A CHEERFUL BRINGER OF BAD TIDINGS
The announcement that Harwood was preparing to attack the reorganization
of the White River Canneries corporation renewed the hopes of many
victims of that experiment in high finance, and most of the claims
reached Dan's office that summer. The legal points involved were
sufficiently difficult to evoke his best energies, and he dug diligently
in the State Library preparing his case. He was enjoying the cool, calm
heights of a new freedom. Many older men were eking out a bare living at
the law, and the ranks were sadly overcrowded, but he faced the future
confidently. He meant to practice law after ideals established by men
whose names were still potent in the community; he would not race with
the ambulance to pick up damage suits, and he refused divorce cases and
small collection business. He meant to be a lawyer, not a
scandal-hunting detective or pursuer of small debtors with a constable's
process.
He tried to forget politics, and yet, in spite of his indifference,
hardly a day passed that did not bring visitors to his office bent upon
discussing the outlook. Many of these were from the country; men who,
like Ramsay, were hopeful of at last getting rid of Bassett. Some of his
visitors were young lawyers like himself, most of them graduates of the
state colleges, who were disposed to take their politics seriously. Nor
were these all of his own party. He found that many young Republicans,
affected by the prevailing unrest, held practically his own views on
national questions. Several times he gathered up half a dozen of these
acquaintances for frugal dinners in the University Club rathskeller, or
they met in the saloon affected by Allen's friends of Lüders's carpenter
shop. He wanted them to see all sides of the picture, and he encouraged
them to crystallize their fears and hopes; more patriotism and less
partisanship, they all agreed, was the thing most needed in America.
Allen appeared in Dan's office unexpectedly one hot morning and sat down
on a chair piled with open lawbooks. Allen had benefited by his month's
sojourn in the Adirondacks, and subsequent cruises in his motor car had
tanned his face becomingly. He was far from rugged, but he declared that
he expected to live forever.
"I'm full of dark tidings! Much has happened within forty-eight hours.
See about our smash-up in Chicago! Must have read it in the newspapers?"
"A nice, odorous mess," observed Dan, filling his pipe. "I'm pained to
see that you go chasing around with the plutocrats smashing lamp-posts
in our large centres of population. That sort of thing is bound to
establish your reputation as the friend of the oppressed. Was the
chauffeur's funeral largely attended?"
"Pshaw; he was only scratched; we chucked him into the hospital to keep
him from being arrested, that was all. Look here, old man, you don't
seem terribly sympathetic. Maybe you didn't notice that it was _my_ car
that got smashed! It looked like a junk dealer's back yard when they
pulled us out. I told them to throw it into the lake: I've just ordered
a new car. I never cared for that one much anyhow."
"Another good note for the boys around Lüders's joint! You're identified
forever with the red-necked aristocrats who smash five thousand dollar
motors and throw them away. You'd better go out in the hall and read the
sign on the door. I'm a lawyer, not a father confessor to the
undeserving rich."
"This is serious, Dan," Allen remonstrated, twirling his straw hat
nervously. "All that happened in connection with the smash-up didn't get
into the newspapers."
"The 'Advertiser' had enough of it: they printed, published, and uttered
an extra with Marian's picture next to yours on the first page! You
can't complain of the publicity you got out of that light adventure. How
much space do you think it was worth?"
"Stop chaffing and hear me out! I'm up against a whole lot of trouble,
and I came to get your advice. You see, Dan, the Bassetts didn't know
Marian was going on that automobile trip. Her mother had written
her to leave the Willings' and go home--twice! And her father
telegraphed--after we left the farm. She never got the telegram. Then,
when Mr. Bassett read of the smash in the papers, I guess he was warm
clear through. You know he doesn't cut loose very often; and--"
"And he jumped on the train and went to Chicago to snatch Marian away
from the Willings? I should think he would have done just that."
"No; oh, no! He sent Sylvia!" cried Allen. "Sylvia came up on the night
train, had a few words privately with Marian, took luncheon with the
Willings, all as nice as you please, and off she went with Marian."
Harwood pressed his thumb into his pipe-bowl and puffed in silence for a
moment. Allen, satisfied that he had at last caught his friend's
attention, fanned himself furiously with his hat.
"Well," said Dan finally, "there's nothing so staggering in that.
Sylvia's been staying at the lake: I suppose Mrs. Bassett must have
asked her to go up and bring Marian home when the papers screamed her
daughter's name in red ink. I understand that Mrs. Bassett's ill, and I
suppose Bassett didn't like to leave her. There's nothing fuddlesome in
that. Sylvia probably did the job well. She has the habit. What is there
that troubles you about it, Allen?"
His heart had warmed at the mention of Sylvia, and he felt more kindly
toward Allen now that she had flashed across his vision. Many times a
day he found Sylvia looking up at him from the pages of his books; this
fresh news brought her near. Sylvia's journey to Chicago argued an
intimacy with the Bassetts that he did not reconcile with his knowledge
of her acquaintance with the family. He was aroused by the light touch
of Allen's hand on his knee. The young man bent toward him with a
bright light in his eyes.
"You know," he said, "Marian and I are engaged!"
"You're what?" bellowed Dan.
"We're engaged, old man; we're engaged! It happened there at the
Willings'. You know I think I loved her from the very first time I saw
her! It's the beautifullest thing that ever came into my life. You don't
know how happy I am: it's the kind of happiness that makes you want to
cry. Oh, you don't know; nobody could ever know!"
Dan rose and paced the floor, while Allen stood watching him eagerly and
pouring his heart out. Dan felt that tragedy loomed here. He did not
doubt Allen's sincerity; he was not unmoved by his manner, his voluble
description of all the phases of his happiness. Allen, with all his
faults and weaknesses, had nevertheless a sound basis of character.
Harwood's affection for him dated from that first encounter in the
lonely Meridian Street house when the boy had dawned upon him in his
overalls and red silk stockings. He had never considered Allen's
interest in Marian serious; for Allen had to Dan's knowledge paid
similar attentions to half a dozen other girls. Allen's imagination made
a goddess of every pretty girl, and Dan had settled down to the belief
that his friend saw in Marian only one of the many light-footed Dianas
visible in the city thoroughfares, whom he invested with deific charms
and apostrophized in glowing phrases. But that he should marry
Marian--Marian, the joyous and headstrong; Marian the romping, careless
Thalia of Allen's bright galaxy! She was ill-fitted for marriage,
particularly to a dreamy, emotional youngster like Allen. And yet, on
the other hand, if she had arrived at a real appreciation of Allen's
fineness and gentleness and had felt his sweetness and charm, why not?
Dan's common sense told him that quite apart from the young people
themselves there were reasons enough against it. Dan had imagined that
Allen was content to play at being in love; that it satisfied the
romantic strain in him, just as his idealization of the Great Experiment
and its actors expressed and satisfied his patriotic feelings. The news
that he had come to terms of marriage with Marian was in all the
circumstances dismaying, and opened many dark prospects. Allen stood at
the window staring across the roofs beyond. He whirled round as Dan
addressed him.
"Have you spoken to Mr. Bassett? You know that will be the first thing,
Allen."
"That's exactly what I want you to help me about? He's at Waupegan now,
and of course I've got to see him. But you know this row between him and
dad makes it hard. You know dad would do anything in the world for
me--dear old dad! Of course I've told _him_. And you'd be surprised to
see the way he took it. You know people don't know dad the way I do.
They think he's just a rough old chap, without any fine feeling about
anything. And mother and the girls leaving him that way has hurt him; it
hurts him a whole lot. And when I told him last night, up at that big
hollow cave of a house, how happy I was and all that, it broke him all
up. He cried, you know--dad cried!"
The thought of Edward G. Thatcher in tears failed to arrest the dark
apprehensions that tramped harshly through Dan's mind. As for Bassett,
Dan recalled his quondam chief's occasional flings at Allen, whom the
senator from Fraser had regarded as a spoiled and erratic but innocuous
trifler. Mrs. Bassett, Dan was aware, valued her social position highly.
As the daughter of Blackford Singleton she considered herself
unassailably a member of the upper crust of the Hoosier aristocracy. And
Dan suspected that Bassett also harbored similar notions of caste.
Independently of the struggle in progress between Thatcher and Bassett,
it was quite likely that the Bassetts would look askance at the idea of
a union between their daughter and Edward Thatcher's son, no matter what
might be said in Allen's favor. Bassett's social acceptance was fairly
complete, and he enjoyed meeting men of distinction. He was invariably
welcomed to the feasts of reason we are always, in our capital,
proffering to the great and good of all lands who pause for
enlightenment and inspiration in our empurpled Athens. He was never
ignored in the choice of those frock-coated and silk-hatted non-partisan
committees that meet all trains at the Union Station, and quadrennially
welcome home our eternal candidates for the joyous office of
Vice-President of the Republic. He kept his dress suit packed for flight
at Fraserville free of that delicate scent of camphor that sweetens the
air of provincial festivals. Thatcher never, to the righteous,
sensitive, local consciousness, wholly escaped from the maltster's
taint, in itself horrible and shocking; nor did his patronage of budding
genius in the prize ring, or his adventures (often noisily heralded) as
a financial pillar of comic opera, tend to change or hide the leopard's
spots in a community where the Ten Commandments haven't yet been
declared unconstitutional, save by plumbers and paperhangers. Women who
had never in their lives seen Mrs. Thatcher admired her for remaining in
exile; they knew she must be (delectable phrase!) a good woman.
"You know dad has had an awful lonely time of it, Dan, and if he has
done things that haven't sounded nice, he's as sorry as anybody could
ask. You know dad never made a cent in his life at poker, and his horses
have come near busting him lots of times. And sentiment against
breweries over here would astonish people abroad. It's that old Puritan
strain, you know. You understand all that, Dan."
Dan grinned in spite of himself. It was hardly less than funny to
attempt a defense of Ed Thatcher by invoking the shades of the Puritans.
But Thatcher did love his boy, and Dan had always given him full credit
for that.
"Never mind the breweries; tell me the rest of it."
"Well," Allen continued, "dad always tells me everything, and when I
spoke of Marian he told me a lot of things. He wants to put Bassett out
of business and go to the Senate. Dad's set his heart on that. I didn't
know that any man could hate another as he hates Bassett. That business
in the state convention cut him deep;--no, don't you say a word! Dad
hasn't any feeling against you; he thinks you're a fine fellow, and he
likes to feel that when you quit Bassett you put yourself on his side.
Maybe he's wrong, but just for my sake I want you to let him think so.
But he's got it in for Bassett; he's got his guns all loaded and primed.
Dad's deeper than you think. They used to say that dad was only second
fiddle to Bassett, but you'll see that dad knows a thing or two."
Dan drummed his desk. This reference to Thatcher's ambitions only
kindled his anger and he wished that Allen would end his confidences and
take himself off. But he pricked up his ears as Allen went on.
"I'm telling you this just to show you how it mixes up things for Marian
and me. I came to you for help, old man; and I want you to see how hard
it is for me to go to Mr. Bassett and tell him I want to marry Marian."
"Just a minute, Allen. Are you quite sure that Marian has made up her
mind to marry you; that she really wants to marry anybody?"
"I tell you it's all fixed! You don't imply that Marian is merely
amusing herself at my expense! It wouldn't be like you to think that. I
have always thought you liked Marian and saw how superb she is."
"Of course I like Marian," said Dan hastily. "My one hope is that both
of you will be happy; and the difficulties you have suggested only make
that more important. You will have to wait. I'm not sure but that you
had better keep this to yourselves for a while--maybe for a long time.
It would be wise for you to talk to Aunt Sally. She's a good friend of
yours, and one of the wisest of women."
It was not in Allen's eye that he sought wisdom. With him, as with most
people who ask advice, advice was the last thing he wanted. It was his
way to unbosom himself, however, and he forged ahead with his story,
with what seemed to Harwood a maddening failure to appreciate its
sinister import. "You remember that when we were up there on the
Kankakee, John Ware told a story one night--a mighty good story about an
experience he had once?"
"Yes; he told a lot of stories. Which one do you mean?"
"Oh, the best one of all--about the woman in the Adirondacks. You
haven't forgotten that?"
"No; I do remember something about it."
"You may not have noticed that while Ware was telling the story dad got
up from the bed in the corner and walked over to the stove, after Ware
had asked you--it was you, wasn't it?--to reach into the pocket of his
coat over your head and get the book he was talking about--it was you he
spoke to, wasn't it?"
"Yes; it comes back to me now," replied Dan, frowning.
"Well, I remember, because it struck me as odd that dad should be
interested; it was Emerson, you know; and dad looked at the book in the
light from the stove and asked me what the name was down in the inside
of the cover. It was the binder's name in small letters,--Z. Fenelsa.
Well, there's a long story about that. It's a horrible story to know
about any man; but dad had been trying to find something he could use on
Bassett. He's had people--the sort you can get to do such jobs--going
over Bassett's whole life to find material. Dad says there's always
something in every man's life that he wants to hide, and that if you
keep looking you can find it. You see--"
"I don't like to see," growled Harwood. "It's an ugly idea." And then,
with sudden scorn for Thatcher's views on man's frailty, he said with
emphasis: "Now, Allen, it's all right for you to talk to me about
Marian, and your wish to marry her; but don't mix scandal up in it. I'm
not for that. I don't want to hear any stories of that kind about
Bassett. Politics is rotten enough at best without tipping over the
garbage can to find arguments. I don't believe your father is going to
stoop to that. To be real frank with you, I don't think he can afford
to."
"You've got to hear it; you can't desert me now. I'm away up in the air
this morning, and even if you do hate this kind of thing, you've got to
see where dad's hatred of Bassett puts Marian and me."
"It puts you clean out of it; away over the ropes and halfway home!
That's where it puts you," boomed Harwood.
"Well, you've got to listen, and you've got to tell me what to do. Dad
had already investigated Bassett's years in New York, when he was a
young man studying in the law school down there. But they could get
about so far and no farther. It's a long time ago and all the people
Bassett knew at that time had scattered to the far corners of the earth.
But that book struck dad all of a heap. It fitted into what he had heard
about Bassett as a dilettante book collector; even then Bassett was
interested in such things. And you know in that account of him you wrote
in the 'Courier' that I told you I had read on the other side that first
time we met? Well, when dad and I went to the Adirondacks it was only
partly on my account; he met a man up there who had been working up
Bassett's past, and dad went over all the ground himself. It was most
amazing that it should all come out that way, but he found the place,
and the same man is still living at the house where the strange woman
stayed that Ware told about. I know it's just as rotten as it can be,
but dad's sure Bassett was the man who took that woman there and
deserted her. It fits into a period when Bassett wasn't in New York and
he wasn't at Fraserville. They've found an old file of the Fraserville
paper at the State Library that mentions the fact that Bassett's father
was very ill--had a stroke--and they had hard work locating Bassett, who
was the only child. There's only one missing link in the chain of
evidence, and that's the woman herself, and her child that was born up
there. Ware told us that night how he failed to get track of them later,
and dad lost the trail right there too. But that's all I need tell you
about it. That's what I've got hanging over me. And dad won't promise
not to use it on Bassett if he has to."
Harwood's face had gone white, but he smiled and knit his fingers
together behind his head with an air of nonchalance that he did not
feel. He knew that Thatcher meant to drive Bassett out of politics, but
he had little faith in Thatcher's ability to do so. He discredited
wholly the story Allen had so glibly recited. By Allen's own admission
the tale was deficient in what Harwood's lawyer's instinct told him were
essentials. The idea that Bassett could ever have been so stupid as to
leave traces of any imaginable iniquities plain enough for Thatcher to
find them after many years was preposterous. The spectacle of the pot
calling the kettle black, never edifying, aroused Dan's ire against
Thatcher. And Bassett was not that sort; his old liking for the man
stirred to life again. Even the Rose Farrell incident did not support
this wretched tissue of fabrication. He had hated Bassett for that; but
it was not for the peccable Thatcher to point a mocking finger at
Achilles's heel.
"Well," said Allen impatiently.
"Well," Dan blurted contemptuously, "I think your father's stooped
pretty low, that's all. You can tell him for me that if he's digging in
the muck-pile for that sort of thing, I'm done with him; I'm not only
done with him, but if he attempts to use any such stuff as that, I'll
fight him; I will raise a war on him that won't be forgotten in this
state through all eternity. You tell him that; tell him you told me your
story and that's what I said about it."
"But, Dan, old man--" began Allen pleadingly.
Harwood shook his head until his cowlick bobbed and danced.
"You'd better get out of here, Allen. If you think you can marry Morton
Bassett's daughter with that kind of a scandal in your pocket, I tell
you you're mad--you've plumb gone insane! Great God, boy, you don't know
the meaning of the words you use. You handle that thing like a child
with a loaded pistol. Don't you see what that would mean--to Marian, to
Blackford, to Mrs. Bassett--to Aunt Sally! Now, you want my advice, or
you said you did, and I'm going to give you some. You go right down to
that bank over there on the corner and buy a steamer ticket and a long
letter of credit. Then take the first train for New York and go back to
your mother and stay there till I send for you to come home. I mean
that--every word of it. If you don't skip I'm damned if I don't go to
Bassett and tell him this whole rotten story."
Allen, the tears glistening in his frightened eyes, turned toward the
door.
"Good-bye, Dan, old man; I'm sorry it had to end this way. I'm
disappointed, that's all."
He paused after opening the door, hoping to be called back, but Harwood
had walked to the window and stood with his hands in his pockets staring
into the street.