him, but they’re not--they love him
most when he roars the loudest.”
Walsh took a trolley to the East End, and was soon asking for Mrs.
Craighill. She sent word that she would be down in a moment, but
a quarter of an hour passed before she appeared. Walsh sat grimly
waiting; once or twice he drew the telegram from his pocket and scanned
it impassively. He was so lost in thought that he did not hear her
light step, and he stumbled awkwardly to his feet as she stood before
him. She had been weeping, and the smile she gave him was not without
its tears. He did not know that for an hour she had hoped he would
come, or that his presence gave her a sense of mingled trust and fear.
Ever since the day of the sleigh-ride thoughts of him had tantalized
her; his kindness to her husband, of which she had been aware, had
puzzled her--he had visited the house often for conferences with his
former chief.
“I didn’t come to see the Colonel this time; I want to see you alone,
Mrs. Craighill.”
“He went to his office after dinner; we shall not be interrupted.”
“It’s an unhappy business that brings me here.”
Her heart beat fast, assailed by vague premonitions.
“Your mother died to-day, quite suddenly, at Burlington. You had heard
of it?”
“Yes--to-night, only a little while ago,” she faltered.
“You probably wondered, that afternoon we drove in the park, what I
knew of her. I did not tell you then; there was no use in it. I knew
what troubled you, and I told you I would help you--and I did.”
“Yes--yes; I remember.”
He sat rigid in his chair, a man without grace of speech or person; and
his next words came harshly, without any colour of feeling.
“She was my wife; you are my daughter. Your name is Adelaide Walsh.
Some things you probably don’t know. I kept a livery stable in
Burlington. When you were five years old she ran off with a man named
Pendleton. I didn’t know at first what she carried you away for--but
I knew later, when she had finished with Pendleton and you had grown
up. I closed out the business I had there and came here; but I kept
watching you. I sent her money for your use--and she lived on it.
There’s nothing for you to tell me--I know everything you’ve done--what
you’ve gone through--the whole business. I might have taken you away
from her, but--I’m only Tom Walsh; I wasn’t fit. But I guess she didn’t
do you so much harm; I guess you’re a good woman.”
She began to speak, but he stumbled on, like a stubborn schoolboy
reciting a hard lesson.
“She’s dead now, and there ain’t nothing to say. She went quick and
we don’t need to say anything--you or me. I guess you got to go up to
Burlington, and I’ll meet you there. I reckon the Colonel ain’t likely
to go--he’d better stay here with his business. It’s our trouble--yours
and mine.”
“Oh, why didn’t you tell me!” she cried. “I’ve needed you--I’ve needed
you so all these years!”
“I never expected to tell you. It was all too black, too ugly; and I
was no good; but knowing how things were going here and seeing you
weren’t very happy, I thought I’d better tell you; I thought it might
help. I’ve made all the arrangements up there by wire. Don’t you worry
about anything.”
He had risen and was lumbering toward the door before she realized that
he had finished; but he paused half way, and rubbed his bald head.
Then he walked back to her, and said in a low tone, so that she hardly
caught the words:
“You don’t need to tell anybody, Adelaide, that I’m your father. It
wouldn’t do you any good; I’m just old Tom Walsh and most of the folks
around here don’t like me. Better not tell the Colonel, or Wayne or any
of ’em; it wouldn’t help you any to have ’em know you’re my daughter.”
“Oh!--oh!” she sobbed; and her arms were about him, holding him fast.
He had said truly that the past held nothing that was not better left
to silence; but she knew that her life, which had been the sport of
winds, had at last found anchorage. He touched her hair clumsily with
his heavy hands.
“You’re a good woman, Addie; you’re a good woman,” he kept repeating,
and this seemed all that he could say.
CHAPTER XL
THE BELATED APPEARANCE OF JOHN McCANDLESS BLAIR
The calendar swings us almost into contemporaneous history. It is
September of the Year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Nine. Mrs.
John McCandless Blair’s excuse for returning to town so early was the
dilatoriness of the workmen who were making over her house. It had been
remodelled, so often that only her own ingenuity could have devised
further changes, and her long-suffering architect shuddered when he
heard her voice on the telephone. She was a terror to contractors, and
even plumbers were humble before her. Her husband, John Blair--who has
had no chance at all in this chronicle for the simple reason that he
was, in all matters that engaged his wife’s attention, a negligible
quantity--had thought her safe at York Harbour until the first of
October. As one motive was never enough to assign for any of Mrs.
Blair’s actions, her husband waited patiently for the disclosure of the
real cause of her coming. He was a philosopher, and her appearance did
not interrupt his work on the brief he was writing; but he was sorry
for the architect, who was a friend of his.
Wayne was at home, and he and Wingfield were teaching Walsh to play
golf, and Pittsburg had hardly seen anything funnier than this. Colonel
Craighill, who was quite himself again, was with Mrs. Craighill in the
Berkshires, at a point convenient to Williamstown, where there was to
be a meeting of the executive committee of Something or Other a little
later. People had been saying lately that the Colonel was a different
man, now that Wayne had given up his evil ways; but Dick Wingfield
changed the subject when Wayne’s reformation was broached. He declared
that Colonel Craighill would be in the poor-house if Tom Walsh had not
fished him out of bankruptcy. But Dick’s opinions were coloured by his
prejudices; and besides, he never knew what Wayne did for his father at
Walsh’s behest.
John Blair was staying at the Country Club, while the house was out of
commission, and Mrs. Blair joined him in his office in the Craighill
Building for the motor flight to Rosedale. On the second afternoon
following her descent she broke in upon her husband at midday,
ostensibly to go to luncheon with him in the ladies’ cafe of the
Allequippa, but as he begged her not to disturb the open volumes that
bristled on the tables and chairs of his private room, he was aware of
a new light in her eye. It was hardly twelve o’clock, and Fanny did not
usually care for luncheon. Blair made a place for her, and waited.
“Jean Morley’s coming. She’ll be in at four o’clock. Poor girl! She’s
been out in New Mexico in all this heat, doing pictures of Indians.
I’ve been wiring her aboard trains for two days to meet me here, and I
just now heard from her.”
Blair carefully marked his place in “Dillon on Municipal Corporations”
and sighed.
“So that’s it, is it Fanny? I wondered what on earth brought you to
town just now.”
“What are you talking about!” she demanded.
John McCandless Blair received large sums from corporations for
anticipating the movements of their enemies. His wife’s complex mental
processes did not baffle him. They were, however, excellent practice,
and they amused him.
“Oh, I see Wayne’s finish now if you’re going to pull the girl off the
train here and bring them together. Which one of your protégées is this
Jean--the pretty manicurist with the short upper lip you wanted to make
a harpist of, or that interesting Swedish girl you launched in the
delicatessen business? The manicurist was pleasing to the eye--I won’t
deny that she affected me strongly; but I hope it isn’t the Swede. Her
creditors still pursue me.”
“You’re so unsympathetic, John. You know Jean Morley well enough. You
told me yourself you thought her wonderfully interesting--and Mr.
Richardson says she will go far.”
“I dare say she will, Fanny. And now we’re to have her in the family, I
hope she’ll be a good sister to me.”
“Please don’t make fun, John. This has all been so terribly tragic. And
the girl is so proud! She wouldn’t come to the Harbour this summer for
fear of meeting Wayne there and she positively refused to see him in
New York.”
“But trapped in Pittsburg, she’s going to see him now if you die in the
attempt. I’m for it. Do you want me to ask the Sheriff to help? Maybe
I’d better get a _ne exeat_ to hold Wayne--he may have changed his
mind.”
He took her to luncheon and received his instructions humbly. Wayne
must be asked to dine with them at Rosedale, and it would be a good
plan, she thought, to have him come up to the office to ride out with
them in their car. In no other way could she be sure her plans would
not miscarry. And Blair made careful note of his orders, which included
the menu of a dinner for four which he must perforce telephone to
Rosedale.
“Wayne’s probably lunching in the general dining room--why not give him
a tip now that the adorable one approacheth--he might like a chance to
brush up a bit,” he suggested.
“You never understand anything, John Blair! You telephone Wayne that
you want to see him at your office at five o’clock, and tell him about
dining with us at Rosedale, and by the time I bring Jean to the office
he will be there....”
“Fanny, I wish I had your resourceful mind! So my office is to be the
rendezvous. The library is at your disposal, but you might wait till we
get them to Rosedale and give them a quiet corner of the veranda; the
setting would be more romantic.”
“Oh, you stupid! If she sees him first it’s all over! She knows what
he wants to say to her and she won’t face it; she believes he’s going
to offer himself out of gratitude for what he thinks she’s done for
him; it’s all very complicated.”
“It’s too deep for me, Fanny. But you will undoubtedly land them. I
see Wayne’s finish--I hear the first strains of the organ in dear old
Memorial over the way--Wingfield best man, Wayne scared to death--and
‘Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?’”
“You may do that yourself, dear, if you are good!”
* * * * *
The western train was late so that Blair’s ingenuity was severely taxed
by the effort to hold Wayne, who was the least bit surprised to find
himself summoned to his brother-in-law’s office to discuss Fanny’s
investments, which Blair was perfectly competent to manage without help
from him. It was half-past five when Mrs. Blair appeared, so demure and
indifferent that Blair almost laughed outright.
“Oh, Wayne!” she cried, “I think I dropped my handkerchief as I came
through the library--would you be so kind----”
She herself, admirable woman, closed the door upon them.
CHAPTER XLI
“MY CITY--OUR CITY”
“Jean!”
Wayne had taken both her hands and stood smiling down upon her before
she grasped the fact of his presence.
“I didn’t understand--it isn’t fair--Mrs. Blair said----”
“I’m just as surprised as you are, Jean--and it isn’t fair, of course;
but Fanny likes to think herself the instrument of Providence. I hope
she is!”
His high spirits evoked no response at once. She was on guard against
him, and not lightly to be won to the plane of happiness to which her
coming had lifted him. He sat down facing her by the broad windows
whence the eye was led as from a hill-top to the horizon. He asked
about her later experiences, and they took account of each other
soberly as they talked. The changes in both were marked. She was now a
successful artist, whose work was a feature of the periodical that lay
on the window-ledge beside her. Her hat and gown bore the metropolitan
accent--no hint here of the girl he accosted so long ago before
Sargent’s picture!
It was difficult to resist the appeal in his eyes, that were
wonderfully clear and straightforward and earnest behind the happiness
that shone in them. When she had answered his questions as to her
southwestern experiences silence fell between them. She was afraid to
ask about himself, for fear of replies that might lead to dangerous
ground. She glanced over her shoulder toward the door uneasily.
“Oh, Fanny isn’t going yet! She has a lot to tell John,” he laughed.
“Mrs. Blair is going to New York with me to-night. That’s why I stopped
here.”
“Did she say she was going to New York to-night? Well, she isn’t!”
“Her trunk’s at the station; she usually knows what she’s doing,
doesn’t she?”
“Well, usually; but not this time--for the reason that she can’t leave
you here after asking you to stop, and you----”
“I have an engagement at the _Hemisphere_ office at noon to-morrow,”
she replied, determined not to be disarmed by his bantering tone.
“Oh, they will wait! Everybody waits for illustrators--they’re the
autocrats of the publishing business.”
“I make a point of keeping my word, Mr. Craighill,” she remarked
severely.
He rose with an abruptness that startled her.
“Jean, we are wasting time, you and I. You didn’t answer my
letters--and I wrote you a dozen; you wouldn’t see me when I knocked
at your door in New York; and Fanny’s efforts to have us visit her at
York Harbour failed all summer because you wouldn’t go.”
“I was busy, and I didn’t----”
“You didn’t want to see me? Is that what you were going to say?”
“No; I didn’t mean that--I hope to have time for my friends when I get
better established in my work. My opportunity is unusual--everyone is
so kind.”
“Your genius is remarkable, and everyone has to be kind. But Jean----”
“Well, Mr. Craighill.”
“It’s getting dark and John is waiting to take us to Rosedale for
dinner, so I’m going to say something to you that’s very important to
me; please, Jean, won’t you listen?”
She rose as though to leave him; but his manner had changed, and she
stood still, compelled by the very seriousness with which he spoke.
“I want you to look at me. A little less than two years ago I saw you
and spoke to you for the first time at the Institute. I had sunk so
low that decent women avoided me; I sought to begin a flirtation with
you with no good thought in my heart--I was as low as that, Jean. You
flung my own name at me--it was a weapon in your hands, and it struck
fire on my pride. But I had gone too far to be stopped by a word. I
had resolved upon evil things; I hated my father--I meant to humiliate
him--to make him suffer. But believe me, Jean, that is all past now, a
closed and sealed book. You told me I must not try to change my ways
for you; and I made the mistake of expressing gratitude when I wrote,
for all you have meant to me and done for me. I am not making that
mistake now. You said a great thing to me that morning at my father’s
house when you pointed out the nobility of labour; and I shall remember
to my last hour the way you held out your hands as you opened to me
your own life and heart. Then those fine fellows I met at Stoddard’s
house in Virginia helped me--more than I realized at the time. It
wasn’t much I did there at Denbeigh, and I couldn’t have done it at
all if it had not been for Joe--Joe who really gave his life for me--I
can’t forget that. But I came to myself up there. I have no illusions
about myself; I am only a weak man, but I am trying to live a clean
life. There is no woman anywhere that I can’t look in the face, and no
man that can say I haven’t been square with him. I have some faith in
myself now, and that’s the greatest gain. But I know I ask a great deal
when I ask you to give up your work for me--and yet I ask it. Remember,
there is no gratitude in this--you are a woman and I am a man--and I
love you.”
She raised her eyes to his in a long, searching look, but when he had
taken her hands she still held herself away from him.
“Oh, it isn’t my work, it isn’t that; I know how little that is!”
“But you love me, don’t you, Jean?”
“That isn’t the question. What you forget is my own life--the bad
start I made, the injury I did Joe. The more I have thought of that the
more heartless it grows. And when I first knew you I was a fraud; you
thought me a girl, and I had been a married woman and had left the man
I married--poor Joe! and he cared so much! And you have been up there
in my country, and you know what I came from. My people were just those
people--and yours are the strong and rich. I only happened to stray
into your life--I don’t belong there. You have all been good to me; but
I can’t let you do this. You have too much to give, and I----”
He laughed into her eyes, heeding nothing she said. He was drawing
off her gloves, and he flung them down and kissed her hands and held
them resisting to his face. Then he turned to the window, his arm
clasping her, and looked out upon the darkling city that lay below--a
vast amphitheatre, with serried ridges of twinkling lights rising on
the distant hills to meet the stars. The glow of the streets and shops
stole upward to their window in the towering building. Far away along
the river the huge organ-pipes of the great mills sent their cloud of
smoke and flame into the amber dusk. Trains moved like bright serpents
along the valley. The strength of the iron hills thrilled through him
as he looked upon the torches of the gods of power; the city of his
birth sang a great psalm to him as he stood there beside the woman he
loved.
“Jean, dear, I always loved the way you spoke of ‘my country’--your
hills away off yonder; and I want us to learn to speak of my city--our
city--in just that way. Harsh things have been said of the old town,
and I have done my share, God knows, to make us despised and hated. I
want to do what I can, no matter how little it may be, to change all
that. You told me I must help myself before I could help others, and
when you are sure of me we must do what we can for the poor and the
luckless, for the women who strive and the men who fall, here in the
City of the Iron Heart. We must carry that with us into our lives.”
Her arms stole round his neck, and her cheek as it touched his was wet.
Their lips met in a long kiss.
“Not the iron heart, Wayne dear,” she whispered, “but the City of the
Heart of Gold.”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
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