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The Lady of Big Shanty
By
F. BERKELEY SMITH
1909
TO THE READER
This story, written by a man who has passed many years of his life in the Adirondack woods, strikes a note not often sounded—the power of the primeval over the human mind.
Once abandoned in the wilderness, wholly dependent upon what can be wrested from its clutch to prolong existence, all the ordinary standards and ambitions of life become as naught: for neither love, hatred, revenge, honour, money, jewels, or social success will bring a cup of water, a handful of corn or a coal of fire. Under this torture Nature once more becomes king and man again an atom; his judgment clarified, his heart stripped naked, his soul turned inside out. The untamed, mighty, irresistible primitive is now to be reckoned with, and a lie will no longer serve.
Such is the power of the primeval, and for the unique way in which it has been treated between these covers, the father takes off his hat to the son.
F. HOPKINSON SMITH.
September, 1909.
THE LADY OF BIG SHANTY
CHAPTER ONE
It was the luncheon hour, and The Players was crowded with its members; not only actors, but men of every profession, from the tall, robust architect to the quiet surgeon tucked away among the cushions of the corner divan. In the hall—giving sound advice, perhaps, to a newly fledged tragedian—sat some dear, gray-haired old gentleman in white socks who puffed silently at a long cigar, while from out the low-ceiled, black-oak dining room, resplendent in pewter and hazy with tobacco smoke, came intermittent outbursts of laughter. It was the hour when idlers and workers alike throw off the labours of the day for a quiet chat with their fellows.
Only one man in the group was restless. This was a young fellow who kept watch at the window overlooking the Park. That he was greatly worried was evident from the two tense furrows in his brow, and from the way his eyes scanned the street below.
"The devil!" he grumbled. "I wonder if Billy's missed his train—another Adirondack express late, I suppose." He flicked the ashes from his cigarette and, wheeling sharply, touched a bell.
"John," he said, as the noiseless old steward entered.
"Yes, Mr. Randall."
"Find out at the desk if a Mr. William Holcomb from Moose River has called or telephoned."
"Very good, sir."
"He's a tall, sun-burned young man, John—and he may be waiting below.
You understand."
"I'll go and see, sir," and the steward turned.
"And, John—tell August we shall be five at luncheon."
The next moment two hands gripped him from behind by both shoulders.
"Well! I'm glad you're here, Keene, at any rate!" cried Randall as he smashed the bell hard. "Two dry Martinis"—this to the yellow-waistcoated steward now at his elbow. "It's Billy Holcomb you've come to meet. He wrote me he was coming to New York on business and I made him promise to come here first. He and I hunted together last fall and I wanted you and Brompton to know him. What I'm afraid of is that he has missed the night express. Moose River's a long ways from the railway, and you know what an Adirondack road is this time of year. I hope The Players won't scare him."
"Oh! we'll take care of him," laughed Keene good-humouredly. "Thank God he's not a celebrity; I'm sick of celebrities. It'll be a treat to meet a plain human being. Hello! here comes Brompton!"
Randall rose to his feet.
"Glad you could come, old man. There's only five of us—you, and Keene, Sam Thayor, and a friend of mine from the woods. Touch the bell and give your order."
Again the noiseless John appeared.
"Any news, John?"
"Yes, sir; Mr. Holcomb is waiting for you below, and Mr. Thayor has telephoned he will be here in a moment."
Jack started for the stairs.
"Good!" he cried. "I'll be back in a second."
If the actor and Keene had expected to see a raw-boned country boy, reticent and ill at ease, they got over it at the first glance. What they saw approaching with his arm in their host's was a young man of twenty-three, straight as an arrow, with the eyes of an eagle; whose clean-cut features were so full of human understanding that both the actor and Keene fell to wondering if Randall was not joking when he labeled him as hailing from so primitive a settlement as Moose River. To these qualities there was added the easy grace of a man of the world in the pink of condition. Only his dark gray pepper-and-salt clothes—they had been purchased in Utica the day before—confirmed Randall's diagnosis, and even these fitted him in a way that showed both his good taste and his common sense. The introductions over and the party seated, Randall turned again to his friend.
"I worried about you, Billy; what happened?"
"Oh, we had a washout just this side of Utica, and the train was nearly three hours late. But I had no trouble," he said with a quiet smile. "I came down a-foot—let's see—Fourth Avenue, isn't it? As soon as I saw the Park I knew I was on the right trail," he laughed, his white teeth gleaming in contrast with his nut-brown skin.
"Oh, I'd trust you anywhere in the world, trail or no trail. That's the way you got me out of Bog Eddy that night, and that's the way you saved Sam Thayor. He's coming, you know. Wants to meet you the worst kind. I'm keeping you for a surprise, but he'll hug himself all over when he finds out it's you."
The young man raised his eyes in doubt.
"Thayor? I don't know as I—"
"Why, of course you remember the Thayors, Billy! They were at Long
Lake three or four summers ago."
"Oh! a short, thick-set man, with grayish hair?" replied Holcomb in his low, well-modulated voice—the voice of a man used to the silence of the big woods. "Let's see," he mused—"wasn't it he that cut himself so badly with an axe over at Otter Pond? Yes, I remember."
"So does Thayor, Billy, and it'll be a good many years before he forgets it," declared Jack. "You saved his life, he says. That's one thing he wants to see you for, and another is that he's played out and needs a rest."
"Bless me!" cried Brompton in the tragic tones of his profession. "You saved his life, me boy?"
Holcomb, for the first time, appeared embarrassed.
"Well, that's mighty good of him to think so, but I didn't do much," he replied modestly. "Now I come to think of it, he was badly cut and I helped him down to Doc' Rand's at Bog River. That was, as I figure it, about three years ago—wasn't it, Randall?"
"You mean," returned Randall, "that you took him down on your back, and if you hadn't Sam Thayor would have bled to death."
"Bless my soul!" cried the actor.
"Well, you see," continued Holcomb ignoring the interruption, "there are some that can handle an axe just as easily as some fellows can fiddle, and again there are some that can't. It's just a little knack, that's all, gentlemen, and, of course, Mr. Thayor wasn't used to chopping."
"The only thing Sam Thayor can handle is money," interposed Keene.
"He's got millions, Billy—millions!"
"Millions," chuckled Randall; "I should think so. He owns about five of 'em." As he spoke he half rose from his chair and waved his hand to a well-dressed, gray-haired man whose eyes were searching the crowded hall. "Thayor!" he shouted.
As the new-comer moved closer the whole group rose to greet him.
"I'm afraid, my dear Jack, I've kept you all waiting," the banker began. "A special meeting of the Board detained me longer than I had anticipated. I hope you will forgive me. I am not usually late, I assure you, gentlemen. This for me?" and he picked up his waiting cocktail.
Holcomb, although his eyes had not wavered from Thayor, had not yet greeted him. That a man so quiet and unostentatious belonged to the favoured rich was a new experience to him. He was also waiting for some sign of recognition from the financial potentate, the democracy of the woods being in his blood.
Randall waited an instant and seeing Thayor's lack of recognition blurted out in his hearty way:
"Why, it's Holcomb, Sam; Billy Holcomb of Moose River."
Thayor turned and formally extended his hand.
"Oh, I beg your pardon! I—" then his whole manner changed. "Why, Holcomb!" he exclaimed with delightful surprise. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you! And—er—your dear father—how is he?"
"First rate, thank you, Mr. Thayor. It seems kind of natural to see you again. Father was speaking about you the very day he left. He went on Monday to Fort Ti' with my mother for a visit."
"Ah, indeed!" returned Thayor, drawing up a chair beside the boy, and before even the glasses were entirely emptied the two had begun talking of the woods and all it held in store for them, the banker declaring, as he followed Randall into the dining room, that if he could arrange his business he would make a quick trip to the Lake with Holcomb as guide.
If the luncheon that followed was a surprise to the stranger from Moose River, Holcomb's modest naturalness and innate good breeding were a revelation to Randall's friends. This increased to positive enthusiasm when one of the actor's massive turquoise rings struck the rim of the stranger's wine glass, nearly spilling the contents into Holcomb's lap, and which Holcomb's deft touch righted with the quickness of a squirrel, before a drop left its edge, a feat of dexterity which brought from the actor in his best stage voice:
"Zounds, sir! A little more and I should have deluged you"—Holcomb answering with a smile:
"Don't mention it. I saw it coming my way."
Even those at the adjoining tables caught the dominating influence of the man as they watched him sitting easily in his chair listening to the stories of the Emperor of the First Empire—as Brompton was called, he having played the part—the young woodsman joining in with experiences of his own as refreshing in tone and as clear in statement as a mountain spring.
Suddenly, and apparently without anything leading up to it, and as if some haunting memory of his own had prompted it, Thayor leaned forward and touched Billy's arm, and with a certain meaning in his voice asked:
"There is something I have wanted to ask you ever since I came, Holcomb. Tell me about that poor hide-out—the man your father fed in the woods that night. Did he get away?"
Holcomb straightened up and his face became suddenly grave. The subject was evidently a distasteful one.
"Whom do you mean, Mr. Thayor?"
"I don't know his name; I only remember the incident, but it has haunted me ever since."
"You mean Dinsmore."
"What has become of him?"
"I haven't heard lately." He evidently did not want to discuss it further—certainly not in a crowded room full of strangers.
"But you must have learned something of him. Tell me—I want to know.
I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life."
Holcomb looked Thayor squarely in the face, read its sincerity and said slowly, lowering his voice:
"He is still in hiding—was the last time I saw him."
"When was that?" asked Thayor, his eyes boring into the young woodsman's.
"About a month ago—Ed Munsey and I were cutting a trail at the time."
"Would you mind telling me?" persisted Thayor. "I have always thought that poor fellow was ill treated. Your father thought so too."
Holcomb dropped his eyes to the cloth, rolled a crumb of bread between his fingers and said, as if he was thinking aloud:
"Ill treated! I should say so!" Then he lifted his head, drew his chair closer to the group, ran his eyes around the room to be sure of his audience, and said in still lower tones:
"What I'm going to tell you, gentlemen, is between us, remember. None of you, I am sure, would want to get him into any more trouble, if you knew the circumstances as I do. One night about nine o'clock, during a pouring rain, Ed and I lay in a swamp under a lean-to. Ed was asleep, and I was dozing off, when I heard something step in the brush on the other side of the fire. I couldn't see anything, it was so dark, but it sounded just like an animal slouching and stepping about as light as it could. It would stop suddenly and then I'd hear the brush crack again on the left."
Thayor was leaning now with his elbows on the table, as absorbed as a child listening to a fairy tale. The others sat with their eyes fixed on the speaker.
"Any unusual noise at night must be looked into, and I threw a handful of birch bark on the fire and reached for Ed's Winchester. I had to crawl over him to get it, and when I got my hand on it and turned around a sandy-haired fellow was standing over me with a gun cocked and pointed at my head.
"I knew him the minute I laid eyes on him. It was Bob Dinsmore, who killed Jim Bailey over at Long Pond. He'd been hiding out for months. He was not more than thirty years old, but he looked fifty; there was a warrant out for him and a reward to take him dead or alive. He kept the gun pointed, drawing a fine sight on a spot between my left eye and my ear.
"'Hold on, Bob!' said I; 'sit down.' He didn't speak, but he lifted the muzzle of his gun a little, and there was a look came into his eyes, half crying, half like a dog cornered to fight.
"'S-s-h!' said I; 'you'll wake up Ed.'
"'I got to kill ye, Bill,' said he.
"'Sit down,' I said, for I saw he was so weak his thin legs were trembling. 'Neither Ed nor I are going to give you away—sit down,' and I shook Ed. He sat up blinking like an old toad in a hard shower. 'By whimey!' said Ed, staring at Bob as if he had seen a ghost.
"'I'm hongry, Bill,' said Bob. 'Bill, I'm hongry,' and he began to stagger and cry like a baby. I got hold of his rifle and Ed caught him just as he fainted.
"By and by he came to and Ed and I fixed up a stiff hooker of liquor and some hot tea and gave him a mouthful at a time. Just before daylight he rose on one elbow and lay there following us with his eyes, for he was too weak to talk. It seemed as if he was clean beat out and that his nerve was gone. What grit he had he had used up keeping away from the law."
Again Holcomb paused—the round table was as silent as a court room before a verdict.
"Neither Ed nor I liked the idea of being caught with Dinsmore," he resumed, "with three counties after him harder than an old dog after a five-pronged buck, so when it came daylight we shifted camp over back of a fire-slash where I knew all hell couldn't find him. We had to carry him most of the way. That was on a Wednesday. We never said anything to him about his killing Bailey—he knew we knew. We fed him the best we knew how. Saturday, 'long toward night, I killed a small deer, and the broth did him good.
"In a couple of days—Hold on, I've got ahead of my story; it was Sunday night when Bob said: 'Boys' said he, as near as I can repeat it in his dialect—'you've treated me like a humin, but I dassent stay here. It ain't fair to you. What I done I done with a reason. You've heard tell, most likely, that I been seen in Lower Saranac 'bout three weeks ago, ain't ye?'
"'Yes,' said Ed, 'we heard something about it. That Jew horse-trader, Bergstein, told us, but there warn't nobody that seen ye, that was sure it was you.'
"'They lied then,' said Bob, 'for there was more'n a dozen in the village that day that knowed me and warn't mistook 'bout who I was. As to that red-nosed Jew, Bergstein, he'll quit talkin' 'bout me and everythin' else if I kin ever draw a bead on him.'
"Then Bob began to tell us how he walked into the big hotel at Saranac about noon and flung a hind-quarter of venison on the counter in front of the clerk and said: 'What I come for is a decent meal; I ain't got no money, but I guess that'll pay for it.' The clerk got white around the gills, but he didn't say anything; he just took the venison and showed Bob into the big dining hall. Bob says they gave him the meal, and he kept eating everything around him with his Winchester across his knees. There wasn't a soul that spoke to him except the hired girl that waited on him, although the dining room was crowded with summer boarders.
"'Tea or coffee?' asked the hired girl when he had eaten his pie.
"'No, thank ye,' says Bob, 'but I won't never forgit ye if ye can git me four boxes of matches.' Bob said she was gone a minute and when she came back she had the matches for him under her apron. 'Good luck to ye, Bob,' she says—her cheeks red, and her mouth trembling. It was Myra Hathaway—he'd known her since she was a little girl. 'Bob, for God's sake go,' she begged—'there's trouble coming from the village.'
"It wasn't long before Bob crossed Alder Brook about forty rods this side of the Gull Rock. They saw his tracks where he crossed the next day, but Bob had the matches, and the sheriff and about forty that went out to get him came back that night looking kind of down in the mouth. There wasn't a sign of him after he crossed Alder Brook. He knew those woods like a partridge. When he got through telling how he got the square meal at Lower Saranac, Ed said to him:
"'Bob, you're welcome to what I've got,' and I told him, 'What I've got is yours, and you know it.'
"He tried to say a little something, but he choked up, then he said:
'Boys, I'm sick of bein' hounded. There's been nights and days when
I've most died; if I can only get into Canady there won't none of 'em
git me.'
"Ed and I had about eleven dollars between us. 'That will get you there, Bob,' I said, 'if you look sharp and don't take risks and keep to the timber.' We gave him the eleven dollars and what cartridges and matches we could spare, and what was left of the deer. I never saw a fellow so grateful; he didn't say anything, but I saw his old grit come back to him. That was Monday night, and about nine o'clock we turned in. Before daylight I woke up to attend to the fire and saw he was gone."
The men drew a deep breath. Keene and the actor looked blankly at each other. Compared to the tale just ended, their own stories seemed but a reflex of utterly selfish lives. Even the Emperor experienced a strange thrill—possibly the first real sensation he had known since he was a boy. As to Thayor—he had hung on every word that fell from Holcomb's lips.
"And what motive had Dinsmore in killing Bailey?" asked Thayor, nervously, when the others had gone to the hall for their coffee and liqueurs. "I asked your father but he did not answer me, and yet he must have known."
"Oh, yes, he knew, Mr. Thayor. Everybody knows, our way, but it's one of those things we don't talk about—but I'll tell you. It was about his wife."
Thayor folded his napkin in an absent way, laid it carefully beside his plate, unfolded it again and tossed it in a heap upon the table, and said with a certain tenderness in his tone:
"And did he get away to Canada, Holcomb?"
"No, sir; his little girl fell ill, and he wouldn't leave her."
"And the woman, Holcomb—was she worth it?" continued Thayor. There was a strange tremor in his voice now—so much so that the young man fastened his eyes on the banker's, wondering at the cause.
"She was worth a lot to Bob, sir," replied Holcomb slowly. "They had grown up together."
CHAPTER TWO
That same afternoon the banker passed through the polished steel grille of his new home by means of a flat key attached to a plain gold chain.
The house, like its owner, had a certain personality of its own, although it lacked his simplicity; its square mass being so richly carved that it seemed as if the faintest stroke of the architect's soft pencil had made a dollar mark. So vast, too, was its baronial hall and sweeping stairway in pale rose marble, that its owner might have entered it unnoticed, had not Blakeman, the butler, busying himself with the final touches to a dinner table of twenty covers, heard his master's alert step in the hall and hurried to relieve him of his coat and hat. Before, however, the man could reach him, Thayor had thrown both aside, and had stepped to a carved oak table on which were carefully arranged ten miniature envelopes. He bent over them for a moment and then turning to the butler asked in an impatient tone:
"How many people are coming to dinner, Blakeman?"
"Twenty, sir," answered Blakeman, his face preserving its habitual
Sphinx-like immobility.
"Um!" muttered Thayor.
"Can, I get you anything, sir?"
"No, thank you, Blakeman. I have just left the Club."
"A dinner of twenty, eh?" continued Thayor, as Blakeman disappeared with his coat and hat—"our fourth dinner party this week, and Alice never said a word to me about it." Again he glanced at the names of the men upon the ten diminutive envelopes, written in an angular feminine hand; most of them those of men he rarely saw save at his own dinners. Suddenly his eye caught the name upon the third envelope from the end of the orderly row.
"Dr. Sperry again!" he exclaimed, half aloud. He opened it and his lips closed tight. The crested card bore the name of his wife. As he dropped it back in its place his ear caught the sound of a familiar figure descending the stairway—the figure of a woman of perhaps thirty-five, thoroughly conscious of her beauty, whose white arms flashed as she moved from beneath the flowing sleeves of a silk tea-gown that reached to her tiny satin slippers.
She had gained the hall now, and noticing her husband came slowly toward him.
"Where's Margaret?" Thayor asked, after a short pause during which neither had spoken.
The shoulders beneath the rose tea-gown shrugged with a gesture of impatience.
"In the library, I suppose," she returned. Then, with a woman's intuition, she noticed that the third envelope had been touched. Her lips tightened. "Get dressed, Sam, or you will be late, as usual."
Thayor raised his head and looked at her.
"You never told me, Alice, that you were giving a dinner to-night—I never knew, in fact, until I found these."
"And having found them you pawed them over." There was a subtle, almost malicious defiance in her tone. "Go on—what else? Come—be quick! I must look at my table." One of her hands, glittering with the rings he had given her, was now on the portiere, screening the dining room from out which came faintly the clink of silver. She stopped, her slippered foot tapping the marble floor impatiently. "Well!" she demanded, her impatience increasing, "what is it?"
"Nothing," he replied slowly—"nothing that you can understand," and he strode past her up the sweeping stairs.
Margaret was in the biggest chair in the long library, sitting curled up between its generous arms when he entered. At the moment she was absorbed in following a hero through the pages of a small volume bound in red morocco. Thayor watched her for a moment, all his love for her in his eyes.
"Oh, daddy!" she cried. Her arms were about his neck now, the brown eyes looking into his own. "Oh, daddy! Oh! I'm so glad you've come. I've had such a dandy ride to-day!" She paused, and taking his two hands into her own looked up at him saucily. "You know you promised me a new pony. I really must have one. Ethel says my Brandy is really out of fashion, and I've seen such a beauty with four ducky little white feet."
"Where, Puss?" He stroked her soft hair as he spoke, his fingers lingering among the tresses.
"Oh, at the new stable. Ethel and I have been looking him over; she says he's cheap at seven hundred. May I have him daddy? It looks so poverty-stricken to be dependent on one mount."
Suddenly she stopped. "Why, daddy! What's the matter? You look half ill," she said faintly.
Thayor caught his breath and straightened.
"Nothing, Puss," he answered, regaining for the moment something of his jaunty manner. "Nothing, dearie. I must go and dress, or I shall be late for our guests."
"But my pony, daddy?" pleaded Margaret.
Thayor bent and kissed her fresh cheek.
"There—I knew you would!" she cried, clapping her hands in sheer delight.
Half an hour later, when the two walked down the sweeping stairs, her soft hand about his neck, the other firmly in his own, they found the mother, now radiant in white lace and jewels, standing before the white chimney piece, one slippered foot resting upon the low brass fender. Only when the muffled slam of a coupe door awoke her to consciousness did she turn and speak to them, and only then with one of those perfunctory remarks indulged in by some hostesses when their guests are within ear-shot.
In the midst of the comedy, to which neither made reply, the heavy portieres were suddenly drawn aside and Blakeman's trained voice rang out:
"Dr. Sperry!"
A tall, wiry man with a dark complexion, alluring black eyes and black moustache curled up at the ends, entered hastily, tucking the third envelope in the pocket of his pique waistcoat.
A peculiar expression flashed subtly from Alice's dark eyes as she smiled and put forth her hand. "I'm so glad you could come," she murmured. "I was afraid you would be sent for by somebody at the last moment."
"And I am more than happy, I assure you, dear lady," he laughed back, as he bent and kissed the tips of her fingers.
"And yet I feel so guilty—so very guilty, when there is so much sickness about town this wretched weather," she continued.
Again he smiled—this time in his best professional manner, in the midst of which he shook hands with Margaret and Thayor. Then he added in a voice as if he had not slept for months—
"Yes, there is a lot of grippe about."
Thayor looked at him from under lowered lids.
"I wonder you could have left these poor people," he said sententiously.
Alice, scenting danger, stretched forth one white hand and touched the doctor's wrist.
"You came because I couldn't do without you, didn't you, dear doctor?"
Again the portiere opened.
"Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Van Rock—Mr. Kennedy Jones—Miss Trevor," announced Blakeman successively.
Mrs. Thayor's fourth dinner party that week had begun.
* * * * *
As the door closed at midnight upon the last guest, Margaret kissed her father and mother good-night and hurried to her room, leaving the two alone. The dinner had been an ordeal to her—never before had she seen her father so absorbed.
"You were very brilliant to-night, were you not?" exclaimed Alice as soon as she and Thayor were alone.
Thayor continued silent, gazing into the library fire, his hands clenched deep in his trousers pockets, his shoulders squared.
"A beautiful dinner," she continued, her voice rising—"the best I have had this season, and yet you sat there like a log."
The man turned sharply—so sharply that the woman at his side gave a start.
"Sit down!" he commanded—"over there where I can see you. I have something to say."
She looked at him in amazement. The determined ring in his voice made her half afraid. What had he to say?
"What do you mean?" she retorted.
"Just what I said. Sit down!"
The fair shoulders shrugged. She was accustomed to these outbursts, but not to this ring in his voice.
"Go on—what is it?"
Thayor crossed the room, shut the door and turned the key in the lock. She watched him in silence as he switched off the electric lights along the bookcases, until naught illumined the still library but the soft glow of the lamp and the desultory flare from the hearth.
Still he did not speak. Finally the storm broke.
"What I have to say to you is this: I'm sick of this wholesale giving of dinners."
Alice let go her breath. After all, it was not what was uppermost in her mind.
"Ah! So that's it," she returned.
"That's a part of it," he cried, "but not all."
"And the other part?" she asked, her nervousness returning.
"I'll come to that later," said her husband, with an accent on the last word. "It is necessary that I should begin at the beginning."
"Go on," she murmured nervously, gazing absently into the fire, her mind at work, her fears suddenly aroused. For the first time its wavering light seemed restful. "Go on—I'm listening."
"The first part is that I'm sick of these dinners. I've told you so before, and yet you had the impertinence to-night to give another and not say a word to me about it." The voice had a cold, incisive note in it—the touch of steel to warm flesh.
"Impertinence! Your ideas of hospitality, Sam, are peculiar." Any topic was better than the one she feared.
"Hospitality!" he retorted hotly. "Do you call it hospitality to squander my money on the cheap spongers you are continually inviting here? Do you call it hospitable to force me to sit up and entertain this riff-raff night after night, and then be dragged off to the opera or theatre when I am played out after a hard day's work down town for the money you spend? And just look at Margaret! Do you suppose that these people, this sort of life you daily surround her with, is a sane atmosphere in which to bring up our daughter? That's the first thing I've got to say to you, and I want to tell you right here that it's got to stop."
She looked up at him in a half frightened way, wondering whether there was not something back of this sudden tirade, something she could not fathom—something she feared to fathom.
"The second thing that I have to tell you is this: I am at the end of my rope, or will be if I keep on. A man can't keep up month in and month out, living my life, and not break down. I saw Leveridge yesterday and he wishes me to get some relief at once. Young Holcomb, who did me a service once at Long Lake, is here, and I am going back home with him. I intend to take a rest for a fortnight—possibly three weeks—in camp."
For an instant she could not speak—so quick came the joyful rebound. Then there rushed over her what his absence might, or might not, mean to her.
"When do you start?" she asked with assumed condescension—her old way of concealing her thoughts.
"Saturday night."
"But Saturday night we are giving a dinner," she rejoined in a positive tone. This was one at which she wanted him present.
"You can give it, but without me," he replied doggedly.
"I tell you you'll do nothing of the sort, Sam. I'm not going to abide by the advice of that quack, Leveridge, nor shall you!" The old dominating tone reasserted itself now that she had read his mind to the bottom.
"Quack or not, you would not be alive to-day but for him, and it is disgraceful for you to talk this way behind his back. And now I am going to bed." With this he turned off the remaining light, leaving only the flicker of the firelight behind, shot back the bolt and strode from the room.
As he passed Margaret's door there came softly:
"Is that you, daddy?"
"Yes, dear."
"Come in, daddy, dear." Her clear young voice was confident and tender.
He stopped, pushed back the door and entered her dainty room. She lay propped up among the snowy whiteness of the pillows, smiling at him.
Like her mother, Margaret in her womanhood—she was eighteen—was well made; her figure being as firm and well knit as that of a boy. For an instant his eyes wandered over her simple gown of white mull, tied at the throat with the daintiest of pink ribbons, her well shaped ears and the wealth of auburn hair that sprang from the nape of her shapely neck and lay in an undulating mass of gold all over her pretty head. Whatever sorrows life had for him were nothing compared to the joy of this daughter.
All his anger was gone in an instant.
"Little girl, you know it's against orders, this reading in bed," he said in his kindly tone. Never in all her life had he spoken a cross word to her. "You'll ruin your eyes and you must be tired."
She closed her book. "Tired—yes, I am tired. Mother's dinners are such dreadfully long ones, and, then, daddy, to-night I've been worrying about you. You seemed so silent at dinner—it made my heart ache. Are you ill, daddy? or has something happened? I tried to sleep, but I couldn't. I've been waiting for you. Tell me what has happened—you will tell me, won't you, daddy?" Her smooth, young arms were about his neck now. "Tell me," she pleaded in his ear.
"There's nothing to tell, little girl," he said. "I'm tired too, I suppose; that's all. Come—you must go to sleep. Pouf!" and he blew out the flame of the reading candle at her bedside.
* * * * *
For a long time that night Thayor sat staring into the fire in his room, his mind going over the events of the day—the luncheon—the talk of those around the table—the tones of Holcomb's voice as he said, "It was about his wife," and then the added refrain: "He couldn't get away; his little girl fell ill." How did his case differ?
Suddenly he roused himself and sprang to his feet. No! he was wrong; there was nothing in it. Couldn't be anything in it. Alice was foolish—vain—illogical—but there was Margaret! Nothing would—nothing could go wrong as long as she lived.
With these new thoughts filling his mind, his face brightened. Turning up the reading lamp on his desk he opened his portfolio, covered half a page and slipped it into an envelope.
This he addressed to Mr. William Holcomb, ready for Blakeman's hand in the morning.
CHAPTER THREE
Two days subsequent to these occurrences—and some hours after his coupe loaded with his guns and traps had rumbled away to meet Holcomb, in time for the Adirondack express—Thayor laid a note in his butler's hands with special instructions not to place it among his lady's mail until she awoke.
He could not have chosen a better messenger. While originally hailing from Ireland, and while retaining some of the characteristics of his race—his good humor being one of them—Blakeman yet possessed that smoothness and deference so often found in an English servant. In his earlier life he had served Lord Bromley in the Indian jungle during the famine; had been second man at the country seat of the Duke of Valmoncourt at the time of the baccarat scandal, and later on had risen to the position of chief butler in the establishment of an unpopular Roumanian general.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that he was at forty-five past master in domestic diplomacy, knowing to a detail the private history of more than a score of families, having studied them at his ease behind their chairs, or that he knew infinitely more of the world at large than did his master.
Blakeman had two absorbing passions—one was his love of shooting and the other his reverent adoration of Margaret, whom he had seen develop into womanhood, and who was his Madonna and good angel.
At high noon, then, when the silver bell on Alice's night table broke the stillness of her bedroom, her French maid, Annette, entered noiselessly and slid back the soft curtains screening the bay window. She, like Blakeman, had seen much. She was, too, more self-contained in many things than the woman she served, although she had been bred in Montmartre and born in the Rue Lepic.
"Did madame ring?" Annette asked, bending over her mistress.
Alice roused herself lazily.
"Yes—my coffee and letters."
The girl crossed the room, opened a mirrored door, deftly extracted from a hanging mass of frou-frous behind it a silk dressing jacket, helped thrust the firm white arms within its dainty sleeves, tucked a small lace pillow between Alice's shoulders and picking up the glossy mass of black hair, lifted it skilfully until it lay in glistening folds over the lace pillow. She then went into the boudoir and returned with a dainty tray bearing a set of old Sevres, two buttered wafers of toast and two notes.
Alice waited until her maid closed the bedroom door, then, with the impatience of a child, she opened one of the two notes—the one Annette had discreetly placed beneath the other. This she read and re-read; it was brief, and written in a masculine hand. The woman was thoroughly awake now—her eyes shining, her lips parted in a satisfied smile. "You dear old friend," she murmured as she lay back upon the lace pillow. Dr. Sperry was coming at five.
She tucked the letter beneath the coverlid and opened her husband's note. Suddenly her lips grew tense; she raised herself erect and stared at its contents:
I shall pass the summer in the woods if I can find suitable place for you and Margaret. Make no arrangements which will conflict with this. Will write later.
SAM.
Again she read it, grasping little by little its whole import: all that it meant—all that it would mean to her.
"Is he crazy?" she asked herself. "Does he suppose I intend to be dragged up there?"
It was open defiance on his part; he had done this thing without consulting her and without her consent. It was preposterous and insulting in its brusqueness. He evidently intended to change her life—she, who loathed camp life more than anything in the world was to be forced to live in one all summer instead of reigning at Newport. She understood now his open defiance in leaving for the woods with Holcomb, and yet this last decision was far graver to her than his taking a dozen vacations. Still deeper in her heart there lurked the thought of being separated from the man who understood her. The young doctor's summer practice in Newport would no longer be a labour of love. It really meant exile to them both.
At one o'clock she lunched with Margaret, hardly opening her lips through it all. She did not mention her husband's note—that she would reserve for the doctor. Between them she felt sure there could be arranged a way out of the situation. Again she devoured his note. Yes—"at five." The intervening hours seemed interminable.
That these same hours were anything but irksome to Sperry would have been apparent to anyone who watched his use of them. The day, like other days during office hours, had seen a line of coupes waiting outside his door. Within had assembled a score of rich patients waiting their turn while they read the illustrated papers in strained silence—papers they had already seen. There was, of course, no conversation. A nervous cough now and then from some pretty widow, overheated in her sables, would break the awkward silence, or perhaps the voice of some wealthy little girl of five asking impossible explanations of her maid. During these hours the mere opening of the doctor's sanctum door was sufficient to instantly raise the hopes and the eyes of the unfortunates.
For during these office hours Dr. Sperry had a habit of opening the door of this private sanctum sharply, and standing there for an instant, erect and faultlessly dressed, looking over the waiting ones; then, with a friendly nod, he would recognize, perhaps the widow—and the door closed again on the less fortunate.
It was, of course, more than possible that the young woman was ill over her dressmaker's bill, rather than suffering from a weak heart or an opera cold. Sperry's ear, however, generally detected the cold. It was not his policy to say unpleasant things—especially to young widows who had recently inherited the goods and chattels of their hard-working husbands.
"Ill!—nonsense, my dear lady; you look as fresh as a rose," he would begin in his fascinating voice—"a slight cold, but nothing serious, I assure you. You women are never blessed with prudence," etc., etc.
To another: "Nervous prostration, my dear madame! Fudge—all imagination! Silly, really silly. You caught cold, of course, coming out of the heated theatre. Get a good rest, my dear Mrs. Jack—I want you to stay at least a month at Palm Beach, and no late suppers, and no champagne. No—not a drop," he adds severely. Then softening, "Well, then, half a glass. There, I've been generous, haven't I?" etc., etc., and so the day passed.
On this particular day it was four o'clock before he had dismissed the last of his patients. Then he turned to his nurse with an impatient tone, as he searched hurriedly among the papers on his desk:
"Find out what day I set for young Mrs. Van Ripley's operation."
"Tuesday, sir," answered the nurse.
"Then make it Thursday, and tell James to pack up my big valise and see that my golf things are in it and aboard the 9.18 in the morning."
"Yes, sir," answered the girl, dipping her plump hands in a pink solution.
All this time Alice had been haunted by the crawling hands of the clock. Luxurious as was her house of marble, it was a dreary domain at best to-day, as she sat in the small square room that lay hidden beyond the conservatory of cool palms and exotic plants screening one end of the dining room—a room her very own, and one to which only the chosen few were ever admitted; a jewel box of a room indeed, whose walls, ceiling and furniture were in richly carved teak. A corner, by the way, in which one could receive an old friend and be undisturbed. There was about it, too, a certain feeling of snug secrecy which appealed to her, particularly the low lounge before the Moorish fireplace of carved alabaster, which was well provided with soft pillows richly covered with rare embroideries. To-day none of these luxuries appealed to the woman seated among the cushions, gazing nervously at the fire. What absorbed her were the hands of the clock, crawling slowly toward five.
* * * * *
He did not keep her waiting. He was ahead of time, in fact—Blakeman leading him obsequiously through the fragrant conservatory.
"Ah—it is you, doctor!" she exclaimed in feigned surprise as the butler started to withdraw.
"Yes," he laughed; "I do hope I'm not disturbing you, dear lady. I was passing and dropped in."
Alice put forth her hand to him frankly and received the warm pressure of his own. They waited until the sound of Blakeman's footsteps died away in the conservatory.
"He's gone," she whispered nervously.
"What has happened?" asked the doctor with sudden apprehension.
"Everything," she replied womanlike, raising her eyes slowly to his own. Impulsively he placed both hands on her shoulders.
"You are nervous," he said, his gaze riveted upon her parted lips. He felt her arms grow tense—she threw back her head stiffly and for a moment closed her eyes as if in pain.
"Don't!" she murmured—"we must be good friends—good friends—do you understand?"
"Forgive me," was his tactful reply. He led her to the corner of the
lounge and with fresh courage covered her hand firmly with his own.
"See—I am sensible," he smiled—"we understand each other, I think.
Tell me what has happened."
"Sam," she murmured faintly, freeing her hand—"Sam has dared to treat me like—like a child."
"You! I don't believe it—you? Nonsense, dear friend."
"You must help me," she returned in a vain effort to keep back the tears.
"Has he been brutal to you?—jealous?—impossible!" and a certain query gleamed in his eyes.
"Yes, brutal enough. I never believed him capable of it."
"I believe you, but it seems strange—psychologically impossible.
Why, he's not that kind of a man."
Alice slipped her hand beneath a cushion, drew forth her husband's note and gave it to him.
"Read that," she said, gazing doggedly into the fire, her chin in her hands.
"'I may pass the summer in the woods'"—he read. "'Make no arrangements—' Well, what of it?" This came with a breath of relief. Alice raised her head wearily.
"It means that my life will be different—a country boarding house or a camp up in those wretched woods, I suppose—an existence"—she went on, her voice regaining its old dominant note—"not life!"
"And no more Newport for either of us," he muttered half audibly to himself with a tone of regret.
Alice looked up at him, her white hands clenched.
"I won't have it!" she exclaimed hotly; "I simply won't have it. I should die in a place like that. Buried," she went on bitterly, "among a lot of country bumpkins! Sam's a fool!"
"And you believe him to be in earnest?" he asked at length. She made no reply; her flushed cheeks again sunk in her jewelled hands. "Do you, seriously?" he demanded with sudden fear.
"Yes—very much in earnest—that's the worst of it," she returned, with set, trembling lips.
For some moments he watched her in silence, she breathing in nervous gasps, her slippered feet pressed hard in the soft rug. A sudden desire rushed through him to take her in his arms, yet he dared not risk it.
"Come," he said, at last, "let us reason this thing out. We're neither of us fools. Besides, it does not seem possible he will dare carry out anything in life without your consent."
"I don't know," she answered slowly. "I never believed him capable of going to the woods—but he did. And I must say, frankly, I never believed him capable of this."
"You and he have had a quarrel—am I not right?"
She shrugged her shoulders in reply.
"Perhaps," she confessed—"but he has never understood me—he is incapable of understanding any woman."
"Quite true," he replied lightly, in his best worldly voice; "quite true. Few men, my dear child, ever understand the women they marry. You might have been free to-day—free, and happier, had you—"
He sprang to his feet, bending over her—clasping her hands clenched in her lap. Slowly he sought her lips.
"Don't," she breathed—"don't—I beg of you. You must not—you shall not! You know we have discussed all that before."
"Forgive me," said he, straightening and regaining his seat. The ice had been thinner than he supposed, and he was too much of an expert to risk breaking through. "But why are you so cold to me?" he asked gloomily, with a sullen glance; "you, whose whole nature is the reverse? Do you know you are gloriously beautiful—you, whom I have always regarded as a woman of the world, seem to have suddenly developed the conscience of a schoolgirl."
"You said you would help me," she replied, ignoring his outburst, her eyes averted as if fearing to meet his gaze.
"Then tell me you trust me," he returned, leaning toward her.
She raised her eyes frankly to his own.
"I do—I do trust you, but I do not trust myself. Now keep your promise—I insist on it. Believe me, it is better—wiser for us both."
"Come, then," he said, laying his hand tenderly on her shoulder—it had grown dark in the teakwood room—"let me tell you a story—a fairy tale."
She looked at him with a mute appeal in her eyes. Then with a half moan she said: "I don't want any story; I want your help and never so much as now. Think of something that will help me! Be quick! No more dreams—our minutes are too valuable; I must send you away at six."
For some minutes he paced the room in silence. Then, as if a new thought had entered his mind, he stopped and resumed his professional manner.
"What about Margaret?" he asked quietly. "Is she fond of the woods?"
"Why—she adores them." She had regained her composure now. "The child was quite mad about that wretched Long Lake. What a summer we had—I shudder when I think of it!"
"Did it ever occur to you, my dear friend, that Margaret needed the woods?" His eyes were searching hers now as if he wanted to read her inmost thought.
"Needed them—in what way?"
"I mean—er—wouldn't it be better for her if she went to them? A winter at Saranac—or better still, a longer summer at the camp—if there is to be a camp. In that case her father would not leave her alone; there would be less chance, too, of his insisting on your being there—should you refuse. At least that would be a reason for his spending as much time as possible in camp with Margaret, and you might run up occasionally. I'm merely speaking in a purely professional way, of course," he added.
A sudden pallor crept over her face.
"And you really believe Margaret to be delicate?" she asked in a trembling voice full of sudden apprehension.
Sperry regained his seat, his manner lapsing into one that he assumed at serious consultations.
"I am a pretty good diagnostician," he went on, satisfied with the impression he had made. "Don't think me brutal in what I am going to say, but I've watched that young daughter of yours lately. New York is not the place for her."
"You don't mean her lungs?" she asked in a barely audible tone.
The doctor nodded.
"Not seriously, of course, my dear friend—really not that sort of condition at present—only I deem it wisest to take precautions. I'm afraid if we wait it will—er—be somewhat difficult later. Margaret must be taken in time; she is just the sort of temperament tuberculosis gets hold of with annoying rapidity—often sooner than we who have had plenty of experience with the enemy suspect. I have always said that the Fenwick child might have been saved had it not been for the interference of Mrs. Fenwick after the consultation."
"And you are really telling me the truth?" Alice gasped—her lips set, her breast heaving.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
"Unfortunately—yes," was his reply.
Alice straightened to her feet, crossed to the mantel and stood for some moments with her forehead pressed against the cool edge of the marble, Sperry watching her in silence.
"Poor Margie!" he heard her say—then she turned to him with a strange, calm look in her eyes.
"You must go," she said with an effort; "it is late. Blakeman will be here in a moment to turn on the lights." She stretched forth her hands to him. For a second he held them warm and trembling in his own, then Blakeman's rapid step in the conservatory was heard.
"Good-night," he said in a louder tone, as the butler appeared. "I shall see you at the Van Renssalaer's Thursday—we are to dine at eight, I believe."
She smiled wearily in assent.
"And remember me to your good husband," he added. "I hope he will have the best of luck."
"They say hunting is a worse habit to break than bridge," she returned with a forced little laugh.
Blakeman followed the doctor to the door. Reverently he handed him his stick, coat and hat—a moment later the heavy steel grille closed noiselessly.
Blakeman stood grimly looking out of the front window, his jaw set, his eyes following the doctor until he disappeared within his coupe and slammed the door shut.
"Damn him!" he said. "If he tells that child that I'll strangle him!"