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LANTERN MARSH
by
BEAUMONT S. CORNELL
(Author of “Renaissance”)
The Ryerson Press
Toronto
Copyright, Canada, 1923, by
The Ryerson Press
TO MY WIFE
CONTENTS
BOOK I. LANTERN MARSH.
I. A FATHER’S LOVE 11
II. TEACHERS AND PREACHERS 29
III. MAUNEY MEETS MRS. DAY 52
IV. THE HARVEST MOON 66
V. A VISIT TO LOCKWOOD 84
VI. THE IRON WILL 96
BOOK II. REBELS.
I. MAUNEY REACHES MERLTON 109
II. MAUNEY PREPARES FOR COLLEGE 132
III. THE OTHER HALF OF THE CLASS 147
IV. THE PROFESSOR 160
V. DINNER AT THE DE FREVILLE’S 173
VI. IN WHICH STALTON SEES THE DOCTOR 185
BOOK III. THE LAMP OF KNOWLEDGE.
I. ADJUSTMENTS 201
II. MAUNEY FINDS A FRIEND 217
III. THE GREAT HAPPINESS 233
IV. MAUNEY AND FREDA HAVE A TALK 249
V. IN WHICH MAUNEY CALLS ON THE PROFESSOR 260
VI. THE FOOL 273
VII. THE LAST DAYS AT FRANKLIN STREET 278
BOOK IV. THIN SOIL.
I. CONVOCATION 289
II. LOCKWOOD 291
III. FREDA COMES HOME 298
IV. THE OPTIMIST 305
V. MAUNEY MEETS MRS. MACDOWELL 308
VI. A SUMMER AT HOME 316
VII. THE FIRST DAY 321
VIII. AN OLD FRIEND 332
IX. SEEN AT THE MARKET 339
X. THE RELIABLE MAN 347
XI. THE MUSIC OF SILENCE AND OF DRUM 353
XII. THE ST. LAWRENCE HEARS A DIALOGUE 358
XIII. DISTRESS 365
XIV. WHAT YELLOW EYES SAW 374
XV. WHAT WAS INEVITABLE 387
XVI. GYPSIES’ FIRE 392
BOOK I
LANTERN MARSH
CHAPTER I.
A FATHER’S LOVE
Mauney Bard did not enjoy mending fences. They were quite essential
in the general economy of farming. Without them the cows would wander
where they had no business, trampling precious crops or perhaps getting
mired in these infernal boglands. In principle, therefore, his present
occupation was logical, but in practice it was tedious.
During the long afternoon he occasionally paused for diversion to gaze
across the wide tract of verdant wilderness before him. Like a lake,
choked by vegetation from beneath and strangled by determined vegetation
on all sides, the Lantern Marsh surrendered its aquatic ambition. There
was very little water to be seen. Only a distant glare of reflected sky
remained here and there, espied between banks of thick sedges. A cruel
conspiracy of nature! Acres of rice-grass and blue flags with their
bayonet-like leaves stabbed up through the all-but-hidden surface, while
a flat pavement of rank lilies hastened to conceal any water that dared
show itself. For two gloomy miles the defeated thing extended, while
outraged evergreens, ill-nourished and frantic, crowded close, like
friends, to shield its perennial disgrace.
It had always been there, unexplored and forbidding, inhabited by the
mud hen, the wild duck, and the blue crane. Mauney sometimes hated its
desolate presence and wondered why his father’s farm had to be so near
it. But the question challenged custom and actuality—things his young
brain had not learned to affront.
Late in the afternoon he was roused from work by a sound as of tensed,
satin fans cutting the air. He looked up to behold the broad wings of a
blue crane, passing low. The rising wind which had roused it from its
feeding grounds brought the dank odor of decayed poplar wood and the wild
aroma of rice-grass. His eye dropped to the green waste of the marsh,
brushed into fitful waves of tidal grey, and then shifted to the moving
limbs of bare hemlocks and birches at the border of the swamp.
Chilled by the sharp blast, he straightened himself to his feet, his
shirt moulded to the underlying sculptory of his vigorous young chest.
His wind-tossed, auburn hair peeled back from his fine forehead, as his
wide, blue eyes received the rugged beauty and his lips smiled from sheer
visual delight. Then, as he gazed, a bright magic, bursting from the west
behind him, transformed his wilderness momentarily to a static tableau of
metallic gold.
It was supper time. Moments since the kitchen bell had been ringing,
rocking under its cupola on the kitchen roof. His father, his brother and
the hired man, fertilizing the grain field beyond the shoulder of the
hill, would have heard it and be promptly on their way. After drawing on
his faded coat, he picked up a pair of pliers from the ground and shoved
them into the hip pocket of his overalls. He shouldered his axe and saw,
then started.
The long marsh was separated from his father’s farm by the Beulah road,
a narrow clay highway curving past the head of the swamp toward the
village of Beulah. In the opposite direction, it ran on eventually to the
town of Lockwood on the bank of the St. Lawrence. The Bard farmhouse, a
prosperous red brick structure, faced the road and the swamp, presenting
a stone fence of dry masonry, and within the fence an apple-orchard. At
one side a lane, guarded by a board gate, led in from the road.
As Mauney swung up the lane toward the farmyard the crisp snap of a
whip was borne to his ears from below the shoulder of the grain-field,
followed by a man’s call to his horses:
“Git ap!... yah lazy devils!... git ap!”
A second crack of the whip—then the rumble of heavy wheels and the rattle
of the board-bottom of the wagon. The usual, boring sights and sounds!
The yard echoed to the barking of a collie who was springing in savage
enjoyment at the heels of tardy cows. The lazy animals jogged in awkward
trot, as their full udders swung to the rhythm of their gait. As Mauney
crossed the yard, wading with gluey steps through the soft under-foot,
the dog darted toward him, splashing through brown-stained pools of
stagnant water.
“Go on back, Rover!” he commanded, stepping aside to avoid his rough
welcome. “Chase them up, Rover!”
Rover paused on his four feet only long enough to cast up a glance of
searching inquiry at his young master’s face, when, as if satisfied
that his mood were congenial, he immediately returned to his task with
doubled despatch.
In making toward the great, red barn at the farther side of the yard,
Mauney passed the henhouse, from which radiated a pungent, ammoniacal
odor, all too familiar to his nostrils. In the drive shed, on the beams
several white hens were settling to roost. One of these fowl, jealous of
position, pecked the head of its fellow, causing an expostulant cackle of
pain. The sudden disturbance of this sound spread to the precincts of the
quiescent henhouse, whereupon one crescendo of rasping invective followed
another, leading to a distracting medley of full-throated excitement,
that subsided only at the masterly clarion of a rooster, angry at being
disturbed.
The returning wagon now rumbled nearer, over flat stones behind the barn,
its heavy roar measured by the regular, metallic clip of the horses’
well-shod hoofs. “Git ap, there! What’re yuh doin’ there!” came the gruff
voice of his father. A loud whip-crack broke the steady rhythm of the
horses’ hoofs into an irregular gallop, while the thunder of the wagon
filled the yard with increasing vibration.
Mauney ascended the stone bridge to the great double doors, which, owing
to the wind, he opened with difficulty, and entered to grease the teeth
of his saw and hang it carefully on two spikes driven into the side of
the hay mow. He stood his axe in a corner and tossed the pliers into
an empty soap box that stood on a rough carpenter’s bench. One of the
doors, which he had left open, now slammed shut, stirring up a stifling
cloud of chaff and rendering the interior of the barn unpleasantly dark.
In turning he stumbled over a stick of stove-wood, used for blocking
the wheels of the hay-wagon, and fell forward. Putting, out his right
hand, he brought the palm down heavily on the sharp end of a spike that
projected from an upturned board. He regained his feet quickly and
clasped his injured hand. It was too dark to see, but he felt a trickle
of hot fluid accumulating in his other palm. A sickening pain mounted his
arm in spirals, but he whistled a snatch of a song, and left the barn.
As he passed quickly toward the kitchen, the heavy team of Clydesdales
rounded the corner of the yard, lifting their front feet high, their
heads tightly reined, with foam blowing from their white mouths. As they
were pulled up to a stop a horse within the barn whinnied. Then Mauney
presently heard the jingle of chains as the team were being unhitched,
and in the quiet air, his father’s voice saying:
“The young fellah’s gave us the slip!”
His brother William’s voice replied in the same disagreeable tone:
“Wonder he wouldn’t give us a hand unhitchin.’ Fixin’ fences is easier’n
spreadin’ cow dung. Least he could do would be to throw the horses a
little hay!”
A warm wave of anger flushed Mauney’s face as he halted in the middle of
the yard, half determined to go back, but his hand drove him imperatively
toward the kitchen. On the edge of the porch he relieved his boots of
adhering mud and manure on a scraper made from an old draw-knife turned
upside down between supports. The two long upper panels of the kitchen
door were replaced by glass and draped inside by a plain cotton curtain,
through which a glow of lamp-light gave Mauney a grateful impression of
homely coziness. After rubbing his boots on the oval verandah mat of
plaited rags, he pressed down the thumb latch and entered.
“Hello, Maun,” came a woman’s voice from the pantry, half-drowned by the
noise of a mechanical egg-beater. “D’juh get the marsh fence finished?”
“Rome wasn’t built in a day, you remember,” he replied as affably as his
feelings allowed.
“That’s right,” she called above the sound, “but your old man prob’ly
thinks it didn’t take over a week.”
Mauney was examining his hand near the coal-oil lamp on the kitchen
table. The spike had completely perforated his palm leaving a torn wound
that still bled. He tossed his hat to the old couch by the door and bent
nearer the lamp. Although big-bodied he had a boyish face, filled now
with youthful perplexity. The skin over the prominent bridge of his nose
had an appearance of being tightly drawn, although his nostrils were as
sensitive as the young lips beneath them. His chin, by its fullness,
suggested a vague, personal determination to be expected in one older,
but his eyes sparkled with that devotion of eager attention which is
reserved to youth alone.
He glanced toward the pantry from which the beating sound still emerged.
“Do you know what to do for this?” he asked loudly.
The noise of the beater stopped.
“What d’juh say?”
“I hurt my hand and—”
She came forth, with her muscular arms covered by shreds of dough, and
walked to glance at his stained hand.
“Oh good God!” she exclaimed, turning away. “I certainly do hate blood,
Maun.”
She began rubbing the adherent dough from her arms.
“Just a minute,” she said. “Go soak it in the wash basin—here’s some warm
water.” Taking a tea-kettle from the flat-topped stove, she poured into
the basin, adding some cold water from the cistern pump.
As Mauney proceeded to follow her advice she rummaged through a cotton
bag, hung on the back of the pantry door. “It’ll be all right, Maun,” she
cheerfully prophesied. “A cut like that is safe if it bleeds, but if it
don’t, watch out!”
She was a well-formed woman of twenty-seven, a trifle masculine about
the shoulders, but with a feminine enough face displaying sharp, hazel
eyes beneath black, straight brows. Her nose was passably refined, but
her full lips wore a careless smile that lent not only a gleam of golden
teeth, but a mild atmosphere of coarseness to her face. The excitement
of Mauney’s injury had called up circumscribed patches of crimson to her
cheeks and accentuated the nervous huskiness of her voice.
“One time,” she continued, while she tore a white cloth into long narrow
strips, “my cousin ran a nail in her foot. They got Doc. Horne, and he
did—God only knows what—but her foot got the size of a pungkin, only
redder.”
“Blood-poisoning?”
“Yep.”
As she rolled two or three crude bandages she glanced occasionally at
Mauney, with keen, appraising eyes that followed the stretch of his broad
shoulders bent over the sink. As she nervously applied the bandage, a
moment later, the sound of boots scraping outside the door contributed an
added haste to her manner. Before she had finished, the door opened to
admit Seth Bard.
Mauney’s father was of average height, but heavily built, with ponderous
shoulders and a thick, short neck. Beneath the broad, level rim of
his Stetson the lamp-light showed the full, florid face of a man who
continually peered at life through half-closed lids in calloused,
self-confident reserve, or as if hiding what men might read in his eyes,
if he opened them. He stopped abruptly inside the door, his thumbs caught
into the top of his trousers, and stood haughtily still for an instant,
the personification of master in his house.
Mauney’s back was turned toward him so that the father could not see the
occupation causing such seemingly friendly terms between his son and his
hired woman. His narrow eyes studied them in mystification.
“What’s all this?” he gruffly demanded, as the face of William appeared
over his shoulder with the same inquisitive expression.
“Annie’s doing up my hand,” Mauney replied calmly.
Bard covered the floor in long strides to glance at the white bandage
through which a red stain had already soaked.
“Do it up yerself!” he commanded, seizing the woman’s arm and pulling her
away. “Where’s the supper, Annie?”
“Oh, it’ll be ready by the time you get some o’ the muck off your hands,”
she said, good-naturedly, as she set about stirring a boiling pot on the
stove.
As Mauney stood trying to adjust the dressing, he struggled to overcome
an instinct of fight, wondering how much longer he would be able to
tolerate his father’s crude domination. Presently the woman had the
supper served and the men, having washed themselves, were sitting down.
The oval table was covered with a plain yellow oil-cloth. At the middle
stood a heavy earthenware dish filled with steaming, half-peeled
potatoes, and near it, on a folded newspaper, an agateware sauce-pan
held beet-roots. Five plates of blurred willow pattern were piled by the
father’s place, while before them a roast of pork, with crisply-browned
skin, still sizzled in its own grease. By the woman’s place, at the
opposite end, stood a large agate tea-pot and a chunk of uncolored
butter, upon whose surface salt crystals sparkled in the lamplight. The
lamp was shaded by a sloping collar of scorched pasteboard, while the
constant flicker of the yellow flame rendered tremulously uncertain the
faces around the board.
Mauney’s usual taciturnity, inspired by a feeling of being constantly
misunderstood whenever he spoke, was increased by the pain in his hand,
so that he sat in silence, catching the conversation of the others as
something quite outside his own immediate consciousness. He was thinking
about a new book the school teacher had loaned him.
“Well,” remarked Bard, seizing his carving knife, and plunging his fork
deep into the roast, “I guess this just about finishes the pig, don’t it?”
“Yep. You’ll have to kill to-morrow,” the woman replied, as she reached
for the hired man’s tea cup. She noticed he was nibbling at an onion,
which he had taken from his pocket. “Ain’t you afraid yer best girl will
go back on you, Snowball?” she teased.
“Nope,” he said with a weak-minded grin. “I d-don’t never worry much
about the women folks, so I don’t!” He was a small-bodied, but wiry,
individual of perhaps forty-five, with a scranny, wry neck and a
burnished face of unsymmetrical design. The cervical deformity tilted his
head sidewise and gave him an appearance of being in a constant attitude
of listening, as if an unseen, but shorter, person were always beside
him whispering in his ear. When he spoke he snapped his eyelids as if he
alertly appreciated the full significance of his environment, and was
perpetually on guard against the wiles of his associates.
“Hold on, Snowball!” William said, across the table, with a glare of mock
earnestness, as he reached to sink his knife into the butter. “You know
you’re lyin’. All the pretty gals up to Beulah is crazy about you.”
Snowball laughed a silent, internal kind of laugh that caused his
shoulders to rise and fall in rapid jerks to its rhythm, and ended in
its first audible accompaniment—a sound exactly like the suction of a
sink-basin drawing in the last eddying portion of water.
“The gals is g-gone on you, Bill, not me!” he retorted, with much
keen winking of his lids, and entered immediately on a second bout of
noiseless, private laughter which terminated, after the others had
forgotten his remarks, in the same astonishing sound.
“D’juh see the bay mare to-day, Bill?” Bard presently inquired, across
the level of a wide slice of bread, from which he had bitten out a
semi-circular portion. William looked up knowingly from his well-loaded
fork and nodded his head sagely with a slight lifting of his brows, as
though an intimate understanding existed.
“I should say so. What are you going to do with her, Dad?” he asked.
Bard’s slit-like eyes narrowed even more than usual, as for a moment, he
chewed meditatively.
“Goin’ to get rid of her,” he said, with the careless quickness of one
pronouncing expert opinion. “Sorry I raised her, Bill. Never liked her
sire. Thompson never had much luck with that Percheron stud. He’s been
leadin’ that horse around down the Clark Settlement, and I seen some o’
the colts. All the same!”
“What’s the matter with the bay mare?” Mauney enquired anxiously.
“She’s goin’ to be sold—that’s what’s the matter with her!” he replied
curtly. “And I don’t want to hear no growlin’, understand me!”
“I wasn’t growling.”
“No—but you was a-thinkin’ in them terms.”
“Well, I thought she was mine, Dad. You gave her to me when she was a
colt. I never thought so much of any animals as I do of her, and, more
than that, I never noticed anything wrong with her.”
“H’m!” sneered Bard. “You got to go into farmin’ a little deeper’n you
do, to notice anything.”
Outside the door, the dog growled, then barked in an unfriendly tone. The
sound of a horse’s hoofs in the lane and the squeaking of a buggy caused
them to stop eating.
“Dave McBratney!” William announced presently, glancing through the
window into the twilight. “I’d know that horse if I seen it in hell.”
Bard, after first loading his mouth, rose to open the door.
“Good evenin’, Dave!” he said.
“Good night, Mr. Bard,” came a young man’s voice. “Wait till I tie up
this here hoss. He’s liable to run away.”
This provoked laughter around the table which lasted until McBratney, a
tall, dashing youth with playful, black eyes, stepped into the kitchen
and greeted the people with individual nods. A slight discoloration of
his lips indicated that he was chewing tobacco. He wore a black, soft
hat, with its rim pulled down in front, and the tip of a peacock feather
stuck into the sweat-stained band at one side. Beneath his jacket, a
grey flannel shirt with soft collar boasted a polka-dot bow-tie and a
heavy watch chain, whose large golden links connected two breast pockets.
From the handkerchief pocket of his coat, protruded the border of a red
bandanna and the stem of a pipe.
“Been up to Beulah?” William asked.
“Yep!”
“Anything new?”
“Nothin’ much, Bill,” replied McBratney, as he seated himself in the low,
yellow rocking-chair and began to teeter back and forth. “The only stir
is the new preacher, I guess. I heard he was comin’ down the Lantern
Marsh this afternoon to make some calls.”
“I reckon that’s why you cleaned out, Dave!” said Bard.
“You bet; but they say he’s quite a nice, sociable little chap. Joe
Taylor was telling me in Abe Lavanagh’s barber shop that he seen the new
preacher up at the post office, waitin’ for the mail to be distributed.
He says he was grabbin’ right aholt o’ everybody’s paw, just like a
regular old-timer.”
“What’s his wife like, Dave?” Bard enquired.
“I don’t know. Dad was sayin’ last night, it don’t matter about the
preacher so much; it all depends on his wife, whether they’re goin’ to
take with the people.”
“Surely,” agreed Bard. “You take McGuire who was here before Squires.
McGuire may have had his faults—I’m not sayin’ he didn’t—but he wasn’t
too bad a little fellow at all. But that wife o’ his—why, she’d a’ ruined
any man!”
“Lap-dogs!” laughed McBratney.
“Sure, and you’d a’ thought she had some kind o’ royal blood in her the
way she’d strut down the sidewalk.” Bard delved in his hip pocket for his
pipe as he pushed his chair back from the table. “A preacher’s wife,” he
continued philosophically, but with his usual oracular impressiveness,
“has got to be sort o’ human-like. Did you hear what happened to McGuire?”
“No.”
Bard, his empty pipe perched between his teeth, blew several quick blasts
of air through it to clear it of sticky contents, while he cut fine
shavings of tobacco from a plug with a large-bladed jack-knife.
“I was talkin’ to somebody who had been out west,” he continued, “and
McGuire was runnin’ a real estate office, makin’ money too.”
McBratney reserved his comment until he had gone to the door to spit.
“That’s a nice job for a preacher to go into, Mr. Bard,” he said,
sarcastically. “I guess he wasn’t called of the Lord.”
“I never blamed him!” Bard exclaimed, striking the table with his stubby
right hand, from which the middle fingers were gone. “No, sir! He showed
the man in him. But there’s just one thing more I’d a’ done!”
“What’s that, Dad?” William asked.
Bard leaned eagerly forward and clenched his fists. “I’d a’ got that prig
of a woman cornered up between me and the end of the room, and I’d a’
choked her till she was green in the face, and then I’d a’ handed over
all her lap-dogs an’ yellow parasols and I’d a’ shot her right out onto
the road!”
“You’re damned right,” approved McBratney.
“You bet,” agreed William Bard.
The humor of his master’s threat had evidently appealed very forcibly to
Snowball, for, after a few seconds, he emitted the queer suction sound,
heralding the termination of his period of mirth.
A few minutes later they all left the kitchen for the dairy shed, where
the cows waited to be milked. Mauney, disabled for milking, pumped water
and carried pails. He noticed McBratney conversing in low tones with his
brother, who occasionally turned up the cow’s teat to sprinkle Rover with
a warm spray of milk.
When the milking was finished, the cows were wandering slowly back toward
the pasture and William had driven off toward Beulah with his companion,
Mauney entered the stable and unfastened the latch of a box-stall.
“Whoa, Jennie girl!” he said softly.
The mare, crunching hay, turned her head, whinnied, and stepped over for
him to come in. In the dim light that entered from a cobwebbed window
he could just see her big eyes watching him, as he put out his hand and
stroked her sleek neck. She was his great pride, for, since the day she
had been given to him, he had watered and fed her himself, brushed and
washed her and led her to pasture. She was the only living thing that
he had regarded as his very own, but to-night he felt uncertain about
his claim. Quickly he ran his hand over her legs, patted her chest and
listened to the sound of her breathing.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Jennie, girl,” he said as he took a fork
and threw straw about the floor of the stall.
It was as if he was being robbed of an old friend. Her face haunted
him as he went back to the kitchen where his father and the woman were
discussing a new cream separator; and when he went upstairs to his room
he could see the dark eyes of his pony looking toward him with pathetic
appeal.
If his father and brother were studying to render his life miserable, he
thought, they would not improve on their present success. What had he
done to deserve their constant dislike? If he picked up a book he had
learned to expect their ridicule. If he were detected in a mood of quiet
reflection, a seemingly normal occupation, why should he have learned
to expect a sarcastic jeer? He felt that his mother, had she but lived,
would have understood better, for her nature was more like his own.
In such a mood of discontent he sat idly on the edge of his bed, striving
to find some possible fault of his own that might merit his evident
ostracism. Previously, the possession of his bay pony had given him
unbelievable comfort, for in moments of suppressed exasperation he had
gone to her stall and transferred, with gentle pattings, the affection
that he was prevented from bestowing on his kin. “We’re old chums, aren’t
we, Jennie?” Then the world would look brighter and consolation would
come to him. But the prospect of her being sold to a stranger made him
very sad.
Presently a horse and buggy drove up the lane and stopped almost beneath
him. Mauney opened the window to listen, since he knew it was too early
for William to be returning.
“Who’s that?” he heard his father’s voice enquire.
“Is this where Mr. Bard lives?” enquired a strange but cultured voice.
“You bet.”
“I’m your pastor, Mr. Bard,” the strange voice continued. “And if you
have a few moments, I’ll come in just long enough to get acquainted. It’s
a little late, but I didn’t think you’d be in bed yet. I’ll just tie her
here, thanks. My name, as I presume you’ve heard, is Tough, but I’m not
as tough as I look.”
“How are yu’, Mr. Tough?”
“Fine, thanks.”
“There’s nobody here, but me an’ the hired woman—but—”
“No matter! I’ll take you as I find you. I understand that Mrs. Bard died
some years since.”
“Yes. My wife wasn’t never very strong, an’ I never married again.”
“Very sad, indeed. We can’t always tell what’s behind these things, but
we try to think they happen for a purpose.”
In Mauney’s breast something tightened at these words. Dim recollections
of his mother’s faded face, so thin, but so ineffably sweet, as she
closed her eyes in their interminable rest, made him wonder if her going
had not been better than staying—staying with the man who had looked,
dry-eyed, upon her dead face! Staying to share the unhappiness of her
younger son! A wave of joy thrilled him. For one thing he would remain
for ever glad—that his mother was dead, safely dead—out of his father’s
reach!
He did not know how long he had stood by the window, but he presently
heard the kitchen door open.
“That’s one of Tom Sunderland’s livery horses, ain’t it, Mr. Tough?”
“Yes, and he’s very slow and lazy. As a matter of fact I wanted to
mention horses to you.”
“You ain’t got a horse o’ yer own, then?”
“Not yet. You might know perhaps where I could get a reliable pony, quiet
enough for Mrs. Tough?”
“Now, Mr. Tough, maybe I might. I suppose you want a purty good piece o’
horse flesh?”
“Well, yes, I do.”
“Wife a horse fancier, Mr. Tough?”
“Oh, she’s fond of driving; yes.”
A slight pause, during which Bard coughed.
“It’s purty hard,” he said, clearing his throat, “to buy a horse that’s
a good roadster and at the same time a good looker an’ quiet like;
understand me.”
“Just so.”
“Now I’ve got a three-year-old mare here that ain’t never been beat in
these here parts for looks. O’ course, I ain’t never even thought o’
sellin’ ’er. She was sired by the best Percheron that was ever led around
this section.”
“Something fancy, I imagine.”
“She lifts her feet like a lady; she’s fast, and intelligent more’n the
hired man.”
“What’s she worth?”
Bard laughed. “Well,” he replied “I hardly know, as I say, I never
thought o’ lettin’ ’er go.”
“But you could give me some idea.”
“I know I turned down a three-hundred-dollar offer a couple o’ months
ago.”
The Reverend Tough whistled softly. “The Lord’s servants,” he said, “are
notoriously lacking in the world’s goods, Mr. Bard. I fear I would have
to seek a cheaper animal.”
There was a well-considered pause before Bard spoke.
“You better come down and see her in the daylight,” he said. “You might
not want her. But I’d like to see you with a good horse—your profession
calls for it.”
“I think so, too.”
“And when it comes to that, I wouldn’t be against knocking off, say, a
hundred, if you really want her.”
“Really! That’s good of you. Now, look here, Mr. Bard, I’ll come down
to-morrow and see her. It’s comforting to know that a man in these days
can get a little for love, when he hasn’t got the price.”
With mutual expressions of good will their conversation ended and Mauney
listened to the preacher’s buggy squeaking down the clay road toward
Beulah. He walked to the front window of his room and watched it until
it disappeared in the mist that had blown westward from the swamp. Then
his gaze moved to the Lantern Marsh, a grey, desolate waste under a fog
through which the moon struggled. His nature recoiled from the hated
picture.
Soon he slept. He dreamed of his father—and of a warm stream of blood he
could not see, but only feel in his hands.
CHAPTER II.
TEACHERS AND PREACHERS.
“_Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave_
_A paradise for a sect._”—_Keats, “Hyperion” (1820 Edition)._
The sultry heat of the April noon rose in tremulous vibrations from the
barnyard, next day, when for a moment, absolute silence prevailed. From
beneath his sun-splashed hat the shaded face of Bard scowled into the
blue shadow of the barn where Mauney stood indolently biting at the end
of a wisp of timothy.
“What are yuh mopin’ about?” Bard called sharply. “Wake up! I don’t want
no more o’ this here mopin’, understand me. The mare is sold and that’s
the end of it. Shake a leg, there, and go hitch up Charlie. You’ve got
to drive up to Beulah an’ get this here cheque into the bank afore it
closes. D’juh hear?”
Past the end of the kitchen Mauney’s eye caught the retreating figure
of his pony being led up the clay road behind the preacher’s buggy. His
dishevelled auburn hair was stuck to his glistening forehead, and his
clear blue eyes burned with an emotion that gave a bitter firmness to his
lips. Before he could pull himself from his mood his father had come with
rapid strides near him.
“Are you goin’ to move?” he fiercely demanded, his eyes glaring hatred.
“Or am I goin’ to move yuh?”
Mauney calmly ignored his threat, while his eyes focused indifferently on
the cheque in his father’s hand.
“D’yuh want me to mess up yer pretty face?” fumed Bard.
“I’m not just a slave of yours,” said Mauney deliberately, with a
perceptible straightening of his body, as he turned to enter the stable
door.
“You better move, young fellow,” said Bard, following him. “Here, take
this cheque. And mind you get back in time to finish that fence or you’ll
work in the moon-light.”
Mauney drove off in a dazed state of mind, wondering if his lot were but
typical of human life in general, or if, by some chance he had been born
into an exceptionally disagreeable home. He wondered what particular
power enabled him to bear the insulting treatment invariably accorded
him and whether that mysterious force would always continue to serve
him. He had tried faithfully to look for likeable traits in his father’s
character. He admired his strength of purpose—that terrible will that
drove him through his long days of labor under hot suns—and felt that
he was very capable. He knew that the farm would always be skilfully
run under his father’s guidance, but this was the full statement of his
filial faith. For beyond this cold admiration there was no attraction, no
hint of warm regard.
At the end of the swamp the road curved to the left in a broad bend,
giving a view of the shining tin roofs of Beulah, on a hill two miles
before him. Nearby stood the Brick School House, with its little
bell-tower, its white picket fence, its turnstile and bare-worn
playground, the neat pile of stove-wood by the weather-stained shed at
the rear, and the two outhouses by the corners of the lot. As he drew
nearer the bell rocked twice, giving out its laconic signal for noon
recess. In a moment a scramble of children with tin lunch-pails poured
forth, running to selected spots under the bare maples.
“Hello, Mauney,” came a familiar voice from the door as he passed.
“Are you going up to the village, Miss Byrne?” he asked, lifting his hat.
“I’d like to?” she smiled.
“Come on,” he invited, cramping the horse to the other side, that she
might more conveniently enter.
Miss Jean Byrne was a graceful young woman whose manner breathed unusual
freshness. Her oval face possessed a certain nun-like beauty, chiefly by
reason of her deep hazel eyes, quiet emblems of a devotional disposition.
Her good color, however, and an indulgent fulness of lips, saved her face
from an ultra-spirituality and her low, contralto laughter neutralized
a first impression of asceticism. Mauney had never noticed that she was
really quite a large woman, although he had been a pupil in her school
for two years.
“How goes it, Mauney?” she asked, having noticed an unwonted sadness in
his face, usually so bright.
“Not too badly. I’m enjoying that book you lent me,” he replied, with a
smile.
“Come now—something’s wrong,” she said, searching his face as they drove
along together.
“I’m feeling sore to-day,” he admitted, striking the wheel with his whip.
“My father sold my pony to the preacher, and I’m not going to forgive
him. It was my pony. He hadn’t any right to sell it.”
After a pause he turned and looked into her eyes. “I guess we all have
our little troubles, Miss Byrne, eh?”
She understood him. In fact Miss Byrne held him more intimately in her
quiet thoughts than he surmised, and more intimately than their ages and
contact would have explained. She had often stood over him, during his
last term, observing the mould of his shoulders under his loose, flannel
shirt, instead of the book on his desk. She had often lost the thread of
her instructions in the unconscious light of his blue-eyed day-dreaming.
Then, too, his English compositions had displayed such merit that she had
marvelled at his ability, and wondered whether environment were really as
strong an influence as heredity in forming a pupil’s mind. Every teacher
who is fortunate has one pupil who becomes the oasis in the daily desert
of thankless toil, the visible reward of seeds sown in darkness. Mauney
Bard was easily her oasis and reward. She always maintained that there
were only two classes of pupils who impressed their teacher, the noisy,
empty ones and the “dog” kind. The canine qualities she meant were silent
faithfulness and undemonstrative affection.
Her wistful eyes softened with delicate sympathy as she glanced at his
clean profile, and she thought of a sculptor’s marble. But whenever he
turned toward her, it was the trusting simplicity of a youth talking with
his mother. Mother! It was forced upon her, so that her breast warmed
with medleys of sensation.
“Oh, what’s wrong with your hand?” she asked.
“Nothing much—I jabbed it on a nail yesterday.”
“Aren’t you doing anything for it?”
“Annie’s the doctor—that’s our hired girl.”
“Mauney Bard, you go straight to the doctor’s,” she said. “You might lose
your arm, or even your life, if it becomes inflamed.”
He looked at her quizzically, and then nodded with a smile. “All right,”
he agreed.
The horse broke into a walk at the foot of the big hill, leading up
to the main street of Beulah. At the top the thoroughfare with its
bare archway of maples came into view. The houses were characteristic
of the residential section, set back beyond lawns and well separated,
although here and there small grocery stores were to be seen with
well-filled windows and idle, white-aproned proprietors. As they passed
the double-windowed front of the Beulah weekly, the blatant explosions
of a gasoline engine indicated that the journal was on press. A little
further along a lamp-post bearing a large coal-oil lamp stood by the
board side-walk, with a signboard nailed at right angles to the street,
displaying in large black letters the name “Doctor Horne,” while the
physician’s residence, a neat stone house with black pencilled mortar,
looked out from a grove of basswood trees.
“Do you know Dr. Horne?” she enquired.
He nodded.
“There he is now,” she said, “He’s certainly an odd genius. Look at the
sleeves!”
Horne was a big, solid man of sixty, with jet-black hair under his grey
cloth cap, and jet-black, bushy eyebrows raised airily. His neat, black
moustache was pushed forward in a mock-careless pout. He walked with
great speed, as if engrossed completely in his thoughts, but with an air
of picturesque indifference, as if his thoughts were entirely lightsome.
At intervals he tugged at his coat sleeves, first one and then the
other, a nervous eccentricity of no significance except that it kept his
coat cuffs near his elbows, displaying his white shirt sleeves for the
amusement of other pedestrians. Beulah never tired of this sexagenarian
bachelor. He drove a horse as black as his own hair and demanded the same
degree of speed from it as from himself, namely, the limit. When starting
on a country call he would jump into his buggy and race to the border of
the village, beyond which the journey was made more leisurely, while on
his return the whip was not taken from its holder until the houses came
in sight. The Beulahite pausing on the street to watch him would remark
with a chuckle:
“There goes Doc. Horne, hell-for-leather!”
Mauney left Miss Byrne at the post-office, visited the bank, and drove
directly back to the doctor’s, hitching his horse to the lamp-post. The
office was a smaller portion of the house at one side, which Mauney
approached. He rang the bell.
“Come in out of that!” immediately came the doctor’s heavy voice.
Mauney stepped into an office furnished with several leather chairs, a
desk on which reposed a skull, a safe holding on its top a stuffed loon,
an open bookcase filled with dusty volumes of various colors, and a
phalanx of bottles against one wall from which radiated a strong odor of
drugs. He looked about in vain for the doctor.
“Sit down, young fellow!” came a stern command from the adjoining
surgery. In a moment or two the big physician bustled out, and, stopping
in front of Mauney’s chair, stared down at him savagely as if he were
the rankest intruder, meanwhile smoking furiously and surrounding himself
with blue cigar smoke.
“Say!” he said, at length, jerking the cigar roughly from his mouth. “Who
the devil are you?”
“Mauney Bard!”
“Oh, God, yes! Of course you are. Of course you are!” Horne spluttered,
walking impulsively to the bookcase and rivetting his attention on the
binding of a book.
“So you’re one of Seth Bard’s curses, eh?” he said, at length, in a
preoccupied tone, with his back still turned to Mauney. “Been fighting?”
“No, doctor, I ran a nail in my hand,” he replied, with a smile.
Horne shuffled a pace to his left to transfer his keen attention to
another bookbinding, which so completely absorbed him that Mauney was
sure he had forgotten his patient. After what seemed five minutes,
Horne turned about and, going to his desk, plumped himself down into a
swivel-chair. His eye-brows nearly touched the line of his hair as his
black eyes stole to the corner of his lids in a sly study of his patient.
“Nail eh? Rusty?”
Mauney commenced undoing the bandage.
“Hip! Hip!” admonished Horne. “I didn’t tell you to take that off. Wait
till I tell you, young fellow. Lots of time. Rusty?”
“Yes, doctor.”
“Come in here!”
Horne jumped up and went into the surgery. He quickly cut away the crude
bandage and merely glanced at the wound.
“Soreness go up your arm, young fellow?”
“Yes, a little bit.”
“Uh—Hum!”
Horne clasped his arms behind his back and stamped dramatically up and
down the surgery, rattling the instruments in their glass case by the
wall. Suddenly he faced Mauney.
“How would you like to lose your arm, young man?” he asked seriously.
“I’d hate to.”
“Then I’m going to open up that wound freely,” he said, walking toward
the instrument case. “Do you want to take chloroform?”
“No—I think I can stand it.”
Home selected a knife and pulling a hair out of his head tried its edge.
“She’s sharp—damned sharp!” he remarked, dropping the instrument into a
basin of solution. “You think you can stand it, eh? Remember, I offered
you chloroform.”
Presently he picked the knife out of the basin.
“Come here, you. Put your hand in that solution. Hold it there a minute.
Does it nip?”
Mauney nodded.
“Well, let it nip. Now take your hand out. Stand up straight. Hold it out
here.”
Horne pressed the blade deeply into the tissues, then withdrew it.
Looking up into his patient’s face:
“Did you feel it?”
“Just a little, Doctor,” said Mauney, biting his lip.
“Don’t you faint, Bard!”
“I’m not going to.”
“Yes you are!”
“I am not!” insisted Mauney as the color returned to his face.
While the doctor put on a fresh dressing his manner altered. He whistled
a snatch of a country dance.
“You look like your mother, boy,” he said more gently. “I looked after
your poor mother. You were just a young gaffer then. She was a very fine
woman. She was too damned good for your old man. I’ve told Seth that
before now.”
“Will this need to be dressed again?” Mauney asked, as they later stood
in the waiting room.
“Yes. On Saturday.”
Horne’s attention was drawn to the figure of a woman approaching the
office.
“Hello!” he said softly. “Surely Sarah Tenent isn’t sick. I’ll bet she’s
peddling bills for the revival services.”
The bell rang.
“All right, come in, Mrs. Tenent.”
“How do you do, doctor?” she said, very deferentially, as she entered.
“Just about as I choose, Mrs. Tenent,” he replied coldly, watching her
minutely.
She took a large white paper notice from a pile on her arm.
“Will you serve the Lord,” she asked with great soberness, “by hanging
this in your office, doctor?”
He glanced over it and read aloud, very hurriedly: “Revival Services,
Beulah Church, commencing Sunday. Rev. Francis Tooker and Rev. Archibald
Gainford, successful evangelists, will assist the new pastor, Rev. Edmund
Tough. Special Singing. Come.”
He passed it back to her and shook his head.
“No, no—not here, I’d never hang it here. I have patients who are not of
thy fold, Mrs. Tenent. My function is to cure the sick. That sign would
make some of them sicker. No, no.”
The woman left the office in silent disapproval of Horne’s attitude.
Mauney put on his hat and was leaving the office, when the doctor
appeared in the door behind him.
“Hold on, young chap!” he commanded. “Wait you! Didn’t I see you driving
into the village with a young lady?”
“I didn’t think you noticed us,” laughed Mauney.
“Who was she?”
“Miss Byrne. She teaches at the Brick School.”
“Yes, yes. Of course she does. Fine young lady,” he said, studying Mauney
with much lifting of his brows and pouting of his lips. “But you’re too
young, Bard. Why don’t you get somebody your own age?”
“Oh,” Mauney said quickly, while his face flushed; “She’s probably got a
beau. It isn’t me, anyway, doctor.”
Horne, greatly amused at the emotional perturbation of his patient,
chuckled, while his black eyes sparkled.
“Get along with you, Bard!” he said, “Get along home with you and don’t
forget to come up on Saturday, mind!”
The revival meetings became the talk of the countryside. Beulah, composed
for the most part of retired farmers, had unusual leisure in which
to think—a leisure captured by the glamor of religion, which was the
strongest local influence. Although the village was a century old it had
preserved, with remarkable success, the puritanism of the pioneer period,
partly because it enjoyed so little touch with the commercial energies of
the nation at large, and partly because the local churches had remained
diligent in spiritual service. But in a population so uniformly composed
of idle folk, the general view-point lay itself open to become biased.
There was too much emphasis on the ghostly estate and too little on the
need of practical endeavor. Beulah had forgotten long since that the
Church must have its lost world, else it becomes unnecessary, and to the
average citizen, lulled as he was by surfeit of beatific meditation, the
board sidewalks had begun to take on an aureate tinge, the houses, a
pearly lustre. The spiritual concern of the religiously eager Beulahite
had in it, unfortunately, no concept of national character, but was
pointed sharply at the individual. His sense of personal security was
only less unhealthy than his over-bearing interest in the soul welfare
of his neighbor. Saved by repeated redemptions himself, he remained
strangely skeptical of the validity of the phenomenon in others. Hence,
at fairly regular intervals, a general village consciousness of sin
developed, becoming insistently stronger until it found its logical
expression—the revival meeting.
Mauney, during the next week, listened to the religious talk of the
community with mild curiosity. Mrs. McBratney, the pious mother of David,
said to him one afternoon from the side of her buggy:
“I hope you’ll attend the revival meetings, Mauney. Your mother would
want you to go. We are praying for great things.
“I’ve been on my knees for the young people,” she continued, “and I
believe David has got conviction.”
Tears suddenly filled her eyes and her chin quivered with such tremulous
emotion as to embarrass Mauney, who could fancifully imagine that David
had been smitten by a plague.
“I believe he will be converted,” she managed to say, before her voice
broke into a sob, “and I pray the Lord will show you the light, too,
Mauney.”
He felt that perhaps it would have been good form to say “Thank you,” for
he was sure her intentions were sterling, but he resented her reference
to his mother, who seemed to him, in memory, a creature too much of
sunshine and peace to be associated with anything so dolefully emotional.
He had never been a regular attendant at church. He remembered having
sat beside his mother many times in the auditorium listening to
unintelligible sermons and strenuous anthems. But from the day, five
years ago, when as a chief mourner he had sat blankly stupefied, hearing
comforting words that failed to comfort, and music whose poignant
solemnity froze him with horrid fear, he had never been invited either by
desire or family suggestion to return.
By the second week of the meetings David McBratney was reported to have
been converted. He had stopped coming to see William as had been his
custom. Neighbors said there could be no doubting the genuineness of
his reformation for he had ceased chewing tobacco and was contemplating
entry into the ministry of the Church. During supper at the Bard farm on
Saturday evening a lull in the conversation was broken by a sarcastic
laugh from William.
“Well, Dad, I guess they’ve got Dave,” he said. “Abe Lavanagh was tellin’
me to-day that Dave has went forward every night this here week. I never
figured he’d get religion.”
Bard philosophically chewed on the idea as he peered at the lamp through
his narrow eyes.
“There is just two kinds of people,” he asserted at length. “The fools
and the damned fools. Now there’s a boy who’s got every chance of
inheriting his old man’s farm. And I’m tellin’ you, Bill, it’s a purty
good piece o’ land.”
“You bet.”
“Just about as good as is bein’ cultivated this side of Lockwood. There
ain’t a stone left in the fields, but what’s piled up in the fences.
William Henry has slaved this here thirty years—got the mortgage cleaned
up—and that barn o’ his, Bill, why you couldn’t build it to-day for five
thousand!”
“No, nor six, Dad.”
“Then look at the machinery the old man’s got. I’m tellin’ yuh Dave
ain’t goin’ to drop into nothing like that, agin. William Henry must be
seventy!”
“May be seventy-one, Dad.”
“Anyhow he ain’t goin’ to last a great while longer. If I was Dave I’d
forget this religion business. ’Taint goin’ to get him nowhere. Ain’t
that right, Snowball?”
The hired man, having finished supper, was sitting back drowsily, but at
the sound of his name he winked his eyes cautiously.
“I dunno,” he said, “I don’t never bother much about religion, so I
don’t!”
In Dr. Horne’s office that week the subject of the revival came up while
Mauney was having his hand dressed.
“Some queer people here in this one-horse town!” mused Horne. “Do you
remember George Pert who died a couple or three years ago?”
“Lived down by the toll-gate?”
“That’s him. Lazy as twelve pigs. Use to lie abed till noon. Wife kept a
market garden. Never paid his doctor’s bills. Yes, sir! George Pert! He
got a cancer of the bowel, poor devil. Sick. Pretty far gone. I went in
one day and found preacher Squires sitting by the bed. ‘Well, Mr. Pert,’”
(Horne’s voice assumed an amusing clerical solemnity) “‘Are you trusting
in the Lord?’ George nods his head. ‘Yes’ says he, ‘I’m so sartin o’
salvation, that if only one person in Beulah is going to heaven I know
it’s me!’
“They’re a nosey bunch, here!” Horne continued, as he wound a bandage on
Mauney’s hand. “Self-satisfied! Let your light so shine—good! But don’t
focus your light into a red-hot spot to burn out your neighbor’s gizzard.
Last night Steve Moran came into the office and sat down. ‘Doctor’ says
he, ‘I just came in to see if your feet were resting on the Rock.’ Says
I, ‘Steve, you blackguard, you owe me five dollars from your wife’s last
confinement, fifteen years ago. If you don’t go to hell out o’ here,
you’ll be resting in a long black box!’”
Mauney was surprised how much people talked about the revival.
Enthusiasts carried out from the meetings, by their words and manner, an
infectious fervor that directed the curious attention of others to the
thing that was happening night by night in the Beulah church. Finally,
on Sunday evening, he decided to see it for himself and drove to town.
The church sheds were filled to overflowing so that he tied old Charlie
to a fence post in the yard. Through the colored windows he heard the
voluminous roar of voices lifted in the cadence of a hymn. The church
was crowded. The vestry at the entrance was full of waiting people and,
through one of the doors leading to the auditorium, he glimpsed a sea of
heads. At the farther end of the great room, in a low gallery, sat the
choir, facing him, and below them on the pulpit platform three preachers
were seated in red plush chairs. The seated congregation were singing an
unfamiliar hymn whose rhythm reminded him of march music he had heard
bands playing in Lockwood. Ushers were carrying in chairs to accommodate
the overflow.
David McBratney, carrying an armful of red hymn books touched Mauney on
the shoulder.
“Here’s a book,” he whispered, proffering one. “I’ll get you a seat in a
few minutes. Glad to see you here, Mauney.”
McBratney’s face glowed with a strange luminosity, puzzling to Mauney,
and his speech and manner were quickened by nervous tension. Presently he
led the way to a chair in the aisle.
At the end of a stanza one of the preachers jumped suddenly to his feet
and interrupted the organ.
“You’re not half singing!” he shouted angrily. “You can do better than
that. If you haven’t more voice than that, how do you expect the Lord to
hear your words of praise? Now, on the next stanza, let yourself out.
Ready!”
He raised both arms high above his head and, as the organ commenced,
brought them to his side with such force that he was compelled to take a
step forward to regain his balance. His words had the effect he desired,
for a deafening volume of sound rose and fell quickly to the lilt of the
march-music, suggesting to Mauney the image of neatly-uniformed cadets
with stiffened backs and even steps, moving along Lockwood streets on a
holiday.
When the hymn ended, a soft hand touched Mauney on the arm and, looking
to his right, he saw Jean Byrne seated in the end of the oaken pew
directly next to him. She was just letting her closed hymnal drop into
her lap.
“Glad to see you,” she whispered, guarding her lips with her gloved hand.
One of the preachers rose slowly from his chair. He was a stout man of
fifty, mild-appearing and pleasant, with clean-shaven face and grey hair.
He walked forward to the edge of the carpeted platform, rested his elbow
on the side of the pulpit and raised his face to gaze slowly over the
quieting congregation. “My dear friends,” he said in soft, silver tone,
“I thank God for the hymn we have just been singing. It has been indeed
very inspiring. Brother Tooker and myself have been in your little town
for two weeks now, and have grown so fond of the people that we view
to-night’s meeting with inevitable feelings of regret, because, so far as
we can see the divine guidance, it will be our last night with you. But
we have also feelings of hope, because we are praying that there may be a
great turning to God as a result of this meeting.”
As he paused to shift his weight slowly to his other foot and clasp his
hands behind his frock coat, the congregation was silent. Only the sound
of a horse stamping in the shed could be heard.
“During our fortnight with you,” he continued, “many souls have been led
to the Cross. We thank God for that. But there are many more who are
still living in sin—some of them are here to-night.”
As his glance shifted over the mass of upturned faces, Mauney fancied he
paused perceptibly as he looked his way.
“It is to you, who are in sin, that we bring a message of hope. You have
only to take God at his word, who sent His Son to save that which was
lost.”
“Amen!” came a vigorous response from an old man in the front pew.
“You have only to believe on Him who is righteous and just to forgive us
our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
“Amen!” from near the back.
“Amen!” also, from the side, half-way up.
At this juncture a woman in the body of the auditorium burst forth,
in good voice, singing the first verse of “Though your sins be as
scarlet,” whereat the preacher indulgently acquiesced, and waved for the
congregation to join her. At the end of the first stanza he raised his
hand.
“The lesson for to-night is taken from the first chapter of the beloved
Mark.” As he carefully read the passage of scripture the ushers were busy
leading in more people, so that, when he finished, the floor was entirely
filled save for two narrow aisles, one on either side, leading from the
back to the altar railing.
The Reverend Francis Tooker, as he walked confidently forward, was seen
to be tall and thin, with a long, florid face and a great mass of stiff,
black hair. He raised his large, bony hand.
“Let every head be bowed!” he commanded, sharply.
After a short invocation he commenced his discourse. He dealt at length
with the experiences of the prodigal son, pictured in adequate language
the depths of profligacy to which he had sunk, stressed the moment of
his decision to return home, and waxed touchingly eloquent over the
reception which his father accorded him.
“And now, people,” he said more brusquely, as he slammed shut the big
pulpit Bible and ran his long fingers nervously through his hair. “You’ve
got a chance to do what that boy did. You’ve been acting just the way
he acted—don’t dare deny it! You’ve been wallowing in the dirt with the
pigs, and you’re all smeared up. What are you going to do about it?”
The audience, keyed up to the former flow of his unfaltering eloquence,
were now mildly shocked by the informality of his pointed question. He
walked to the very edge of the platform while his eyes grew savage and
his face red.
“What are you going to do about it?” he shouted, clenching his fists
and half-squatting. Then, rising quickly, he hastened to the other side
of the pulpit. “Are you going to arise and go to your Father? Or are
you going to keep on mucking about with the pigs? Don’t forget that for
anyone of you this night may be your last. To-night, perhaps you” (he
pointed), “or you,” (he pointed again) “may be required to face God. What
are you going to do about it? Are you going to die forgiven of your sins
like a man, or are you going to shut your ears to the word of God and die
like any other pig?”
No sound interrupted the intense silence. No one moved. Even the
flickering lamps seemed to steady their illumination to a glaring, yellow
uniformity.
Suddenly his manner altered. Moving to a position behind the pulpit he
rested his elbows on the Bible and folded his hands together out over
the front edge of the book-rest, while his voice assumed a quiet,
conversational tone.
“Remember that on this night, the twentieth day of April, 1914, you were
given an opportunity to come out full-breasted for God. I have discharged
my duty. The rest remains for you to do. If you are sorry for your sins,
say so. If you regret the kind of life you’ve been leading, confess it.
Come out and get washed off clean. The invitation is open. The altar
awaits to receive you.”
As he pointed to the altar railing, his black eyes flashed hypnotically.
“Those who have sinned, but are repentant and seek redemption, please
stand.”
For about ten seconds a great inertia possessed the seated congregation.
Then two men stood up near the front of the pews, followed soon after by
groups of both men and women in various parts of the auditorium, until,
at length, only a sporadic rising here and there marked a new mood of
hesitancy.
“While the choir sings,” the preacher said softly, “I will ask you to
steal away to the foot of the altar. The choir will please sing the first
two verses of ‘Come Ye Disconsolate,’ and you who have, by standing, thus
signified your desire for salvation, will move quietly forward and kneel
by the railing.”
As the slow, full chords of the hymn began the preacher’s voice kept
calling “Come away, Brother,” and the standing penitents sought the
narrow aisles and moved slowly forward to kneel with their heads touching
the oaken railing. The Rev. Archibald Gainford and the Rev. Edmund Tough
descended from the platform to the crescent-shaped altar space and,
bending down, spoke words of comfort to the suppliants.
As the choir stopped and the organ notes faded, the exhorter produced a
silver watch and examined it, hurriedly.
“If we had more time,” he said, “how many more would like to come
forward? Please stand.”
A dozen or more rose to their feet.
“Well,” he said, with a smile, as he returned his watch to his pocket,
“we have plenty of time. Come out, brother!”
Caught by this subtle snare, many of the presumably wavering individuals
found it impossible to refuse his invitation, while a few sat down again.
When the meeting eventually drew to a close, after a long hymn, sung with
the same exciting rhythm as the first one, Mauney rose with the rest and
moved impatiently toward the door, walking beside Jean Byrne and talking
to her of obvious matters. Her face, he noticed, was flushed and her
eyes shining with unusual brightness from delicately moist lids, while
her voice seemed husky and uncertain. The auditorium emptied slowly.
The steps leading down from the front doorway to the walk presented the
customary Sunday night groups of village beaux waiting to accompany their
sweethearts home, or perhaps stroll with them through quiet, moonlit
streets.
Beulah village council, anxious to keep taxes at a minimum, had never
provided street-lighting, so that pedestrians, on dark nights, carried
lanterns, unless they were lovers, in which case they relied either on
moonlight or familiarity with the local geography.
Jean Byrne had come to the village in the buggy of Mr. and Mrs. Fitch
with whom she boarded on the Lantern Marsh road, but Mauney, being alone,
invited her to drive down with him. She accepted and soon they were off
together.
“I could have kicked over a pew in there to-night,” said Mauney at
length, tersely.
“I knew you wouldn’t like it,” she said. “Personally I think it’s very
unreal. Perhaps some people derive good from it, though.”
“Perhaps. But it hasn’t any connection with real life, Miss Byrne. I
can’t help feeling you’ve got to let the common daylight into things.”
“That’s good.”
“It’s easy enough to see how they get pulled into it,” he went on.
“There’s a sort of excitement about it. I don’t think one person by
himself could get so excited.”
“You mean there’s a mob consciousness?”
“Yes, exactly—a lot of minds rubbing each other, like.”
“I believe you’ve hit it, Mauney,” she said. “I never thought of it like
that before. How did you manage to think that out?”
“Well, I’ve always noticed, if I’m in a crowd, that it’s hard for me
to stay just as I am when I’m alone. Now, I hate people who are always
chirping like chipmunks—you’ll meet them at socials and dances. They
don’t say anything that matters and might better keep their mouths shut.
But if I get with them I’ll notice how it affects me, for after I leave I
feel sort of weak.”
“You must enjoy observing things like that, Mauney.”
“No, I don’t enjoy it,” he replied. “That’s just what I’m up against
the whole time at home. My father and brother and the hired girl keep
up an endless rattle of talk, all the time, about things that aren’t
important. I keep quiet on purpose because I don’t want to talk about
them.”
“What sort of things do they discuss?”
“Oh—the price of eggs, what somebody did with a certain horse, who
married so-and-so and who she was before she did it, and whether the
preacher’s wife is human, and then they’re always teasing Snowball; but
he isn’t such a fool as they think he is.”
For a moment Miss Byrne studied Mauney’s face, bright with moonlight.
“Well, what kind of things do you think are important?” she asked. “I
mean what would you like to discuss, if you had your own way at home?”
“I couldn’t say exactly,” he said, reflectively. “But I’m discontented
all the time, and feel ignorant. I want an education. I’m interested in
history, most.”
While she listened to his words, Miss Byrne was enjoying the landscape
as they drove slowly along. It was no new thing for her to feel fresh
attractions toward Mauney, but to-night, for some reason that she did not
seek, she felt uncomfortably warm toward him, and presently her soft,
gloved hand pressed his hand tenderly, and remained holding it. It came
as a surprise to him, and he glanced quickly at her face, across which
the sharp shadow of her hat formed a line just above her lips. He could
distinguish her eyes turned away in the direction of the moonlit fields
she was admiring, and her pretty lips, vivid and tender, sent a strange
thrill through his body. Although he made no effort to draw away his
hand, he disliked the situation as something he could not grasp. Lying
helplessly captured, his fingers felt the heat of her hand. She had
stopped talking and he noticed her bosom moving as deeply as if she were
asleep, but more quickly. He had the same feeling, for an instant, as
in the meeting, of an outside power insidiously exciting his mind, but
noticed with a definite sense of relief that they were nearing Fitch’s
gate. In a moment he freed his hand from hers and pulled up the horse.
“Mauney!”
She spoke his name in a low, unsteady voice and pressed her hand against
his arm. That she was not warning him of some sudden obstacle in their
way, was clear, for, on looking toward the road, he saw nothing. When
he turned to her, her hat was hiding her bowed face and her hand was
relaxing slowly—so very slowly—and falling from his arm. The emotion that
caused her breathing to be broken by queer, jerky pauses mystified him.
“Are you ill, Miss Byrne?” he ventured to ask, and noticed that his own
voice was tremulous.
She shook her head slowly and began to climb out of the buggy. “No,
Mauney boy,” she replied softly. “I was just lonesome, I guess.
Goodnight!” He was puzzled. As he drove along he grew exceedingly
impatient. There were so many things, he thought, beyond his
comprehension.
CHAPTER III.
MAUNEY MEETS MRS. DAY.
“_A pretty woman is a welcome guest._”—_Byron, “Beppo.”_
When he reached home, Mauney found his father talking in the kitchen with
William Henry McBratney while the hired girl lay on the sofa with the cat
asleep on her bosom. His father, seated with his socked feet resting on
the stove damper and his chair tilted back, looked up as he entered from
the yard.
“Well,” he addressed him, “I hope to God you didn’t get it.”
“Get what?” asked Mauney, surprised at being noticed, and irked by his
father’s abrupt manner.
“You wasn’t in a place where you’d be likely to get a bottle of whiskey,
was you?” Bard quickly responded.
“Oh—you mean religion, Dad?”
Without further acknowledgment of Mauney’s presence than a sarcastic
motion of his head, Bard addressed his neighbor.
“I guess that’s about all he’d get up to Beulah church, ain’t it, William
Henry?”
“Yes, sir, that’s about the size of it, Seth!” admitted McBratney,
smacking the arm of the chair with his bony palm, as if one would
naturally expect to get a variety of commodities at Beulah church. He
possessed an evil, circular face, with gray hair falling untidily over
a low forehead. His long, thin legs seemed largest at the knee-joints
as he sat with difficulty in the low rocking-chair, and his long, brown
neck, with its prominent Adam’s apple, gave his small, ball-like head
an unreal appearance of detachment. When he spoke, in his high-pitched,
rasping voice, his Adam’s apple shifted up and down his throat as if it
were a concealed bucket bringing the words up from his body.
“That’s about the size of it, I tell yuh!” he repeated. “And when they
get religion, Seth, why there ain’t no good tryin’ to drill any reason
into ’em!”
Mauney stood in the door leading to the former dining-room, watching
McBratney’s small eyes shine with wicked animation.
“As I was tellin’ yuh,” he went on, “the woman wouldn’t let up on him,
day ner night, pesterin’ the life out o’ the boy, goin’ into her room
there off the kitchen an prayin’ like she was tryin’ to ward off a
cyclone.”
He suddenly bent forward, so that his long hands nearly touched the
floor, suggesting to Mauney an enraged orang-outang looking through the
bars of his circus cage.
“An’ now that she’s got her way, what do you think?”
Bard knocked the bowl of his pipe against the edge of the stove.
“God only knows! What?” he said.
“Dave’s made up his mind to go preachin’!”
“I heard that,” admitted Bard with a sly smile. “I s’pose you’ll be proud
to have a son o’ yours called of the Lord, eh?”
“Called o’ nothing!” declared McBratney, hammering the chair arm with his
fist, then settling back, with much silent movement of his Adam’s apple.
“I’ve tried to reason with him, but his mind is stopped workin’ or else
it’s workin’ just a little bit too fast fer me. I think he’s just framin’
an excuse to leave the farm.”
“Give him a few weeks, William Henry,” suggested Bard. “He may get over
this here frenzy o’ his. Dave always struck me as a purty sharp lad an’ I
reckon it’s only temporary, like.”
The hired girl looked up from her idle occupation of stroking the cat’s
fur.
“Many folks out to church, Maun?” she asked.
Bard, as though he resented her speaking to his son, made a gesture
toward the table.
“Here, Annie,” he said authoritatively, “Go cut up a loaf o’ bread and
set out a bowl of preserves. Me and William Henry is goin’ to have a bite
to eat.”
Up in his own room, Mauney later tried to read a small book Miss Byrne
had given him. It was a leather-bound copy of Thomas à Kempis. He
wondered why she had chosen such a gift, for the subject matter was
too cloistral. Tossing it aside, he picked up an Ancient History she
had recently loaned him and became absorbed in it until he was able to
forget some of the things that rankled in his breast, among others, Jean
Byrne’s peculiar manner in the buggy. Lying with his head propped on a
pillow he read until his eyes ached. In fancy he lived in ancient palaces
among courtiers and councillors, saw the regalia of royal fêtes, through
which came the sound of war trumpets. He read of ambitious sculptors
whose names were written on the roster of deathless fame and saw steel
engravings of their work—headless, armless torsos, nicked and cracked
by the ravage of centuries. He saw conquerors leading stalwart armies,
deciding the fate of nations. The story held him to the last page and
he saw that the aspirations of a mighty nation were dead; the rising
star of ambition was quenched in its ascent; and only a vast pile of
melancholy tokens remained to interest scholars who delved with spades.
And he went to sleep in great wonderment as to what it all signified.
A few days later he took the Ancient History to return it to Miss Byrne.
As he approached Fitch’s gate on foot, he heard Jean’s low laughter, and
on passing between the lilac hedges, saw her on the front verandah with
Mrs. Fitch.
“Good evening,” he said, “you both seem to be enjoying yourselves.”
“Come and sit down, Mauney. Mrs. Fitch has just been convulsing me with
a story from real life,” she invited, her eyes red from laughter. “What
have you been doing to-day?”
“Oh, the same old stuff,” he replied, nodding slyly towards Mrs. Fitch,
busy with long, white knitting-needles. “I thought I’d stroll over and
hear the latest scandal.”
Mrs. Fitch was a woman of fifty, with scrupulously tidy grey hair, a
square jaw, silver spectacles and thin lips suggesting latent deviltry.
“Wal, Maun,” she said, without looking up from her rapidly-interplying
ivory-points, “we ain’t _accurate_ scandal-mongers. Not the kind that
talk about folks for the sake of harmin’ them. But things do strike us
peculiar like, at times, and gives our livers a healthy shakin’ up. I’ve
just been telling Miss Byrne about the young Hawkins brat.” She paused
and cast a sharp glance over the tops of her glasses. “You know him?” she
asked.
Mauney nodded and smiled, for it was common knowledge that the son of
Miss Lizzy Hawkins could not claim, with any degree of accuracy, the
paternal factor of respectability enjoyed by most children.
“Wal,” she resumed, her eyes returning to the line of her knitting,
“young Hawkins was a-playin’ in the road out here after school. Along
comes William Henry McBratney drivin’ the old, grey horse. He sees the
Hawkins boy and he pulls up and he says, says ’e, ‘Where’s your father,
you young brat!’ Young Hawkins, of course, didn’t know him—hasn’t brains
enough to know anybody, but, after a minute of heavy thinkin’ he looks
up at McBratney and he says, says ’e, ‘Maw told me, me father was down
in South Americky workin’ on a steam roller, but I heard her tellin’ me
grandmother as how me father’s name is William Henry McBratney!’”
Mauney laughed as Mrs. Fitch soberly glanced over her spectacles again.
“And then,” she resumed, “old William Henry leans half out of his buggy,
waving his whip and shouting, without knowing as how he had an audience:
‘Tell yer mother to keep her damned mouth shut, you brat!’
“I guess it’s true enough,” she went on presently, pulling a string of
yarn from the revolving ball in her lap. “And then people talk about Dave
McBratney for getting converted. It was the best thing he ever done! If I
was a son of William Henry’s I’d get converted before you could say Jack
Robinson.”
Mauney had never so little enjoyed talking with Jean Byrne as to-night.
The episode of Sunday evening had left a distasteful flavor in his mind,
for, although he tried to forget it, the incident kept flashing back
upon his memory. He was left alone on the verandah with her presently,
and immediately felt an awkwardness, hard to overcome. Hitherto, she had
always been just his teacher. But to-night, dressed in a yellow-flowered
frock, with a pale yellow ribbon holding her dark hair down on her brow,
she had lost a quality of dignity. He noticed also a hundred fine lights
of tenderness in her eyes that he had never seen before.
He talked with her a few minutes and gave back the history.
“Let me get you another book,” she said, starting toward the door.
“Please don’t bother—just now, Miss Byrne,” he said.
“Why not, Mauney?”
“I’m so busy I haven’t time to read,” he lied.
He thought afterward that in that moment when he refused to accept
her kindness she divined perfectly the underlying feeling. It was his
last conversation with Jean Byrne. He went home quite sadly. There was
no surfeit of comforts in that home of his, to be sure, which could
render him careless of helpful friendships: but, although he felt the
significance of refusing her offer, knowing it meant the end of things
between them, his sadness was over the seeming weakness in her that had
caused his dislike. He might not have been so astonished at other women.
But of Jean Byrne he had expected differently.
His life in the Lantern Marsh thus robbed of one more brightness became
the more uninteresting. He felt the need of companionship. Struggling
through long days, of planting, sowing, and haying, he forced back the
tug of expanding desires that urged him to different pursuits. In the
evenings he would stand looking down the road that led to Lockwood,
wishing that he were travelling it never to return. To Lockwood, to
Merlton beyond, to the world. He dreamed of a different life from his
own, where people were gentle, where they knew things and would be
willing to teach him out of their knowledge. But these dreams were folded
to rest each night in heavy sleep and the light of each morning found
them dissipated. He wanted books, but there was no library in Beulah. He
had no money of his own and knew the foolishness of asking his father for
it.
At the end of June, Jean Byrne returned to her home in Lockwood, and Mrs.
Fitch remarked to him one day that she was not coming back, but was going
to be married in the autumn to a doctor in her own town. Mrs. Fitch was
curious, no doubt, to discover a reason for Mauney’s never having come
back to see her again.
“Miss Byrne was a good teacher, Maun,” she said, as they talked in the
Beulah post-office, “and I think she was powerful fond o’ you, boy. She
told me onct as how she expected you would some day make your mark in the
world.”
Mauney felt tears welling into his eyes and turned away from her without
further comment. He drove home blaming himself for having been rude to
Jean Byrne. Her confidence in him, expressed through Mrs. Fitch, had come
as sharp reward for his ingratitude. And yet, was it his fault?
On a sultry July evening an unexpected break in the monotony of his life
occurred. He was sitting alone on the front steps of the farm-house,
having just come in from the fields, when his attention was attracted by
a cloud of dust on the Lockwood road. A motor car was travelling rapidly
along and as it drew near, slackened its speed. When it stopped directly
at the foot of the orchard he surmised the people in it had paused
for directions. A woman in the back seat waved to him and he quickly
responded.
They were all strangers, the man at the wheel and the two women in the
rear seat, although he felt there was something quite familiar about the
grey-haired woman sitting nearest him.
“Is this where the Bards live?” she asked a little nervously. She was a
small-bodied woman of perhaps fifty with very fine features, and clear,
blue eyes that smiled pleasantly through rimless spectacles and the fawn
motor veil that covered her face.
“Yes,” Mauney replied, gazing curiously at her, and then at the others.
The man, chewing the end of an unlighted cigar, looked at the house with
a frown and then glancing backward said in a low tone:
“Well, suit yourself, Mary. You might regret it if you didn’t.”
The woman, presumably his wife, looked with an undecided expression
toward the house, as if she feared it.
“Is your name Bard, please?” she asked, raising her veil, and minutely
inspecting Mauney’s face.
“Yes,” he said, glancing again at the others.
“He looks the dead image of her!” the other woman remarked prosaically to
the man.
“And are you Mauney?” asked his interlocutor.
His brow was puckered with a dawning idea that soon caused his face to
brighten up.
“Are you my Aunt Mary?” he asked, eagerly.
“How did you know?”
He came nearer and took her extended hand.
“Mauney, this is your Uncle Neville, and this is your Uncle’s sister,
Jane Day. This must be quite an extraordinary surprise to you, isn’t it?”
Mauney nodded.
“Aren’t you going to stay?” he asked. “When did you come to this country?”
“We came about a week ago, Mauney. Your Uncle Neville is over on
business, and our headquarters are in Merlton. We motored all the way
from Merlton to-day just to see where—where you lived, you know.”
“You must be tired. What time did you leave?”
“About seven this morning, but the country has been simply beautiful,
every inch of the way.”
“Come in. Put your car in the shed. I’ll go and tell my father.”
“Wait!” said his aunt. “Just let’s talk a moment. You’ve got a brother,
but I’ve forgotten his name.”
“William.”
“Of course—how stupid of me to forget! Did you ever receive a letter I
wrote you, Mauney, just after your mother died?”
“No, I don’t remember getting one,” he replied, with an expression of
curiosity.
“That’s strange. Apparently it went astray. But I always wondered—but
then I wrote you again, Mauney, about three years ago. Didn’t you get
that?”
He shook his head.
“Funny!” she said, looking toward her husband.
“There’s nothing funny about trans-Atlantic mails, my dear,” said Mr.
Neville Day, lighting his cigar. “It’s got well past the funny stage with
me.”
“And then I sent you a postcard once, I remember. Didn’t you even get
that, Mauney?”
“I don’t remember it.”
“Well, anyway, we’re here,” she said, with sudden decision. “And if I
don’t see him, I’ll always wish I had.”
“All right, Mary,” said Neville Day. “Now stick to that, my dear. Would
you mind telling your father there’s somebody here to see him, Mauney?”
“Certainly,” Mauney agreed, turning to leave.
“Oh, wait!” called his aunt. “Wait a minute. You know I—I don’t think I
can see him, Neville. No, I can’t. I really cannot.”
The uncle smoked calmly, studying his finger-nails, while Mauney stood
riddled with curiosity.
“Come here, dear,” said his aunt. “Promise me not to mention us to your
father. We aren’t going in, and it’s—it’s so hard to explain why we
aren’t.”
Neville Day and Miss Jane Day got out of the car and walked slowly along
the edge of the road together. His aunt asked Mauney to get in the rear
seat and sit beside her. As she turned toward him, he could see his
mother’s likeness with startling vividness.
“Your mother used to write to me about you, Mauney,” she said. “You were
her favorite, I’m glad you’re such a big fellow. How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“It’s terrible how the time goes. I suppose you’re happy and well all the
time—”
He gauged the expression in her eyes. He felt completely at home with
her. She looked so much like his mother that he wanted to remain with her
endlessly.
“Well, Aunt Mary,” he said slowly, “I’m not very happy, I’m afraid.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked sympathetically.
“I don’t know.”
“Does your father treat you all right?”
“I think he tries to, Aunt Mary, but since my mother died, I’ve always
been—dissatisfied. How long are you going to stay—I mean here?”
“We’ll have to return to Lockwood—is that the name?”
He nodded.
“We’ll go back there for the night and return to Merlton, to-morrow.”
“Why won’t you come in, and see my father?” he asked.
“Well you see, Mauney, it’s—it’s so late, you know.”
Her explanation was patently false, for he saw her face struggle to
remain composed, and then noticed a queer hardness come upon it.
“Do you know where the old Conyngham place is?” she asked.
“Sure. Over there!” he pointed to a field not far away.
“You knew about that, didn’t you?”
He shook his head and glanced with a puzzled expression toward the old,
dilapidated house that had always stood at the edge of his father’s big
corn field. It was uninhabited and partly obscured by wild cucumber vines.
“I only knew it was called the old Conyngham place,” he said. “When
mother was alive, she used to go over there and keep geraniums in boxes
in the front windows, and our hired man—the one we had before—lived there
with his wife for quite a long time.”
“Well, your mother used to live there, Mauney,” his aunt said, “She was
looking after Uncle James. You see his wife had died and he was old and
sick with asthma.” She glanced toward the opposite side of the road. “I
suppose this bog-land here gave him the disease. He was all alone and
when we got his letter, your mother made up her mind to come out and look
after him. So she left Scotland when she was just seventeen. She remained
right with him to the last, and certainly did not spare herself.”
“My mother never told me that,” Mauney interrupted.
“No. She wouldn’t tell you. But while she was looking after Uncle James
our own mother died in Carstairs and it was too far for her to come home.
Then I married Neville and, poor girl, she felt that all her relatives
were gone. So, after Uncle James died, she—she stayed here, you see.”
“Married my father.”
“Yes, Mauney,” she said sadly. “Remember, dear boy, your mother was the
sweetest girl that—”
She hesitated, as if her interest in the farm house and the orchard had
suddenly usurped her attention.
“You’ve got quite a big farm, Mauney,” she said. “Are you going to stay
here and be a farmer, too?”
“I guess I’ll have to, Aunt Mary,” he smiled.
“I see.”
“But I’d like to get some education, some time.”
Her pretty, blue eyes wandered from his face to the figures of Neville
Day and his sister who were just turning about to come back toward
the car. For a moment her face became dreamy as if she were mentally
exploring the pleasant future. Then she took a card from her purse and
handed it to him.
“My address is on that, Mauney,” she said. “Please write to me once in a
while and let me know how you are getting along. We go back to Scotland
in another week. Dear me, you ought to be glad you live in America.”
Soon her husband was beside the car.
“That land could all be reclaimed,” he said, wagging his thumb toward the
marsh. “It wouldn’t cost over two thousand, either.”
“Dollars?” asked Mrs. Day.
“No, pounds.”
“They don’t need to do that sort of thing,” stated Miss Day. “As it is
now, there’s plenty of tillable soil not under cultivation. I fancy that
it will be a long time before these farmers will find it necessary to
reclaim land.”
Day glanced at his watch.
“If you don’t mind, Mary,” he said, “it’s getting late and we’d better
try to make Lockwood before dark. How far is it, Mauney?”
“It’s just over twenty miles.”
They entered the car while Mauney stood on the road waiting to say
good-bye. Neville Day tossed away the stump of his cigar and settled down
behind the wheel, adjusting his motor-cap more comfortably.
“Oh!” he said, turning to hand up a large parcel, done up in wrapping
paper. “You forgot the books.”
Mrs. Day laughed.
“Mauney,” she said, “I brought you three books, but I’m not going to give
them to you. They are just wild Indian stories of adventure.”
“Why did you buy that truck, my dear?” asked Day.
“Why, I really didn’t figure it out, Neville,” she laughed. “I imagined
Mauney about fourteen. But I’ll change them and send them down.”
Mauney took the proffered hands of Day and his sister and then his Aunt
Mary’s. When his aunt was kissing him on the cheek, Neville Day was
clearing his throat and chewing at the end of a new cigar. Soon the
motor-car backed into the lane; then, with a sudden lurch ahead, it
snorted up the road, his aunt waving her hand in farewell. Mauney watched
it until it was engulfed in a dense cloud of dust and the noise of its
opened exhaust had quieted to a faint rumble. Then he walked slowly up
the lane toward the house.
By the kitchen door he encountered his father pumping himself a tin
ladleful of well water.
“Who was them people?” he demanded.
“Some tourists.”
“What’d they stop here for?”
“One of the women wanted to pick some blue weed by the side of the road.”
“H’m! I wish to God she’d pick some of the blue weed out the grain
field,” he said. “Why did they turn around and go back?”
“They wanted to get to Lockwood before dark, I guess.”
Later in the evening, Mauney sat on the kitchen verandah lost in
thought. He leaned back in his tilted chair and rested his head on
the window-sill. Presently he fell asleep. He was awakened by a sharp
sensation on his chin.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, opening his eyes to see the hired girl
standing near him, smiling broadly.
“I just pulled one of them hairs out o’ your chin, Maun,” she laughed.
“When are yuh goin’ to start to shave ’em?”
CHAPTER IV
THE HARVEST MOON
“_A rustic roughness_”—_Horace, Ep. Book I._
The story he had heard from his aunt, with its unexplained gaps, filled
Mauney’s mind for days. He wondered most about what she had not told him.
Her seemingly instinctive fear—or was it scorn?—of meeting his father
roused torturing curiosity. Probably his mother’s letters had told her
either plainly or in suggestive language of her great unhappiness.
The motor-car visit haunted him. It was so unnatural, as though, in a
painful dream, he had beheld his own mother, whose features were to
remain before him in waking hours. Spectre-like out of the unknown world
she had come, to vanish immediately, leaving scant comfort, herself
immune from his ardent desire to detain her.
The incident was characteristic of life, as he was learning to know
it, for he gained cognizance of an enigmatical curse aimed at whatever
promised happiness. One whom even a few moments had enshrined in his
affections must tremble and disappear, as a delicate bird, hovering for
an instant, is driven away by a sight or smell.
Every aspiration of his existence was leashed to his father’s stolid
nature. He traced the deterring thongs, one by one, back to the paternal
influence. Some hidden action or some unrevealed quality of his father’s
had driven his aunt away in a dust-cloud. And the dust which rose up
to obscure her loved face was symbolic, for dust of a kind was slowly
settling upon the freshness of his own nature.
One evening his reverie of unhappiness was broken by a familiar voice
when, turning about, he beheld David McBratney trudging along with a
large, grey, telescope valise. In answer to his question, McBratney
replied that he was starting on foot for Lockwood, where next morning he
would take the train for Merlton to begin his ministerial studies. He was
walking because his father, suffering from ill-humor, had refused him a
horse. But evidently, there was no martyrdom about the situation.
“He’s an old man,” Dave said, putting down his burden and wiping his
forehead with a big, red handkerchief, “and I didn’t like to start no
row.”
“Are you going for good?” Mauney asked, rising from the grass and walking
slowly to the edge of the road.
“Sure. I sold my three-year-old yesterday for a hundred, and that’ll keep
me for a while up to Merlton. I guess Dad will come around after a while.
But I reckon I’d just blow away, quiet like, without causin’ too much
commotion.”
“You’re a cheerful cuss, Dave,” Mauney said.
“You bet,” he laughed, as he turned to look back toward his home. “I tell
yuh, Maun, when a fellah gets sort o’ squared away with God Almighty,
why, he can’t be no other way. Some o’ the neighbors says I’m makin’ a
big mistake to leave the farm. But that farm ain’t nothin’ to me now.
Maybe I won’t never have a bit o’ land to me name, but, I’m tellin’ yuh,
I’ve got somethin’ as more’n makes up. Well, Maun, old boy,” he said,
picking up his valise and sticking out his big, sun-burned hand. “I’ll be
goin’ along. Good-bye. Best of luck to yuh!”
For minutes Mauney stood thoughtfully watching his retreating figure as,
swinging into a long stride, he covered the first lap of his long walk to
Lockwood. His big figure grew smaller and smaller and the valise dwindled
to a little grey speck, but he never turned to look back and soon he was
lost in a bend of the road.
Although Mauney disliked in McBratney, what he considered half-familiar
references to the Creator, he distinctly admired his courage and did not
hesitate to express his admiration next day at supper when the subject
came up. Evidently Bard had called at the McBratney’s that afternoon on
his way from Beulah.
“The old man’s all broke up,” he said. “Poor old chap. There he is right
in the middle of the hayin’ with nobody to help him, and Dave walks right
out an’ leaves him. He might ’a’ stayed till the first o’ August, anyway.”
“I guess Dave’s got it pretty bad, Dad,” William remarked as he spread a
large chunk of butter over his bread. “Anybody that’ll start out an’ walk
to Lockwood on a hot night, carrying a big grip, why, there’s somethin’
wrong with his brains. I never figured Dave’d be such a damned fool!”
Mauney looked up sharply at his brother.
“He isn’t a damned fool!” he said flushing. “I may not have any more use
for religion than you have, Bill, but I admire any fellow who does what
he thinks is right!”
“Is that so?” scoffed William, glaring across the table. “Well, now look
here, freshie—”
Mauney, inflamed by the word, as well as by his brother’s sneering
manner, jumped to his feet, and became the centre of attention.
“I refuse to be called ‘freshie’ by you,” he said with some effort at
restraint, “and I have just enough sympathy with Dave McBratney that I’m
not going to have you call him a damned fool, either!”
Bard pounded the table.
“Here, sit down, Maun,” he commanded and then turned with a faint smile
toward his elder son. “Bill, eat your victuals and be quiet. O’ course,”
he added presently, “there ain’t no doubt but what Dave is a damned fool,
and he’s goin’ to wake up one o’ these days and find it out, too. But now
he’s gone away I don’t see what the old man’s goin’ to do. I advised him
to sell out the farm and go up to Beulah an’ take it easy. There ain’t no
good o’ William Henry stayin’ down here no longer. He’ll have to get a
hired man now, and with wages where they is he wouldn’t clean up nothin’.”
After a short silence, William chuckled softly as he raised his saucer of
hot, clear tea to his lips.
“I was just thinkin’ about the Orange Walk down to Lockwood last year,”
he explained. “There was Dave, with a few drinks in him, struttin’ around
the park, darin’ everybody to a scrap. Gosh, it’s funny to think o’ him
bein’ a preacher. I mind that night—we didn’t get home till seven o’clock
the next mornin’ an’ I pitched in the harvest field all that day.”
“Sure,” nodded Bard. “I’ve done the same thing many a time when I was
your age.”
“And the next night,” continued William proudly, “me and Dave was up to
Ras Livermore’s harvest dance. That hoe-down lasted till five in the
mornin’. I can see Dave yet, sweatin’ through the whole thing—never
missed a dance.”
“Wonder if Ras is goin’ to put on a shin-dig this here harvest?” mused
Bard.
“He ain’t never missed puttin’ one on since I can remember,” said the
hired girl, who had been listening intently.
“The other day,” William remarked, “I saw Ras up in Abe Lavanagh’s barber
shop. I ast him if he was goin’ to have a dance this year an’ he hit me
an awful clout on the back an’ he says: ‘Better’n’ bigger’n ever, my boy.
Come an’ bring yer fleusie. They’ll be plenty to eat, and Alec Dent is
goin’ to fiddle again.’”
“And I guess Dave won’t hear the music, neither,” said Bard.
* * * * *
About ten days after his aunt’s visit Mauney received a letter from her,
written in Merlton, and containing a crisp, five-dollar bill. “I really
haven’t had time to choose a gift for you,” she wrote, “so please buy
any little thing you fancy. Your Uncle Neville and I are leaving for New
York to-night, and intend sailing the next day for Scotland. Neville is
afraid England will be drawn into this terrible European mix-up, and of
course, if that happens, he may have to leave his business as he holds a
majority in the Scottish Borderers. I’m praying there won’t be a war, but
it certainly does look dark.”
War! Mauney located the _Beulah Weekly_ in the wood-box and searched
its columns in vain for any mention of European politics. He wished
that his father had consented to have a rural telephone installed, so
that he could telephone now to some of the neighbors and find out what
was transpiring. Next day in Beulah he asked the postmaster through the
wicket if there seemed to be any danger of a war.
“War!” the man repeated, staring stupidly through his high-refractive
spectacles. “Whereabouts?”
“In Europe.”
The postmaster reflectively poked his index finger into his mouth to free
his molar teeth from remnants of his recent supper.
“I guess not,” he said lazily. “I ain’t heard nothin’ about it.”
“Do you know a good Merlton newspaper?” Mauney enquired.
“Oh, yes,” he replied, his face at once brightening to a patronizing
smile. “The _Merlton Globe_ is the best. It is the newsiest paper
printed in the country, unexcelled for its editorials, has the largest
unsolicited circulation, is unequalled for its want ad. columns, and
reflects daily the current thought and events of both hemispheres. Yuh’d
certainly get what yer huntin’ for in the _Merlton Globe_, Mr. Bard,
’cause if there’s any war on anywhere—don’t matter where—they’d most
likely have it.”
“What does it cost?” Mauney asked.
“Only five dollars per year,” he replied politely, removing an eye-shade
from his forehead, and staring anxiously at his customer. “Of course, I’m
the local agent, you know,” he added.
“Oh! are you?”
“Oh, yes—yes,” he said, with a nervous little laugh, his hands together
as if in the act of ablution.
For a moment Mauney hesitated, while his hand, deep in his pocket, felt
the crisp treasury note with which he was so tempted to part. A number of
considerations caused him to weigh well his present transaction, but he
soon gave his initials to the eager postmaster and went home satisfied.
Seth Bard had, of course, always been able to find sufficient news in the
_Beulah Weekly_. It is doubtful if he would have spent the annual dollar
on it except for the long column advertising farm sales. He usually spent
half an hour searching this portion of the paper, then a listless five
minutes over the personal column, which, to his particular mind, provided
an amusing satire, only to fall asleep, later, as he tried to read the
fragmentary generalities that filled the stereotyped section. The hired
girl religiously preserved the editions until she had found time to read
the instalments of a continued love story. When the _Merlton Globe_ began
to arrive with the name of “Mr. Mauney Bard” upon it, a precedent seemed
to have been established for introducing unwelcome new factors into the
self-sufficient household.
“Where’d you get the money?” Bard demanded, in accordance with Mauney’s
expectations.
“Found it,” he replied, just as he had planned to do.
There was no more questioning, although Mauney knew his father did not
believe him. With queer pride, Bard scorned to read the big daily,
although the woman found back numbers useful for lining pantry shelves.
“We don’t worry none about what’s goin’ on over in Europe, Bill,”
remarked the father one evening while Mauney sat nearby reading the
paper. “If they want to put on a war over there, why, let ’em sail to it.
’Taint none o’ our business.”
“Guess we got ’bout enough to do, running this here farm, Dad,” William
agreed, “without wastin’ any time with that kind o’ truck.”
* * * * *
The annual harvest dance at Ras Livermore’s was a long-standing event
of great local interest, for, since most people could remember, it
had been as faithful in its appearance as the harvest itself. Men of
fifty recalled gala nights spent there in their exuberant twenties.
Livermore was benevolent and kindly, well over seventy, and had developed
hospitality to a degree where he required it now as a social tonic. No
invitations were sent out because rumour of the event invariably preceded
the event itself, thus fixing the date, and, as to the personnel of the
guests, Livermore’s slogan of “Everybody come” was sufficient, for he
knew that the ultra-religious of Beulah would never appear and that the
best recommendation for the qualities of a guest was the very spontaneity
that impelled him or her to be present.
For the past three years it had been one of the bright spots in Mauney’s
life and so, on the day of the dance, he brought downstairs his best suit
of clothes for the hired girl to sponge and press. The men did not get in
from the grain field until seven o’clock.
“Me and Annie’ll manage the milkin’ to-night,” Bard generously announced,
as they ate supper. “Snowball’s goin’ too. Soon’s yuh get through eatin’,
Maun, go bed the horses, and, Bill, you an’ Snowball pump the cows some
water an’ draw the binder under the machine shed. Then hitch up old
Charlie, jump into yer boiled shirts, and get up to Ras’s.”
“Ain’t you goin’, Dad?” William asked.
“No. I’m goin’ over to see William Henry an’ make him an offer on his
farm. Annie’ll have to stay here an’ look after the house. I’m gettin’
too old fer this here dancin’ business anyway. I used to be able to stay
with the best of ’em, Bill, but a plug o’ chewing tobacco is about as
much dissipation as I can stand now.”
By nine o’clock Mauney, with his brother and Snowball, were driving up
through Beulah and turning at the end of the village along the Stone
Road. Three miles through the darkening landscape brought them nearer a
cluster of pine trees behind which Livermore’s large frame house could be
seen with every window alight. Between the trees were suspended yellow
Japanese lanterns in long, bellying rows, beneath which could be seen the
moving white gowns of women and the dark forms of men standing in groups.
Buggy-loads of people were constantly arriving and being directed by
Livermore who, dressed in an old-fashioned cut-away suit, was strutting
about as actively as a man of thirty. A congestion of buggies at the lane
entrance required William to pull up the horse, and wait his turn.
“Hello, Ras!” came the shout of greeting from one of the buggies. “How’s
yer old heart?”
“She’s still a-pumpin’!” he replied, causing a general outburst of
laughter, since Livermore was noted for an individualistic strain of wit,
and anything he might say was to be thus rewarded.
“Hello, is that you, Bill?” he called as they passed him. “I see yer girl
is here before you. Drive right in. There’s more people here to-night
than yuh’d see at yer own funeral. Hurry up, Bill, ’cause there’s a
mighty sight o’ fine women-folks here, and not a Methodist foot among
’em.”
Even a half-hour later, as Mauney strolled about the lawn chatting with
acquaintances, load after load of laughing people continued to arrive,
and he joined the crowd who were lined up watching Livermore greet his
guests.
“Drive right into the yard, boys,” he called. “If they hain’t room under
the cow-sheds, hitch ’em up to the wind-mill.”
“Quite a turn-out, Ras,” remarked Doctor Horne, as he suddenly reined his
black horse into the lane.
“Hello, Doc! Well, well, well, if here ain’t Doc Horne!” exclaimed
Livermore, advancing to shake the physician’s hand. “I tell yuh, doc,
it’s a pretty frisky lot o’ people. You kin tie your horse to the fence,
case you git a call an’ have to leave early. One o’ the boys’ll show you.”
“Is that scoundrel, Alec Dent, here to-night?” asked Horne in a
mock-whisper, leaning over the side of his buggy.
“Yes, an’ dancin’ is goin’ to start directly, Doc. Alec has just had a
pint o’ rye whiskey an’ there ain’t enough furniture left on the kitchen
floor fer an Esquimo to start house-keepin’ with.”
“Whoop!” laughed Horne in a loud chuckle, as he touched his horse with
the whip. “Erastus, you old reprobate, you old skunk!”
Women were busy preparing five long tables under the pine trees for the
refreshments which would be served at midnight. Mauney was inveigled into
carrying benches by Myrtle McGee, one of the acknowledged belles of the
countryside, who came up to him in her usual direct way, carrying a pile
of plates, and smiling seductively.
“D’yuh want to work?” she enquired, with a much more intimate address
than the occasion demanded.
“That’s what I came up here to avoid,” Mauney laughed as he looked down
into her sharp, black eyes.
“But you’d help me, wouldn’t you?” she pouted. “Go fetch some o’ them
benches, like a good boy.”
After he had obeyed, and while the crowd of people were slowly moving
back toward the kitchen, drawn by the lure of the violin music, she came
up with him again, fanning her flushed face with her handkerchief. She
was not more than twenty and wore a pleated, white silk gown that gave
attractive exposure of her arms and bosom, smooth and firm like yellowed
ivory, and contrasted markedly with her jet-black hair, decorated by a
comb of brilliants.
“Well,” she said, tilting her head sidewise, and according him an angled
glance, “I s’pose you’re goin’ to give me yer first dance, ain’t yuh,
Maun?”
A subtle compliment was conveyed in this unconventional invitation, and
Mauney, surprised at his own susceptibility, at once agreed. Together
they strolled toward the kitchen verandah where already a crowd was
assembled. The windows and doors of the kitchen were all removed, and
Mauney, peering above the mass of eager heads, saw a broad strip of
yellow floor, reflecting the light of several oil-lamps set in wall
brackets. As yet no dancing had begun, but Alexander Dent, a corpulent
man of sixty with a heavy, pasty face, was perched on top of the kitchen
stove, where, seated on a chair, his body swung to the rhythm of his bow.
“Jest gettin’ warmed up!” he announced, with a sly glance from the corner
of his black eyes toward the crowd at the doors.
This was the twenty-eighth annual harvest dance at which he had assumed
responsibility for the music. In accordance with his ideal of never
growing old he had undertaken, in late years, to dye his hair and
moustache much blacker than they had ever been even in his youth. Only
his chin, which receded weakly beneath his bushy moustache, gave any
evidence of age, for his quick eyes, his animated movements, the tap-tap
of his toe keeping time against the stove lid, suggested youth. He was to
be accompanied by an organ set at the top of three steps leading to the
dining room, at which Mrs. Livermore, second wife of the host, already
presided in readiness. As Dent finished his first flourish and began
tucking a large, white silk handkerchief under his chin Erastus Livermore
appeared on the floor and initiated applause in which every one joined.
In a moment the host raised his hand for order.
He was a big man, slightly bent at the shoulders, with a high, sloping
forehead, a bald pate, a grey, tobacco-stained moustache and dim, grey
eyes, full of quiet hospitality that sparkled brightly as he spoke.
“Folks,” he said, by way of opening the function, “I dunno why I allus
have to get out here an’ say a few words. The woman told me I had to do
it, so I guess that’s reason enough.”
A burst of laughter followed this remark.
“When I look around and see you folks all dressed up in yer
Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes, makes me think of how much the styles is
changed since the first dance we put on here. In them days, the women
folks all had big hoop skirts, that ud hardly go through that there door.
But now we see a change. They believe more in advertisin’ and showin’ off
their ankles.”
“Ras—Ras!” came Mrs. Livermore’s disapproving voice.
Again the guests laughed, this time more heartily.
“Well—ain’t it true, folks?” he asked.
“Sure, Ras!”
“You bet.”
Just then the rural telephone, which was attached to the kitchen wall,
rang five short rings.
“That’s our call,” Livermore said to his wife. “Tell ’em to come a
jumpin’, we hain’t even started yet.”
When she had answered the telephone she whispered something to her
husband.
“All right,” he said. “I’m sorry to have to call our old friend, Doctor
Horne. He’s wanted at onct down the Graham road, at Bob Lombard’s. I
guess maybe the baby has swallowed a carpet tack.”
“Thanks, Ras,” came Horne’s voice from outside. “Don’t let me interrupt
your speech!”
“Come back if you can, Doc!”
“I think by the way you and Alexander Dent are starting in, you may need
me before you get through,” replied Horne, already untying his horse
from the fence nearby. When the laughter had again subsided, Livermore
continued.
“An’ there’s only two o’ that old brigade left here to-night,” he said,
“myself and Alec Dent.”
The musician’s name was greeted by a loud hand-clapping to which he
responded by rising from his chair and executing a deep salaam.
“Mind the lids, Alec,” continued Livermore. “I bet Alec ain’t forgot them
hoop skirts.”
“Why, no,” affirmed the musician in a clear, bass voice, as he seated
himself. “Them was the fantastic days, Rastus. It was right on this floor
I met the woman that’s been bossin’ me around ever since. Them was _the_
days!”
“Now, folks,” said the host, “With these few openin’ words, I’ll call on
our old friend to play a cotillion, an’ I want everybody to light right
in an’ hoe ’er down till mornin’! Joe Hanson, the man on the right with
the false teeth, is goin’ to call off, a-standin’ on the wood-box, an’ I
want to see the young folks get well het up. Ready, Alec?”
The butt of his bow was poised over the strings of his violin, his head
nestled down to the instrument, his toe lifted preparatory to the opening
note. He nodded.
“Then let her go!”
The thrilling call of the violin immediately drew four sets to occupy
their places on the kitchen floor—tall, sun-burned youths with coats
cast aside, smiling at their partners who quivered with eagerness to be
started. Mauney and Miss McGee were unable to gain entrance, but collided
with Amos Blancher, a husky fellow to whom she had evidently promised the
first dance. He demanded an explanation.
“Why, Ame,” she said, “you’re too slow to catch a cold. Mauney an’ I are
goin’ to have the first dance together, ain’t we, Maun?”
Blancher scowled ill-temperedly at Mauney and backed away, muttering
under his breath.
“It’s goin’ to be a corkin’ good set, too,” predicted Miss McGee, leaning
against Mauney’s arm as they watched the progress of the dance.
“Address your partner; corners the same,” commanded Hanson from his
position on the wood-box.
Everyone bowed, and immediately scuffled their feet in rhythm with the
music.
Another bow, in a different figure, and again the prancing of eager feet.
“Right and left through and inside couple swing. Right and left back and
the same old thing!”
Hanson entered into the spirit so thoroughly that his voice took on
a barbarous rhythm, but he enunciated his directions very clearly
considering the fact that his upper plate habitually fell away from the
roof of his mouth on open syllables.
“Ladies turn out, with the bull in the ring; gents come out and give
birdie a swing!”
The process of giving “birdie” a swing included a vigorous masculine
lurch which brought the lady from the floor with much sailing of her
skirts and exposure of her muscular, black-stockinged calves.
“Lady round lady and gents go slow; lady round gent and gents don’t go.”
Thus continued the strenuous dance, while the faces of the dancers began
to flush with the warmth of their exercise, and the fiddler proceeded
exuberantly and with growing animation from one movement to the next.
When the first set was finished, another, made up of different dancers,
commenced, leaving only time for Alexander Dent to reach for a proffered
glass of spirits. By an unwritten law it was understood that whiskey was
reserved only for the fiddler as an indulgent acknowledgment of his
services, but the stealthy movement of the occasional youth to the back
box of his buggy in the yard was forgiven if he exercised moderation.
Those not engaged in dancing played euchre in the dining room or sat
on long benches on the verandah telling stories, exchanging gossip or
discussing crops. By midnight, Mauney, weary of the music, and weary,
too, of the monotonous jargon of his associates, stole a few moments by
himself on the end of the front verandah farthest from the rest.
The great orb of the red, harvest moon was rising like a ball of molten,
quivering fire from the deep purple scarf of smoky air that lay upon the
horizon, while a warm breeze moved from the stubble field nearby. His
thoughts drifted fancifully, trying to free themselves from the weird
thralldom of the dance, imagining the moon the secret source of heat that
supplied the dancers with energy, and the warm breeze an emanation from
their impassioned enthusiasm. Past him, as he sat secluded behind a vine
of Virginia creeper, a youth and a maiden, unsuspecting his presence,
walked quietly side by side until they stood by the cedar edge at the
border of the grove. He watched the moonlight reflected from the maiden’s
face as she glanced quickly toward the house, and from her arms as they
encircled her lover’s neck. The lover bent toward her and pressed his
lips passionately upon her mouth. Then they returned, with a new rhythm
in their gait, to join the crowd who sat at the other side of the house.
Mauney breathed with mild difficulty as if stifled by the glamor of the
sultry night. Then in a mood of inexplicable detachment he wandered again
through the groups of people, half unconscious of their presence. He
stood watching the dancers once more and listening to the endless grind
of the fiddle. A round dance was in progress and his eyes followed the
two lovers now clasped in the dreamy movement of a waltz. He could not
understand why the picture blurred as he watched it. He was thinking of
the beauty of love—the tragedy of love—this closed, complete, unopening
circle of passion that drifted to the beat of the music heedless of the
universe. His eyes wandered from their graceful forms to dwell upon the
yellow glow of the Japanese lanterns.
A stronger breeze came from the fields and moved the big lanterns till
one of them caught fire and burned, attracting the attention of a score
of people.
Then there were five, sudden, sharp rings!
The music ceased. The dancers paused. Livermore entered from the
verandah, and going to the telephone put the receiver to his ear. Casual
curiosity prompted a general quietness among the guests.
“Hello! Yes, this is Ras, speakin’. Who’s that? Hello, Frank, why ain’t
you up to the dance? What?”
Turning about, Livermore waved to the guests. “Be quiet jest a minute.
It’s kind o’ hard to hear him.”
For a moment he listened, while the changing expression on his face
provoked greater curiosity and greater quietness.
“Ain’t that a caution?” he exclaimed, hanging up the receiver. “If
England hain’t gone and declared war on Germany.”
“What’s that?” asked a voice on the verandah.
“War—the British is gone to war,” Livermore answered. “Frank Davidson
just got back from Lockwood, an’ says the news just reached Lockwood
afore he left.”
“War, eh?”
“Yep! So Frank says. Maybe it’s just talk.”
“Well, I guess it ain’t goin’ to do us no harm, Ras, anyhow,” said Alec
Dent, waving with his fiddle-stick. “Get off the floor an’ give ’em a
chance, Ras.”
Again the slow, measured music of the waltz floated out on the night air,
and Mauney watched the lovers continue in their embrace.
His heart pounded with excitement. Vague sympathies, eager yearnings,
and impatient impulses moved by turns in his breast. That which the
newspapers had suspected had become fact. How could these people continue
to dance in the face of such catastrophic news? He could not dance. He
could only think and think, and wonder why, in the unexplorable depths of
his heart, he was glad that war was come.
CHAPTER V.
A VISIT TO LOCKWOOD.
“_A military gent I see_”—_Thackeray, “The Newcomes.”_
Four weeks of the European fury had become history, but as yet the
district around Beulah preserved its accustomed indifference to outside
influences. In staid self-sufficiency farmers garnered their harvest,
for, if the war ever entered their heads, it was soon dismissed as a
far-away happening which could never have relation to themselves. Great
Britain had conducted campaigns before, when, as now, a veteran here
or there might heed the alarm and be off to his favorite sport, but it
was never dreamed that the inviolate aloofness of Lantern Marsh, for
instance, could ever be affected.
Farm lands continued, as usual, to be bought and sold. Bard, after much
careful barter, procured the valuable estate of William Henry McBratney
for a sum which he might have been ashamed to confess, save for personal
vanity over his own close bargaining. The purchase, however, ended in
a disappointment, for, on offering it to his elder son as a proposed
wedding endowment, he discovered that William was averse to marrying, and
the newly acquired property had therefore to lie idle. Hired help was
not to be had, since already the excitement of war was drawing floaters
to the cities and Bard had to content himself with the thought that the
war would soon be ended and that William might by then have discovered a
woman whom he would be willing to marry.
Mauney found in the war the first successful antidote to his long
existing boredom, for, except when he was working, he was reading the
_Merlton Globe_ and following events with keenest interest. One day
at noon, a large, green motor-car drove suddenly up the lane, and two
uniformed officers enquired of Bard if he had any horses to sell. It
was to be an army purchase, and Bard, after sending them away empty,
bethought himself seriously, with an air of brewing plans.
“Bill,” he said, “if this here war goes on, I’d like to own a few horses.
But then,” he added, “’tain’t goin’ to last!”
Meanwhile, Mauney had heard that men were enlisting in Lockwood. Like a
flash, he imagined the possibilities of offering himself as a recruit. It
was the first time that he had connected the war in any way with himself,
and it was mostly his long-cherished craving to leave home that made him
do so. The first real breath of the actual war entered the Bard household
one evening at supper when Mauney said to his father:
“Dad, I’d love to go to war!”
Bard was rendered speechless; William smiled sarcastically at his father,
and then all, including hired help, stopped eating and stared at Mauney.
“You!” gasped Bard. “Well, what put that in your head?”
William laughed quietly.
“I guess they’d never take him, Dad,” he said.
“What do you know about soldierin’?” Bard demanded. “Why, you’d be a
nice-lookin’ outfit. Now look here,” he said in a tone of ominous
finality; “you can just get that idea out o’ your head, right away,
understand me. You ain’t goin’ to no war, and the sooner you realize it
the better for you.”
That night, however, Mauney did not sleep. The germ of unrest had been
inoculated into his blood. His glimpse of a solution for his troubles had
turned his mind so irrevocably toward the new purpose that he did not
even undress, but lay wakeful and undecided. He knew his father’s present
attitude well enough, but he did not know what his attitude would be in
case he were defied.
When the first breezes of morning moved the cotton curtains of his
window, showing grey in the dawning light, Mauney got up and sat by
the window, gazing at the indistinct outlines of trees, listening to
the stirring birds and the distant call of a rooster. He felt that he
was listening to these particular sounds for the last time. As it grew
lighter he tip-toed to the attic for an old leather valise, brought it to
his room, and packed up his few belongings. Then, when he heard movement
in the kitchen, he went down. The woman, busy at the stove, turned and
looked at his valise.
“Where are you goin’, Maun?” she asked, a little dubiously.
“To Lockwood.”
“What for?” she continued, searching his face.
“To enlist.”
She made no reply, but applied herself quietly to her task of preparing
breakfast. When Bard came in he saw Mauney sitting on the step that led
to the dining-room with his valise on the floor beside him.
“What are you doin’ with your Sunday clothes on?” he asked, while his
narrow eyes fell to notice the valise. “Where are yuh goin’?”
“Lockwood.”
“What for?”
“To enlist.”
Bard stamped across the floor to the wash basin and began vigorously
washing his hands. Only the unnecessary splashing of water and the
rattling of the basin expressed his mental condition. When he finished he
walked to his place at the table and sat down.
“Annie,” he said very softly, “give me them eggs.”
The woman obeyed with great punctiliousness as if dreading the storm of
language soon to escape the paternal lips. Bard ate in silence, never
once looking up. Then, pushing his plate from him, he loaded his pipe,
lit it, and for the first time glanced at Mauney.
“When are you goin’?” he asked, as casually as if it were to Beulah for
the evening mail.
“This morning,” said Mauney.
“How are you going to get there?” Bard continued, in ominous calmness.
“I thought perhaps Snowball would drive me down,” said Mauney, uncertain
at what instant to expect a volcano of abuse.
For a moment or two Bard stood thoughtfully by the window, evidently
weighing the situation.
“Well, Maun, I tell yuh,” he said at length. “There ain’t no chanct in
the world of ’em takin’ a kid like you. But I guess maybe the best way
to cure you is to let you go down and get it over with. When you get
down there and see the hull outfit lined up you’ll change yer mind,
anyhow. Tell yuh what I’ll do. I’ll let Snowball and you off fer the day.
Snowball’s gettin’ kind o’ stale on the job, too, and maybe a drive to
Lockwood would sort o’ brace him up. But, mind, I don’t want to hear no
more damned nonsense after you get home, understand me.”
At noon that day old Charlie, covered with lather from the twenty-mile
journey, drew Mauney and the hired man into the town of Lockwood. Mauney
sat leaning back, absent-mindedly watching the road, while Snowball held
the reins and occasionally touched the horse’s flanks with the whip.
A great weight had fallen from Mauney’s shoulders the moment they had
passed out of his father’s farmyard and, during the drive in the sultry
morning air, his imagination had moved quickly. He felt the great doors
of the world opening to receive him. He felt that he was proceeding
now into the mystery of real life long denied him. The war was truly a
secondary consideration. He knew nothing about the practical side of
campaigning. Dimly, though, he fancied that once he reached the Lockwood
armouries, some one there would take him admiringly by the hand with
expressions of welcome and commendation for his noble decision.
When they had passed along King Street they came to the wide green upon
whose upper portion reposed the grey stone armouries with its mullioned
windows, its turrets, its scalloped parapets, and its tall flag-pole
bearing a huge flag that floated lazily in the breeze. A dozen men in
ordinary clothes stood in several groups near the huge doorway, while an
occasional soldier in uniform walked stiffly across the lawn to disappear
beneath the arch. After noting that his suitcase was safely bestowed in
the bottom of the buggy, Mauney got out and adjusted his tie and soft hat.
“Snowball,” he said, “you stay here till I come back. I’m going to see if
this is where to enlist.”
“I guess I’ll g-go in with you, Maun!” stammered the hired man as he got
out and began tying the horse to a pavement ring. “I hain’t never worried
much about soldierin’, but may’s well see the doin’s now as I’m here.
Wait a minute, Maun.”
Together they walked across the green and soon came up with a group of
civilians who were talking about the war. One of them was a veteran of
several campaigns, for he wore a line of medals pinned to his vest and
kept his coat well pulled back to display them. He pointed Mauney to the
doorway.
As they were about to enter, an erect individual, neatly uniformed, with
waxed moustache and a short, black stick held under one Of his straight
arms, advanced to meet them.
“What do you want?” he demanded, crisply.
“I want to enlist,” Mauney explained.
“Recruits?” he snapped haughtily, and pointed with his finger. “To the
right, fall in line behind the others and wait your turn.”
Mauney thanked him and turned to the hired man.
“You better wait for me outside, Snowball!” he said.
The crisp individual in uniform glanced quickly at Snowball, his eyes
keenly studying him.
“You may wait here,” he said, “if you choose.”
The interior of the armouries was so dark that until Mauney’s eyes
became accustomed to the dimness, he paused, unable to see the queue of
civilians who were standing in line in front of a frosted-glass door. He
then made his way over the flag-stones and took up his position in the
rear. From a skylight in the high roof a beam of light fell through the
dusty air of the big room and, striking in a huge square pattern on the
centre of the floor, revealed two teams of horses dragging a field-gun
down the middle of the drill-space. The rattle and din, increased by
the shouted commands of some visible officers, were so deafening that
Mauney did not notice the frosted-glass door open to receive six of his
companions. He moved up and patiently waited his turn. At last his time
came and he entered with five of his fellow recruits.
In the meantime Snowball sat on the edge of a green box at the entrance,
smoking his pipe. The sergeant who had so leniently granted him
permission to remain was at a short distance, tête-a-tête with a second
sergeant who wore a dangle of white, red and green ribbons from the peak
of his cap. The first sergeant pointed toward Snowball, made a gesture
with his hands, at which the other nodded, and advanced toward the
unsuspecting servant.
“Hello, my man,” said the sergeant, slapping Snowball genially on the
back. “How old are you?”
“Forty-five or six,” he replied, looking up curiously.
“Stand up, won’t you?”
Snowball obeyed, rather dubiously.
“My word!” remarked the sergeant, feigning to be overcome with admiring
surprise. “You’re a splendid specimen. Where did you get that chest?”
“I g-guess hard work done that,” he said, commencing to giggle.
“You’re just the kind of a man we’re looking for, sir,” said the
sergeant, placing one hand on Snowball’s bosom and the other on his back.
“Take a long breath.”
He inspired deeply, casting a sharp, doubtful glance at the sergeant.
“I say, but you’re well put together, sir,” remarked the latter. “You’d
make a fine soldier, I reckon.”
For an instant Snowball’s tilted face turned hesitatingly toward his
flatterer. Then he began once more to laugh.
“You can’t fool me, so you can’t,” he said, sitting down and avoiding the
sergeant’s eyes.
“But I’m not trying to fool you, sir,” he averted. “You’d be an A1 man, I
swear.”
Snowball shuffled his feet, and drew vigorously on his pipe.
“They wouldn’t take me, so they wouldn’t,” he said seriously with a jerk
of his head toward the doorway.
“Well,” said the sergeant, “would you go, if they found you fit?”
“Hain’t no use t-talking about it,” Snowball responded in a melancholy
tone. “So they hain’t!”
“Try them, sir, try them—won’t you?”
“Come with me, sir,” he added, taking Snowball’s arm, when much to his
surprise, the latter rose and accompanied him.
Mauney passed his physical examination and was led into a second room. He
noticed that none of the others had been taken there. Behind a desk sat
a young, clear-faced man with bone-rimmed spectacles, engaged in looking
through a pile of documents.
“Doctor Poynton,” said the sergeant, who brought him in, “would you
report on this recruit’s vision. The M.O. just sent him in.”
“All right,” nodded the doctor, as the sergeant went out.
For fully five minutes Mauney stood motionless, waiting for the
eye-examination to commence, while the doctor continued reading the
documents before him and idly smoking a cigar. When his impatience had
nearly gotten the better of him and he felt tempted to remind the medical
man of his presence, the latter turned in his chair and placed a stool on
the floor a few feet from his desk.
“Sit down there!” he said in a distant tone, without looking at Mauney,
who obeyed and awaited further instructions.
Doctor Poynton threw away the butt of his cigar and, opening a drawer,
selected another from a box. This he lighted and blew out the match,
meanwhile continuing uninterruptedly in his reading of the documents.
Mauney, greatly elated at the success of his physical examination, found
his present occupation of waiting greatly to his dislike. Why should they
examine his eyes? He had never had any trouble with them. He controlled
his impatience, however, as best he could, until, after many minutes, the
doctor looked up.
“Now, then,” he said. “Look at that card on the wall over yonder. Can you
see the letters?”
“Yes.”
“Very well, read them. First letter?”
“E.”
“Next line!”
Mauney read four lines and paused.
“You can’t read the fifth line?”
“I’m afraid not.”
From a drawer, the doctor produced a testing frame, perched it on
Mauney’s nose, and slipped two lenses before his eyes.
“Can you read it now?” he asked.
“No, it’s worse than ever.”
He removed the lenses and put in two others.
“Now.”
Mauney read it accurately.
“All right,” said Poynton, removing the frame, and scribbling some
hieroglyphics on a slip of paper. “That’s all I want. Take this chit in
to Captain Blackburn.”
“Where’s he?”
“He’s the officer who examined you.”
“Thank you,” said Mauney, returning to the room from which he had come.
There were still half a dozen recruits stripped, undergoing examination.
He waited until Captain Blackburn should be disengaged.
“Ever had rheumatism?” Blackburn was asking one of the candidates, while
he percussed his chest.
“No,” said a voice which seemed very familiar to Mauney.
“Cough! All right! Now turn around.”
As the recruit turned, Mauney was astonished to behold the sun-burned
face of Snowball. He would have exclaimed aloud, but already he felt the
humility of a private soldier restraining him in an officer’s presence.
Blackburn, after applying the bell of his stethoscope to various areas on
Snowball’s back, snapped the instrument from his ears.
“That’s all—go along—pass him fit, sergeant! Next!”
Snowball scrambled into his clothes and walked quickly towards Mauney.
“For heaven’s sake, Snowball, did you enlist?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Shake on it.”
Mauney grasped the hired man’s hand and gave it a powerful shaking.
“You’re a brick, Snowball. Just wait outside for me, I got through too,
but there’s some red-tape about my eyes.”
When the recruits were all examined and were dressing, Capt. Blackburn
pointed at Mauney.
“Get your eyes tested, boy?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring me the report.”
Sticking on a pair of spectacles Blackburn glanced over the slip of paper.
“Too bad,” he said. “You’re unfit. Sergeant, mark off M. Bard as unfit
for service.”
“But I’m all right,” expostulated Mauney.
“No you’re not, boy.”
“Yes, I am.”
Blackburn stiffened up.
“Do you realize to whom you’re talking?” he snapped.
A sergeant walked quickly forward and tapped Mauney’s knuckles with his
stick.
“Hands down at your side!” he barked. “You’re speaking to an officer.
Address him as ‘sir!’”
Blackburn tossed the eye-report on the top of his desk, leisurely removed
his spectacles, and then calmly nodded at the sergeant who was standing
stiffly nearby.
“That’s all, sergeant!” he said, indifferently, with a slight nod toward
Mauney.
“Very good, sir,” bawled the sergeant, clicking his metal-plated heels
together and saluting. Then, seizing Mauney by the arm, he led him toward
the door.
“You can’t join—may as well go home,” he said, opening the door.
“But I never had any trouble with my eyes,” Mauney argued, as the
sergeant shoved him out into the big room of the Armouries.
“Don’t matter. You’re unfit!”
Bang! The door closed in his face.
CHAPTER VI.
THE IRON WILL.
“_Good is a man’s death which destroys the evils of
life._”—_Publilius Synus._
Bard delayed two years before he began horse-breeding in earnest. By
that time the war had become a fixture, with more promise of an endless
continuance than an early peace, and as it was impossible to hire help
for farm work, he grew weary of carrying on his arduous agricultural
labor with only his two sons to assist him. Consequently he determined
to put less soil under seed and to confine his attentions to horses,
since the army would afford an apparently inexhaustible market for
their purchase. The news of his new determination was received with
gladness by William, who had begun to tire of his strenuous labors, and
with indifference by Mauney, who, since his rejection at Lockwood, had
remained at home, mechanically submitting to his fate, and caring little
what turn events might take.
A month previously the casualty lists had contained the name of Snowball,
who had been killed in action in France.
“Don’t seem natural,” Bard had admitted simply, “Poor old Snowball. If he
hadn’t been such a fool he’d be right here to-day, same as the rest of
us.”
But Mauney questioned whether the fate of their former servant was
not indeed preferable to his own. In quiet moments—too quiet and too
numerous for his liking—he secretly envied Snowball, for it seemed that
a few months of death-rewarded struggle in France were infinitely easier
than the drab years of Lantern Marsh promising no release. Long since he
had forgotten his reception on returning from Lockwood—the jeers, the
confident “I told you so” of his father, the stern promise of sterner
treatment if he repeated the nonsense. The cause of his rejection by the
army seemed unbelievably trivial, but on later consulting a civil oculist
in Lockwood some kind of eye-trouble was discovered, with the result that
Mauney adopted glasses. Even with this correction he was advised that he
would not be able to qualify for general service abroad, and the prospect
of entering home service in some dismal camp dissuaded him from further
efforts to be accepted. By this time a few of the younger set in Beulah
had enlisted, thereby establishing among their relatives a local cult of
patriots who were never backward in snobbishly cutting others who had not
gone. William was too thick-skinned to feel this, while Mauney was proud
enough never to explain his very sufficient reason for remaining at home.
Then came rumors of conscription, the first feature of the war that
promised to affect the Bard household. Bard himself was furious for he
saw plainly that his elder son fell into the first group of unmarried men
who would be called up. Mauney took a silent delight in the discomfiture
of both. As the date approached for the new law to go into force he kept
picturing the cataclysm of feelings that would be aroused, the unwilling
departure of his husky brother and his father’s unavailing expostulation.
It was the latter which really delighted Mauney, since he had come to
regard his father’s will as the one stupendously efficient thing in
life, never to be crossed or defeated. A great eagerness possessed him
to see the law in force and to behold, just for once, with his own eyes,
the spectacle of his father’s spiritual collapse. The time approached
with much rebellious comment from within his own home and that of other
farmers who had until now had few reminders of war except higher prices
for all their products. At last the evening arrived, the last evening of
freedom for all potential conscripts, and Mauney sat in the kitchen with
his father, awaiting the return of his brother who had gone to Beulah
apparently to make a closer survey of the impending situation. At a late
hour, William returned.
“Well?” said Bard, eagerly rising as his son entered the kitchen, “What
about it?”
“It’s all right,” William replied with a sly smile. “They won’t get me,
Dad.”
He had married Evelyn Boyce.
Mauney’s astonishment was only less than his instinctive hatred of an
action so basely material and selfish. When he learned the facts of
William’s evening sojourn in the village he flushed and regarded his
brother with eyes that the brother could read only too plainly.
“What’s the matter?” William blurted.
“With whom?” Mauney asked.
“You.”
“I’m feeling sorry.”
“What for?”
“For Evelyn Boyce, of course.”
William’s face colored quickly and the big veins of his neck stood out.
He stood, stiffening his arms, then with a savage glare, he shook his
fist at his brother.
“You better keep your mouth shut,” he fumed, “or I’ll shut it for you.
What I do is my business, not yours.”
In this principle William had the full paternal support and Mauney once
more witnessed the complete success of his father’s will. The plans had
been made out carefully, beforehand. It was not many days until the
bride was established with her husband on the McBratney farm and only
three were left at the old homestead. Mrs. William Bard was a brainless,
pretty girl of small physique, with a novel love of chickens, and of a
screeching gramophone whose music could be heard each evening, when the
wind was in the east. Occasionally she accompanied her husband on short
evening visits to her father-in-law’s, and quite won Bard’s affections by
sitting on his knee and lighting matches for him on the sole of her shoe.
Toward her brother-in-law she adopted a surprising attitude of coquetry,
that displeased her husband, and caused Mauney a degree of nausea. It
was soon evident that she was not born to be the wife of William Bard.
Beneath her empty hilarity there was to be gradually discerned a growing
girlish discontent with things. Her attentions to her father-in-law
grew less spontaneous and her flirting manner with Mauney came to have
suggestions of pathetic appeal. Mauney felt that he could read beneath
the surface the awakening to consciousness of one, who, having been
bought for a purpose, would insist on demanding her price, for, vapid
though her mind was, she possessed a sharp sense of justice in matters
affecting herself. In the following summer William purchased a motor-car
under pressure, and began taking his wife for evening drives, much to the
elder Bard’s outspoken disapproval.
“There’s too much gadding about, Bill,” he said one day as they talked
matters over. “You’ve got to cut out this here flyin’ all over the
country.”
“What am I goin’ to do?” demanded William, impatiently. “You know I
didn’t want to marry her, but you advised me to. So now, you can put up
with what I got, see!”
Life offered no solution for Mauney’s inner troubles. If there had been
one cheerful event to annul the interminable gloom of these years of
war, or one friend to brighten the unlifting fogs that settled down
upon him like the vapors of Lantern Marsh itself, he might have borne
his discontent with greater patience. But the raw wound in his nature,
made by no sudden sword-gash, but worn there by the attrition of dreary
seasons, grew more unbearable. Every hope that had dared to rise had been
forced down as by a vigilant, hateful fate. Every finer instinct had met
its counterpart of external opposition. Every aspiration that trembled
gently upward had been tramped by heavy feet, as violets in the path of
horses. He had lived with his newspaper. He had watched the verdure of
the springtimes fade beneath the dry suns of autumn, the green apples of
his orchard redden and fall to earth, the birds of the swamp wing away
to their southern homes, when ice bound the Lantern Marsh in its grip
and biting winds hurled the snow in deep banks about the home. And as
unchanging as the seasons he had watched his father’s character deepen to
its fixed qualities of greed and selfishness.
But an end was in sight.
Through the hot summer of endless labor in the fields, and of endless
mind gropings, came vague breezes that touched his cheeks with promise of
liberty. They breathed a new hope that he scarcely dared to heed, for
these mysterious breezes, as if they were the breath of fearless gentle
angels, brought indistinguishable whisperings, to which he more and more
bent his ear. Pausing in the field to lean momentarily on the handle of
his hay-fork his eye turned quickly as if to catch an elusive presence
that he felt nearby. But there was no one. He was quite alone save for
his father and the others casting up great cocks of hay upon the wagon.
But as he sat of an evening on the front steps of the farmhouse this
haunting presence would come again, eluding his gaze that sought it among
the orchard trees, heavy with their apple harvest. In his room at night
he felt it directly behind him, and came to realize at length that it was
the man he wanted to be, the prefigurement of a new Mauney Bard.
And the wisps of angel breath, with their sybilline intonations, began
to be articulate, telling of a world of promise for the valiant, of
knowledge, of friends, of hope.
He had waited for life to help him, but it offered no help. With spirits
partially crushed by the mundane atmosphere and the endlessly sordid
philosophy of his detested home he had waited in dejection. But, in the
summer of 1916, recognizing at length that no power existed to help him
but himself, he openly rebelled. One day he went to his father after
dinner, as the latter smoked idly in the kitchen, chatting with the hired
woman. Mauney was finally beside himself.
“Look here,” he said without introduction, “I’m just about through with
you and Lantern Marsh. Here I’ve been cooped up for years, just simply
staying because there was nothing else to do. I want an education and,
by heavens, I’m going to have it. I think you ought to give me enough to
go to college. But if you won’t, I’m going anyway.”
The woman, recognizing the private nature of their conversation, left
them alone in the room.
The weight of Mauney’s ultimatum lay as heavily on Bard’s face as the
noon sun on the yard outside the window. For minutes he sat with his
head between his large, knotty hands, staring blankly at the table
oil-cloth, Mauney felt a flickering pity for him, presented thus with a
flat proposition from which no selfish escape seemed possible. Bard did
not speak, nor did his face betray his thoughts. It was the tired face of
a man weary with his efforts to coerce life, confronted at last with a
problem that lay beyond his personal power.
“Well,” he said, looking up at length like one, who, though unable to
command, still hopes to barter. “If you’ll stay on here I’ll will you the
farm and give you a quarter interest in the business now.”
“Dad, you don’t understand,” said Mauney, “I want education. I’m sick of
farming and don’t intend to stay with it. I want to go to College and, as
I told you, I’m going, anyway—”
“All right,” said Bard simply and nodded his head many times. “You may
regret this, boy, I think you will. Your first duty is to me. And I—”
The sound of horses’ steps distracted his attention and, turning toward
the window, he recognized a well-known stallion being led by a man in a
sulky.
“There’s Thompson, now,” he said. “I have to go to the barn. But that’s
all I’ve got to say, Maun.” He paused to strike the table with his fist.
“Stay with me and I’ll share up. But if you want to pull out, you do it
on your own hook. Not a cent from me, sir—not a cent!”
He walked toward the door, but turned to cast a glance at Mauney’s
serious face.
“You better think it over,” he said. “It’s a purty big step, sir—a purty
big step, I tell yuh.”
As he left to direct Thompson and the stallion to the barn, Mauney buried
his face in his arms.
There could be no turning back on his resolve. His father’s offer was
no inducement. Life at Lantern Marsh had taken all these years to reach
its logical termination—he must go. To himself he owed something and the
debt disturbed him. Beyond the confines of the present he dreamed of self
development and a great happiness. He did not know how long he had sat at
the table, thrilled by his new determination, but it must have been many
minutes. He was suddenly disturbed by the sound of hurrying feet and by
the woman’s voice, as she dashed into the kitchen.
“Maun!” she cried excitedly. “Get into Thompson’s gig and go get the
doctor. Your father’s hurt!”
“What happened him?” asked Mauney, rising.
“Don’t know. He was in with the horses. Hurry Maun, fer God’s sake, I’m
afraid he’s killed by the way Thompson ran out.”
Mauney ran across the yard to untie Thompson’s horse, but could see no
evidence of tragedy. The sun lay heavily upon the manure pile and no
sound disturbed the blue shadows of the stable windows. As he jumped into
the sulky and, reaching for the whip, drove quickly down the lane, he saw
the woman running toward the barn with a pail of water. His mind was a
blank during that race to Beulah. He forgot everything that had turned
in his brain a few moments before. He only felt that something horrible
had happened. He caught mental images of his father’s face, rendered
grotesque and abominable, but he put the pictures from him, and glanced
for relief at the placid meadows along which he was flying at top speed.
It seemed that he would never complete his journey when, all at once, he
pulled up the lathered horse by Dr. Horne’s lamp post.
He jumped out and had run only half-way to the office door when he beheld
the burly physician, bare-headed, carrying his satchel.
“What’s the matter, young fellow?” he asked.
“My father’s kicked by a horse,” Mauney quickly explained, “and I guess
it’s bad.”
“Where is he?”
“Down in our barn.”
Horne pointed to the office.
“Go in there, young fellow,” he said. “On the back of the back door is
the key to my barn. Hitch up my horse and follow me. I’ll drive this race
horse of Thompson’s. Take your time, young fellow,” he added, as Mauney
ran toward the office. “You aren’t the doctor. Just drive down slow,
mind.”
Later when Mauney had nervously succeeded in hitching up Doctor Horne’s
horse and was driving quickly homeward he wondered why he had been asked
to drive so slowly. The horse seemed in good condition and in the habit
of running, so he made no effort to stop him. Suddenly, though, at the
outskirts of the town, as they passed the last houses, the horse slowed
down to an easy trot, a matter of habit, too, as Mauney humorously
reflected. At length, he reached home, but saw nobody in the yard.
Thompson’s horse was wandering slowly by the end of the drive shed,
nibbling the short grass. Mauney got out and tied the doctor’s horse to
the iron weight which he had taken from the buggy. For a moment he gazed
toward the barn. There was the open stable door, the empty windows,
the enlarging blue shadow of the building creeping toward the end of
the manure heap, but no movement, save that of a white hen, picking in
the straw that littered the ground. He slowly turned and entered the
kitchen where, stretched upon the sofa, he discovered the woman, sobbing
hysterically.
“How is he?” Mauney asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” she managed to say, turning over on her
face and biting her finger. “I went over to get Bill, but he’s in the
back field. I guess you better get him, Maun. I—I can’t walk no further!”
On his way to the lane Mauney saw the doctor, in his shirt sleeves,
coming across the barnyard toward the kitchen. He waited for him,
reflecting that he had never seen the physician walk so slowly.
“Well, Mauney,” he said seriously, as he came up. “God knows this isn’t
the kind of thing I like to do. I feel damned sorry for you.”
“Is he—is he dead, doctor?”
Horne slowly nodded his big, black head, while tears filled his big,
black eyes.
“Yes, sir, poor Seth Bard,” he said with a sigh. “He was a good farmer,
was Seth. He never knew what hit him. Well, that’s the way it goes.”
BOOK II.
REBELS
CHAPTER I.
MAUNEY REACHES MERLTON.
“_The house is a fine house when good folks are within._”—_George
Herbert’s Collection, 1639._
Mauney was seated in the green-upholstered seat of a railway car, with
a ticket in his pocket marked Merlton. His baggage, consisting of a new
trunk and two new leather suit-cases, was safely on board, or so he found
himself anxiously hoping from time to time, as the train quickened its
speed. He wore a new grey serge suit, purchased in Lockwood, the town
from whose outskirts he was now passing, a suit that clung neatly to
his big shoulders with a strange, new feeling of smartness. On his head
reposed an attractive grey, soft hat with a black band, itself as new as
the rest—as new as all the weird experiences of the present day which had
kept him busy and curious. He was dazed by the rapid events, as if he had
not become implicated voluntarily, but was being led by a magic power.
He was going to Merlton. That was the only fact of which he was
momentarily certain, except that his brother William had motored him to
Lockwood the previous night, and that he had sat beside Evelyn in the
back seat, trying to steal time to think of a multitude of different
matters that naturally flooded his mind. But he found it quite impossible
and gave over eventually to her sentimental jabber concerning the
marvellous character of his newly-contemplated life in Merlton, how
much she herself would love to be coming, and how tedious life would
be at Lantern Marsh without him. “Tedious,” scarcely described it,
for, since the death of his father, especially during the unpleasant
process of settling the estate, in which process William had proved
to be a very difficult person, he had realized a great tragedy in the
atmosphere of the place. It depended not only on memories of his father’s
end, but equally also upon William’s implanted selfishness. There had
been scenes in the lawyer’s office between the brothers, and William’s
contentiousness had created a hateful situation from which Mauney had
glided easily along peaceful exits of least resistance. As a result the
brother retained the original farm besides money, and Mauney took for his
share twelve thousand dollars, with half the proceeds from the sale of
the McBratney farm sometime in sight.
It had all been too drastically tragic to be tedious. Nothing quite so
upsetting and revolutionary had ever occurred as the sudden death of
his father. It had altered everything, like the stroke of a magician’s
wand. Here he was, for example, dressed as well as any man on the
train, departing, probably forever, from scenes which until recently
had been prison-like. Here he was, with more nerve than sense—or so he
felt—launching without advice from anybody, straight at the metropolis,
drawn thither like a shad-fly to an arc-light. Here he was with money
enough and more for an education, but without the faintest idea of how
to go about it. Above all, here he was, the loneliest chap imaginable,
without one friend to talk to, and nothing ahead but a bleak horizon of
uncertain years and an absolutely unfamiliar world.
He almost longed, by a natural reversion of feeling, for the old times
at home, for his father cursing him roundly, for William’s sneers, for
poor old Snowball’s silent laughter, doubly silent now, and for the hired
woman’s rough sympathy.
During these cogitations he frequently interrupted himself to finger his
vest pocket and be assured that he had lost neither the ticket marked
_Merlton_ nor the baggage checks. The casual observer, knowing nothing
of Mauney’s previous existence, would have received an impression of a
young, well-to-do man, of kindly disposition, of keen sensibilities,
and of, perhaps, unusual powers of mind. He might have passed for a
young commercial traveller, save that his eyes possessed a glamor of
imagination too vivid to have long withstood the prosaic details of
business, and yet, on the other hand, though his bright face, nearly
smiling, might have been that of an artist, there was about him a certain
air of staid reserve that negatived the impression.
But these golden opinions about the young man in the grey suit, were,
to be sure, purely from without, since there existed within Mauney a
much poorer estimate. He would have said that of all the people on this
train he was unquestionably the most ignorant, the most awkward, the
most lamentably inexperienced. He was going forth into the enigmatical
universe unsupported, but with a kind of mock self-assurance approaching
bluff. And he was stepping very rapidly along, pushed by uninvited and
irrevocable events, with inelegant steps, as if his body were being
bunted from behind. A big truck-load of baggage at the Lockwood Station
platform had given him the same feeling a few moments previously. He
wished the train would go more slowly, because of the importance of the
journey. After all it was the real transition, the deportation from one
phase of life to the unrealized next one, and certainly no occasion
for being hurtled along with terrific speed, but rather one for slow
adjustment of mind and body. He had never worn as stiff a collar, but the
clothier in Lockwood must be relied upon. The seat of his trousers seemed
tight, but that too, was undoubtedly a matter for the ruling judgment of
an expert.
Well, he would try to bluff it bravely. Just what he would do on reaching
Merlton was uncertain. There were the hotels, if necessary, but he felt
that the sooner he got right down to work the better for his peace of
mind. He wanted to go to the university, but knew that, unless he could
discover some way of circumventing a high school training, college halls
were very distant. Here again he would have to rely on expert opinion. In
fact, he philosophized that he was now in a world where he was no longer
independent. The lazy come and go of Lantern Marsh was realized to be at
an end. He was now exploring hazy territory and so decided to keep out
his feelers. There was nothing else for it than to be patient and wait,
and go easy, and keep his feelers out. After all it was a wonderfully
thrilling experience, containing as much opportunity for spiritual
enjoyment as for discomfort.
Pulling down his collar out of the crease of his neck he cast his eye
at a book which his seat companion was reading. The title at the top of
the page was “Biochemistry.” The reader was a young, black-haired fellow
with an eager, enthusiastic face, but with a deep, vertical crotchet of
puckered skin between his eyebrows. That he was not reading for pleasure
was doubly evident from his impatient manner of turning over new pages
and from the monotonous tone in which, from time to time, he half spoke
what he read. At length he finished a chapter, slammed the book shut
and sat comfortably back with a sigh of relief. Mauney would not have
ventured to speak to him, and was therefore pleasantly surprised, anon,
to be addressed by the other.
“Awful stuff this!” said the stranger, tapping the closed volume with his
knuckle.
“What is Biochemistry?” Mauney enquired curiously.
“Oh!” drawled the other, with a perplexed look, “it’s the study of the
chemical processes that go on in the animal body—awful headache, this
stuff! Are you going to Merlton?”
“Yes,” nodded Mauney.
“Go to the University?”
“Not yet.”
“But you are later, eh?”
“I don’t know,” Mauney explained. “I want to go, but I haven’t had enough
education to get in.”
“You don’t need much, I can assure you,” said the other. “You’ve got your
Collegiate off, I suppose?”
“No. Just public school.”
“Well, of course that means a devil of a lot of preliminary ahead of you,
and they’re getting crankier up there every minute about that stuff. By
the way,” he said, after stealing an appraising glance at Mauney’s face
and clothing. “My name is Lee.”
Mauney took his proffered hand and shook it warmly.
“Bard is mine,” he said, a little awkwardly.
“We may as well know each other, Mr. Bard,” said Lee, sitting up and
smiling. “I’m just going back to the city to write off some sups. Do you
know what I mean? Well, I hope you don’t ever learn by experience. I got
ploughed in Biochemistry, this spring. Do you know what I mean? Well, at
the exams, you see, I went down hard on this stuff. So I’ve got to plug
it up and write it off, now.”
Lee followed his explanation by a glance of curiosity at Mauney’s face
before smiling indulgently.
“You’ll get on to these college expressions sooner or later. Of course I
like my work well enough,” he explained, “and I shouldn’t have dropped on
this dope, didn’t expect to either—it’s kind of made me bolsheviki for
the present. I hope you’ll pardon my seeming rudeness if I continue to
sink myself in this book?”
“Certainly, shoot into the dope, hard,” ventured Mauney.
With a look of surprise Lee settled down into the depths of the seat
and, before commencing a new chapter, stole a sly, curious glance at his
new acquaintance, while Mauney, faintly satisfied at his recent attempt
at slang, found courage and a somewhat new belief in his own powers of
adaptation.
Lee, buried in a new chapter, continued to frown, slap the pages, and
repeat ill-temperedly passage after passage, while Mauney would turn from
the window and its vision of long farm lands turning rapidly past like
the spokes of a great wheel, to snatch a glance over his companion’s
shoulders, to read perhaps a snatch of technical treatise concerning
the combustion of fatty acids (whatever they might be), or to notice
complicated designs of apparatus, reminding him of puzzles he had seen
in the _Beulah Weekly_. Lee, he noticed, was an appealing sort, though
delicate, with long, thin hands and a thin body that bent easily into
his slouched attitude of reading. Over his vest he wore a thin, low-cut
jersey whose front was decorated with a large, blue M, ornamented with
wings sprouting from the two upright limbs of the letter. Mauney deduced
that it stood for Merlton, probably being a trophy bestowed for prowess
in some particular sport at the University of Merlton. At length Lee
finished another chapter and closed the book with a snap, dropping it
into his black hand-bag under the seat.
“That’s enough of that,” he said. “Pass or no pass I’m not going to
read any more of it. And, more than that, I’m going to see a good show
to-night. What do you say if we go?”
“How long before we reach Merlton?” Mauney asked.
Lee glanced at his wrist watch. “It’s two-forty. We don’t get there till
six-thirty. Deuce of a long trip! It’ll be too late to do anything but a
show.”
“I’d like to go all right,” Mauney admitted, “but I want to find some
place to stay.”
“What kind of digs are you after—you know, what kind of a place?”
“I haven’t a very good idea myself.”
Lee studied Mauney’s open face for a moment as if trying to decide what
category to place him in. It was evident from his own expression that he
found something likeable about his new acquaintance, for he smiled with
combined indulgence and curiosity.
“What have you been working at, Mr. Bard?” he asked.
“Farming, all my life.”
“Oh, I see. Decided to shake the plough now?”
Mauney nodded. “Yes, I wouldn’t have stayed so long at it, only you know
how circumstances sometimes determine a fellow’s fate.”
“Sure thing, you said something,” admitted Lee, a little sadly. “I’d
have been in the army except for the astounding circumstance, quite a
surprise to me, that some imaginative medical officer fancied he heard
a menagerie inside of my chest. There’s never been a thing wrong with
me,” he affirmed, “but just because that chap with the stethescope didn’t
like the way I breathed, I am here to-day, plugging along in third year
medicine. Why! I managed to clean up the intercollegiate tennis last
fall. I cite that merely as evidence of health.”
“You can’t tell me anything about it,” Mauney laughed. “I got turned down
on account of my eyes. But I only have to wear glasses when I read. Eyes
are good. I’d have been away long ago except for that. It’s tough luck
to get treated like that. However, I’m ready any time they want to take
me. But, war or no war, Mr. Lee, I’m not going to beg them to take me. I
practically did that once; so I feel it’s their move next.”
“Hear, hear! My heart’s in the right place, too. Though I hate to be
regarded as a slacker by those who don’t know the details. Sometimes I
think it takes as much grit to face the home forces as the Germans. I
mean the why-aren’t-you-at-the-war brand. However, got to put up with
it. Say,” he added presently. “How would you like to get a room at my
boarding house?”
“Fine. Could I?”
“I believe you probably could,” he said, “It’s a queer sort of digs, but
just unusual enough to be interesting. It’s worth making an effort to
get into it, too. The bunch there are off the beaten path—never was quite
able to size ’em up—but they all mind their own business. You know,” he
said reflectively, “I’ve been there over a year and I can’t tell you just
what keeps me there. I guess it’s because we’re all rebels.”
“Rebels?” repeated Mauney, in great surprise.
“Surely,” nodded Lee with a broad smile breaking over his face. “Do you
know what it means to be out of love with life?”
“I—I should say I do. That’s me exactly.”
“I thought so, Mr. Bard,” replied Lee with an intimate little sparkle in
his eye. “I judged you to have something of the same spirit about you.
Well, it’s a kind of grouch that lurks under the surface, if you will.
Anyhow, it’s easily recognized by anyone who is a rebel himself.”
Mauney’s blue eyes narrowed as he glanced at his new friend’s face.
“Are you a rebel, Mr. Lee?” he asked seriously.
“Certainly,” said Lee. Then he laughed at Mauney’s sober aspect. “Don’t
be alarmed. My disaffection has not, at present, any political aspect,
you know. My rebellion is not against the government. It’s just a plain,
homely, disposition of grouch.”
“I see,” smiled Mauney. “Do you know, I like that.”
“And I knew you would, my son,” continued Lee, almost affectionately.
“You’ve got inoculated, somehow, with the same virus. You’ve caught the
disease somewhere. We belong to a great fraternity that doesn’t wear any
silver badge. A person has to be born to it, to some degree, and then he
has to get properly messed up, into the bargain.”
“How do you mean—messed up?”
“Oh, just that everything goes wrong. Plans smashed, ideas smashed,
everything smashed,” laughed Lee with just a small trace of queer
seriousness in his face. “Fate picks out a few of us to join this big
fraternity. We always know each other when we meet without any masonic
sign. Our watchword is discontent—unexplainable discontent. We are just
misfits, my son,” he concluded, with a slap at Mauney’s knee.
Mauney could not help liking his new friend who, though evidently not
much older than himself, called him “my son” so easily, and who, either
consciously or otherwise, had succeeded in establishing a most unexpected
bond between them. But his skillful, verbal harangue on the present topic
was still puzzling to him, so that, after a moment, he put a question.
“Do you mean that the people who live at this boarding house all belong
to a secret fraternity?”
“Yes and no!” said Lee. “It’s a fraternity, as I’ve said, secret enough
from all who don’t belong. But it hasn’t any organized constitution and
no particular purpose or aim.” As he paused, his black eyes softened with
a visionary aspect. “It’s distributed all over the world. You don’t join
it. You’re either in it or not. If you’re in it you find it impossible to
get too much worked up over any enthusiasm. You prefer irony to barbarous
optimism. You retire by choice, into the shadow of things. Do you get me?”
“I think so, yes,” nodded Mauney. “You all feel out of gear with things,
all the time.”
“That’s it. You can’t get an ideal which isn’t sooner or later rendered
a mere idea. Your hands slip off from the round edges of everything you
grasp. You know before you start that your efforts will eventually peter
down to child’s play. Well, well,” he said, pulling himself up out of his
half reverie. “I suppose I’d better read some more biochemistry.”
“Do you like the study of medicine?” asked Mauney.
Lee smiled.
“I like it all right,” he nodded. “But it’s just like me to get the
wrong angle on it. I keep wondering about the profession—it’s so damned
illogical.”
“How do you mean?”
“We patch people up after they’re damaged, instead of trying to keep ’em
from getting damaged. We throw out the life-line, but we don’t teach ’em
to swim. It’s all topsy-turvy philosophy, upside down, cart before the
horse. However,” he said with a drawl as he opened his hand-grip to take
out his book, “I’ve decided not to revolutionize the world, just yet.
It’s a game, my son, but worth playing, after all.”
He was soon lost in the pages of his big Biochemistry volume again, and
Mauney contented himself with reconstructing Lee’s philosophy. It struck
him as perhaps picturesque, but unnecessarily bleak. No, he did not quite
agree with his new friend. There was use in things. Just the prospect of
an education was sufficient now to lift Mauney into a mood of happiness.
To turn from mental darkness to mental light, to learn of the mysterious
forces that promulgated life on the globe and kept it living, to know
how peoples had lived and how they lived now, to pierce the meaning of
war. In short, to pick the pearls of knowledge from the vast, pebbled
coast-line of life—this was a task and an opportunity that thrilled him
with splendid resolve and high hopes.
When they reached Merlton Union the platforms bore a busy swarm of
humanity through which the two new friends made their way with difficulty
to the great waiting room. Mauney had a sense of being suddenly dropped
into a seething sea of being that emphasized his own minuteness. People
sitting, tired and impatient. People walking eagerly about, searching
for friends. People consulting official-looking clerks in information
booths, or rushing at the heels of red-caps who carried their valises to
departing trains. The great roar of the room rose to the high expanse of
the roof, like the rushing sound heard in a sea-shell. Individual sounds
were lost and swallowed up in the vague, but intense vibrations that beat
back from the glazed ceiling, to be disturbed only by the deep, sonorous
voice of a man by the gates who called the trains in measured periods,
each speech ending in a wistful, sad inflection. Here were people,
coming and going, as if it were the very business of life and not, as in
Mauney’s case, the great epoch-making event of his whole existence. At
the curb, outside the front entrance, he was dismayed by the mad rush
of snorting taxi-cabs, pausing but long enough to take their passengers
before darting off down the crowded street.
“I’ll tell you,” said Lee, pressing his long forefinger against Mauney’s
vest buttons. “Suppose you give your baggage cheques to the city delivery
here, then take my grip and go up to the boarding house. Tell Mrs. Manton
I’ll be up later. You don’t need to say anything yet about getting a
room there. Things are done very deliberately at seventy-three Franklin
Street, as you’ll find. Tell her you’re waiting for me. Then just sort of
edge in slowly. If she doesn’t ask you to sit down, just grab a chair
and make yourself comfortable. Be sociable. Do you get me?”
Mauney nodded.
“I’m all for a show to-night,” Lee continued, “so I’ll be off to one now.
If you’re hungry ask Gertrude for something to eat.”
“Who’s Gertrude?” asked Mauney.
“The landlady, Mrs. Manton. She’ll love you if you do. Don’t be bashful,
see? And I’ll be home around midnight and we’ll have a chat before we
turn in.”
Soon he had gone, leaving Mauney holding his grip and waving for a taxi.
One promptly disjoined itself from a waiting line, while an attendant
opened the door.
“Where, sir?” asked the driver, craning his neck about.
“No. seventy-three Franklin Street.”
He nodded and away they flew through congested thoroughfares, missing
other motor cars by what seemed veritable hair-breadths, passing noisy
street-cars, avoiding wary pedestrians who ventured across their way.
After traversing what appeared to be the business section of the city,
they began to pass along quieter streets and eventually stopped in
front of a respectable red-brick house. Mauney paid the driver and got
out to inspect the residence. It was a three storey building, squarish
in appearance, with a side verandah leading to the only entrance. The
cream-colored shades of the front lower room were drawn. As Mauney paused
to survey the place a few drops of rain struck his face; so that he
hurried up the broad steps, along the verandah to the door, and rang the
bell. It was already growing dusk and he could make out nothing through
the door-window. Presently a light was switched on and he saw the figure
of a man approaching, who, when he had opened the door, regarded Mauney
silently from an expressionless face.
“Does Mrs. Manton live here?”
“Sure! Come in,” invited the man. He was about forty—short, thick-set,
agreeable. His smooth, flabby face, devoid of color, was as grey as his
short hair, and he had lazy, mirthful, grey eyes, and a lazy smile that
exposed many gold teeth. He struck Mauney as a flippant individual. When
he had closed the door he turned about and called, “Ho, Gertrude!” Then
he faced Mauney again.
“Is it going to rain?” he asked good-naturedly.
“It’s raining now a little.”
The man produced a penknife, opened it, and pried with the blade between
his gold-filled incisors. “I knew it was going to rain,” he said. “I’ve
got the most expensive barometers here I could afford. These teeth have
cost me more money than I’ve got in the bank, and they always ache before
a storm. What do you know about that?”
Mauney smiled. “It’s hard luck; that’s all I can think of at the moment.”
He was trying to follow Lee’s advice about being sociable, and striving
with equal effort to gauge the stranger’s disposition and character. He
remembered that Lee had also mentioned the importance of making himself
at home. Accordingly, he now removed his hat and hung it on the hall
rack, then walked to a hall chair and seated himself comfortably, while
the stranger followed his movements with an amused, curious smile.
“Ho! Gertrude!” he called again. Then, after lighting a cigarette
and flipping the burnt match into an empty brass jardiniere on the
hall stand, he glanced at Mauney. “She’s still the same old Gert,” he
explained, as if presupposing a former acquaintanceship to have existed
between Mauney and his landlady.
“Is she?”
“Sure! She’s in on a little game in the dining room now. I guess she’s
building up a jack-pot and don’t want to decamp.”
Just then a burst of mixed laughter was heard. The door at one side of
the hall-way opened and Mauney obtained his first view of Mrs. Manton.
Her appearance was not typical of landladies, as Mauney had fancied
them. In fact her appearance denied that she was a landlady at all, but
suggested that she had just walked out of a theatre at the opposite end
from the audience. Mauney had seen pictures of actresses in magazines,
and as he beheld Mrs. Manton the word “Spanish” flashed in his mind. She
wore an extreme costume of black velvet, with yellow silk facings, and an
artificial red poppy stuck into her heavy stock of jet-black hair. About
her neck was a long string of pearls, and on her fingers diamonds were
flashing in the light. For a moment she regarded Mauney curiously, then
walked, with an unhurried, precise, but rhythmic grace that suited her
solid, short form, until she stood near him. He rose.
“Good-evening,” she said in a deep, purring voice that was very soothing.
“I fear you have the advantage of me.”
“My name’s Bard,” he said quickly, smiled, and stuck out his hand.
“How do you do, Mr. Bard,” she replied with a brightening of her swarthy,
pensive face.
“I came up to wait for Mr. Lee,” he explained.
“Well, Mr. Lee is home on his vacation, Mr. Bard, and won’t be back till
about October, you know.”
“Oh, yes, he will,” Mauney corrected. “He’ll be here to-night! I just
came up on the train with him. You see he got ploughed in biochemistry,
and had to come up to write the dope off. Stars and sups, you know.”
“Indeed,” she exclaimed. “Poor old Max! Well, we will be glad to have Max
with us again, eh Freddie?”
“You bet. He’s sure a winner, Gertrude,” replied the man who was now
introduced to Mauney as Stalton.
“Fred,” she said, “you better go up and see if Max’s room’s all right,
will you?”
“Sure thing.”
“And now Mr. Bard,” said Mrs. Manton, indicating the dining-room door by
a graceful gesture of her bejewelled hand. “We’ve got on a friendly game
of poker, if you’d care to join with us while you wait for Max?”
“I’ve always been unlucky at poker,” prevaricated Mauney, who had never
seen the game.
“Ho,” she laughed. “You’re like me. I’m the greatest she Jonah that has
been discovered to date. Never mind, it’s only a nickel-ante.”
“That’s not much, is it?” he ventured.
“Of course, we never allow big games, you know,” she explained, as her
dark eyes indulged in a scrutiny of his features. “Just a pastime. May be
you’d prefer to read, or perhaps just watch the game?”
“Look here,” said Mauney, touching her on the breast with his forefinger,
just as Lee had done with him at the Union Station. “I’m about
starved—hungry as sin. Do you suppose you could rig me up a bite to eat?”
“Why, you poor boy!” she purred softly, and took his arm to lead him
to the dining room. “Just off the train. Of course you’ll have a snack
directly.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Manton.”
“Not at all,” she said indifferently, in a tone that indicated that
thanking was not quite normal to seventy-three Franklin Street. “Sadie
Grote’s in here. She’ll fix you up.”
The dining-room was a spacious chamber with a large central table. A
drop-lamp, whose large oval shade in the design of a huge yellow water
lily hung low over the table, distributed a cone of light that revealed
four or five people busy at cards about the table. Mauney’s eye caught
the other details of the room—a large fire-place at one side, a long
Chesterfield couch under the window at one end, with a man reclining on
it, a sideboard, with a mirror and a display of glassware upon it, a
cabinet gramophone, several large easy chairs, and a smoker’s ash stand.
“I can wait awhile for the grub,” said Mauney, who was really too excited
with his new boarding house to be hungry.
“All right. We’ll all be eating after a while,” Mrs. Manton replied.
Then, turning to the crowd, “This is Mr. Bard,” she said, simply, took
her chair at the table and picked up her hand of cards. Mauney, left to
his own devices, sat down in one of the easy chairs and familiarized
himself with his surroundings. Besides his landlady were two other
women, one addressed as Mrs. Dixon, a fleshy person of forty, with fat,
ring-adorned fingers, the other, evidently Sadie Grote, a pretty wisp
of a girl top-heavy with blonde hair. One of the men, known familiarly
as “Doc,” was a painfully bald individual of fifty, whose speech and
gestures breathed a foreign atmosphere, and whose erect body had a
military poise. The other man, not over thirty, was heavily built, but
had an effeminate smile that exposed teeth perfect enough to be envied by
the most renowned beauty. He was called “Cliff,” and seemed to have been
fascinated by Mrs. Manton, although she treated him with discouraging
indifference.
The man on the sofa was completely absorbed in a newspaper, behind which
his face was hidden. He lay for fully twenty minutes without moving a
muscle, with his long legs stretched out to the very end of the couch.
Suddenly he crushed the paper between his hands, and swung himself up to
a sitting posture.
“The damned thieves!” he exclaimed in an English accent. “Cutting wages
at a time like this. The working man in England to-day is usually either
over military age or else crippled from war service. To think of the curs
cutting down their wages now! Well, it’s only one more evidence of the
fat-headed manner in which everything is done in England—England, the
land of blunders!”
Mauney noticed with surprise that none of the people at the table were
paying any attention to the irate Englishman’s declamation—the more
remarkable that he should continue:
“If they go on messing things up much worse, the working man is going to
kick over and raise a bit of hell, and it will serve the skunks jolly
well right. I hope that they put so big a land tax on the capitalists
that they will lose every square foot of property they possess. It’s not
theirs, anyhow. It belongs to the working man.”
Mrs. Manton presently glanced in his direction to behold him still
bathed in the glow of his enthusiastic pronouncement.
“What’s wrong, Jolvin?” she purred softly. “Have they not yet recognized
the rights of the working man? How discouraging!”
There was a note of sarcasm in her deep, melodious voice that irritated
Jolvin. He had a long, thin face, scooped out at the temples and the
cheeks, a narrow, black moustache directly under his long, thin nose, and
a permanent dimple in the middle of his long chin. His long, narrow neck
rose out of his collar like a jack-in-the-box, and he had an uncanny way
of suddenly rotating his face, in conversation, full toward a speaker.
“Oh! damn it! Talk will you!” he fumed, looking at his landlady out of
furious eyes, as if he had been much more content to have continued in
monologue. “Some people are going to wake up one morning to discover the
working man in possession of the helm of affairs!”
He jumped to his feet and stamped ill-temperedly toward the hall door.
“And,” he resumed, as he opened the door quickly, but paused to give Mrs.
Manton the full benefit of his rage, “this is no dream of a fantastic
mind. It’s just truth, damned-well truth!”
He closed the door violently, while Mrs. Manton merely put up her hand
to tidy her hair, as if Jolvin’s commotion had disturbed its excellent
coiffure. Then Stalton came softly in from a back hall-way.
“What’s the matter with Jolvin to-night?” he enquired casually.
“Just ranting on Bolshevism, as per usual,” replied Mrs. Manton, as she
dealt out the cards.
“Don’t ever get him started on socialism,” Stalton advised. “He got
me cornered one night and just about proved that it was sinful to own
property at all. It gave me a Sunday-school feeling right down to my
boots to think how righteous I was in at least that one respect.”
“That man does irritate, occasionally,” she admitted. “However, he’s not
such a poor sort, at other times.”
“I wish I could play the guitar as well as he can, Gertrude,” put in Miss
Sadie Grote, as she picked up her cards and examined them.
Stalton walked to a chair, which he pulled up near Mauney’s.
“That bird,” he said, indicating the door through which Jolvin had just
gone, “is the only Englishman I ever met who hated England. He’s troubled
with a bad form of ingrowing Anglophobia, and he does everything possible
to Westernize himself. He even plays a Hawaiian guitar. Any time during
the night we’re liable to hear it mewing like a cat up in his room. If he
keeps on he’s certainly going to qualify for one of the leading parts in
a murder scene.”
Mauney laughed.
“I suppose he’s kind of a rebel,” he ventured.
“Rebel!” repeated Stalton, with a puzzled look in his eyes. “How do you
mean?”
Mauney realized just then that Lee’s categorization of the people at
seventy-three Franklin Street was no doubt an individualistic bit of
philosophy somewhat beyond the people themselves, so he accordingly
changed the topic of conversation. He was finding them all very
interesting studies—the most unusual people he had ever known. But, as
the evening wore on, dissipated by cards and gramophone selections,
scraps of dancing executed fantastically by Mrs. Manton and the enamoured
stranger, whose name he did not learn, he grew gradually weary of the
desultory entertainment, and wished Lee would return. At length he came.
After receiving warm welcomes from everyone present, he led Mauney up
to his room. The hallway on the first floor was too dark to give any
view of the place except that Lee’s room was at the front end of the
corridor on the right side, and when illuminated was seen to be a large,
comfortably furnished chamber with two windows facing Franklin Street,
and a flat-topped desk placed between the windows. Upon the desk were a
long row of large technical volumes, an ink-well, blotters and a ruler.
There were two big, leather-upholstered, easy chairs in the outer corner
of the room, facing each other, and a small smoker’s stand between them.
Lee raised the windows to freshen the stale air, then turned in a general
survey of the familiar place.
“What do you think of the bunch?” he asked casually, as he lit a
cigarette.
“I like them fine,” said Mauney. “They’re quite clever, these people.”
“Oh, yes. So they are,” Lee agreed, as he dropped wearily into one of the
chairs and waved Mauney to the other. “Are you smoking?”
Mauney raised his hand.
“You know, Mr. Lee,” he smiled, “I’m just a green-horn from the country.
I’ve had quite a lot of new experiences to-day already. I’m not snobbish
about tobacco, but I’d rather leave that for another day or two, if you
don’t mind.”
“Fine,” laughed Lee. “You’ll get along in the world all right!”
“Do you think so?”
“Surely. You don’t need to take my word for it. I find that Gertrude is
an extremely shrewd judge of men, and I’d like to tell you what she said
about you—if you wouldn’t misunderstand her.”
Mauney was greatly interested. “No, I won’t. I like her a lot. What did
she say?”
“Well, she said in the kitchen, while she was making those sandwiches,
‘Where did you get this big, refreshing country breeze, Max?’ I told her
you were coming to the city for the first time to take up some kind of
academic work, and she looked up at me as if surprised. ‘Clever kid,’ she
said. ‘He walked right over to me like a confidence man at the start.
I pretty near gave him my heart.’ Now, of course,” added Lee, “when
Gertrude feels that way about anybody, he’s elected!”
“How do you mean?”
“Why, the house is yours. You can stay and board here. In other words,
you gibe, fit in, dovetail—do you get me? I told her you might like to
remain here, and she just nodded, which means that to-morrow night,
without anything being said about it, a room will be ready for you to
occupy.”
“Do I pay in advance?” Mauney enquired.
“No, no,” laughed Lee, as if at his friend’s inexorable ignorance; “you
don’t do anything of the kind. She may not ask you for money for a month.
Then she’s liable to suggest it very delicately, and, as a rule, you give
her just a little more than it’s worth—see? You pay for atmosphere here
and for her peculiar selection of other guests.”
“How much should I pay a month?”
“Oh, forty-five or fifty is what I usually contribute. And then, if you
ever see any ice-cream or fruit or a new victrola record or anything in
that line, down-town, you just buy it and bring it home as an occasional
treat.”
Mauney sat back in his chair and smiled. There was a flush of comfort in
his face and a new relaxation. He liked the place, although he was still
overcome, almost exhausted, by the swift changes of the day. Especially
did he like Maxwell Lee, this comforting fellow with visionary dark eyes
who sat opposite him now, smoking meditatively as if quite aware of the
epoch-making significance of a simple railway journey; as if he realized
how great an event it had really been to Mauney’s inexperienced soul.
CHAPTER II.
MAUNEY PREPARES FOR COLLEGE.
“_I consider it most becoming and most civilized to mingle
severity with good fellowship, so that the former may not
grow into melancholy, nor the latter into frivolity._”—_Pliny
the Younger, Ep. Bk. 8._
When he awoke in the morning, he was vaguely conscious of some one
talking in the room. Over the edge of his counterpane his eye caught the
pyjama-ed figure of Lee, shaving in front of the dressing-case mirror,
and he soon realized that Lee was talking to him.
“—thinking it over,” Lee was saying. “And I believe your best stunt is to
look up a tutor who will give you your matriculation work extra-murally.
That won’t tie you down to any formality of going to a high school. You
can work as hard as you like, and, at your age, you’ll clean up that
preliminary dope just like ice-cream.”
Mauney sprang out of bed and shaved. He fell in with Lee’s suggestion and
decided that he would look up a tutor that very morning. He was thrilled
with excitement and happiness. Outside the windows, rain was splashing on
the sills, but it was the merriest, gladdest rain he had ever listened
to. Before him stretched the great adventure of education, rich in its
promise of compensation for all the years of miserable waiting. In fact,
could it be quite true that he was actually conscious? Was he not rather
treading the air of a delightful dream, from which, at any moment, he
would awake to bleak realities?
There were only three at the breakfast table when they descended—Mrs.
Manton, seated at the end in a rich dressing gown of yellow silk, and
Jolvin, with Stalton, at one side. The Englishman, fully dressed as for
business, ate in dignified silence. Stalton, whom to know was to love,
sat in his shirt sleeves without a collar, as if he had no other business
in life than to act in the capacity of a cross-corner mentor for his
landlady. Mauney was assigned to a place between the two men, while Lee
sat down at the opposite side.
“It’s a grand morning, Mr. Bard,” said Stalton, as he poured some
medicine into a spoon from a large bottle by his place. Perhaps, thought
Mauney, Stalton’s gray hair and flabby grey face were evidence of some
chronic ailment—the wearing effects of pain. He felt sorry for his table
companion.
“Hello,” laughed Lee, glancing across at the bottle, “What are you taking
now, Freddie?”
“This is a new consignment of dope, Max,” he replied good-naturedly.
“It’s guaranteed to contain the real wallop. Made up of yeast, raisins,
vitamines and monkey glands. Don’t be surprised to see me challenging the
heavy-weight champion next spring.”
Jolvin, whose mind at the moment may have been grappling with serious
business problems, was evidently irritated by Stalton’s remark. Suddenly
his face whirled directly about toward Mauney, who nearly jumped with
astonishment. “For God’s sake,” whispered Jolvin, “I wish he’d stop that
stuff at breakfast.” Then his head snapped back to receive the last
spoonful of his cornflakes.
“One would fancy,” he said aloud, “it would stop raining!”
“Yes,” murmured Stalton. “One would. But I guess there’s a few bucketfuls
left up there yet.”
“How’s the tooth this morning, Freddie?” enquired Miss Grote, as she
walked into the room.
“It’s still in my head, Sadie, but I expected it would jump out, about
two this morning.
“For God’s sake,” whispered Jolvin into Mauney’s ear; “he can’t talk
about anything, but teeth—teeth!”
He made a nervous stab at a rasher of bacon and cleared his throat. “I
fancy,” he said aloud, “we’ll be getting some prime weather after this!”
“Yes, no doubt,” replied Stalton. “This rain ought to prime anything,
including the cistern pump.”
Mrs. Manton cast a reproving look at Stalton, shook her head hopelessly,
sighed, and continued her breakfast. Mauney, in the best of spirits
himself, unconsciously cast his sympathy with Stalton.
“Did you hear the rain on the roof last night, Mr. Stalton?” he asked, by
way of making conversation.
“Sure thing.”
“Did it help you to sleep?”
“It doesn’t affect me like that, Mr. Bard,” he answered. “Unfortunately I
passed through a period of my life when I had the rain without the roof,
and rain ever since brings up the past. And then, in this kind of weather
my teeth are always—”
“For God’s sake,” exclaimed Jolvin aloud, bolting from the table,
stamping indignantly into the hall, and presently banging the front door
behind him, as he left the house.
“What’s wrong with that long drink?” purred Mrs. Manton.
“He’s just acting natural,” Stalton said. “I knew he got out of bed over
the foot. He’s had more hard luck with his uncle’s estate in England,
too, and I knew he’d scoot if I said anything more about teeth.”
“Well, he can tame himself,” Mrs. Manton submitted calmly. “This is not
an institution for the nervous, and if Jolvin doesn’t like it, he’ll
discover that there aren’t many invitations out to remain.”
“These fits of his are getting more frequent,” Stalton remarked.
“He’ll have to mix his drinks a little better than that anyhow,” said the
landlady. “Don’t you think so, Max?”
“It takes all kinds of people to make a world, Gertrude.” Lee reminded
her. “I feel so darned cut up about my biochemistry, I can’t be expected
to give an unbiased judgment.”
“Poor boy. You’ll get it, all right. When do you write?”
“This morning.”
Mauney accompanied his friend, whom he began to address now as Max,
down to the university and, after Lee had disappeared into one of the
buildings, stood thrilled by the spectacle before him. Here, surrounding
the square, reposed the exemplary specimens of architecture that
housed the various faculties. Max, in leaving, had pointed them out
hurriedly—medicine, industrial science, Methodist theology, the great
library, the convocation hall, the gymnasium, and last, but most
impressive, the arts building, a solid, reposeful mass, as sure as
learning itself, with its vine-dressed, dull grey walls of stone, it’s
turreted tower, its marvellous gothic entrance, leading from the common
day, past its embellished arch, into the dim twilight of contemplation.
The square was belted by a gravel road, serving the various buildings,
and was itself divided into eight triangular lawns by wide cinder paths,
crossing from side to side and from corner to corner. It was a pleasant
view, for the art of the landscapist had relieved the conventionality
of the pattern by maples and ash-trees, distributed over the lawns, and
by clusters of spiræa and barberry set attractively at the edges of the
paths. The square was nearly deserted, save for one or two students who
sat on the benches reading.
Mauney wished that with the fall opening he could be ready to enter upon
his college course, but, knowing this to be impossible, turned sadly
away, but yet with burning ambition, to find the tutor whom Max had
recommended. He was discovered in a little office on College Street,
a small, withered individual, almost swallowed up in the cluttered
disorder of his administrative quarters. His yellow face, creased like
old parchment, bent into a mechanical smile as he listened to Mauney’s
desires. For a moment he fingered the paper-knife on his desk, then
cast a weary look at his young customer through tarnished silver-rimmed
spectacles.
“The matriculation requirements, Mr. Bard,” he said, in a cultured, but
infinitely dreary voice, as if repeating a stereotyped speech, “are
becoming increasingly onerous. The departments of the University of
Merlton have established rather severe standards for college entrance,
and I fear you will experience disheartening difficulties in attempting
to gain matriculation status within the limits of a single winter term.
However, your ambition is indeed commendable and, with perseverance,
combined with extra tutoring, you may perhaps be able to succeed. The
course that I would recommend”—he reached for a folder and, opening it,
ran his yellow forefinger down its pages—“is partly a correspondence
course, but partly, also, one of personal supervision, especially in
science subjects. The cost of this course is considerable, but I am
glad to be able to quote an average of sixty per cent. successes over
a period of the last fifteen years. Other preparatory tutors have not,
unfortunately, been able to compete with these figures. The fees are
payable strictly in advance, and if you decide to embark upon the course,
you are promised the same individual, careful attention that is given to
everyone.”
Mauney questioned nothing, but embarked. He was almost delirious with
happiness over the proceedings, the enrolment, the purchase of a score
of interesting books which the tutor recommended, and the prospect of
commencing so quickly the life for which he had longed. His room at
seventy-three Franklin Street, next to Max’s, was soon a student’s den,
with its own table, its own volumes and its easy chairs. His life became
a very pleasant thing, for, with his daily visits to the little office
on College Street, and the diversions of the boarding house, he found
what seemed to him a wealth of variety. He was astonished at his own
contentment and at the self-sufficient quality in him that scarcely,
if ever, caused him to think of his former home, or to reflect upon
the dearth of relatives in his new existence. He wrote to his aunt in
Scotland, expressing high satisfaction with his present occupations. He
settled down in the loved quietness of his room, to master the rudiments
of education. Never once did he stop, weary, for with the sharp appetite
of a starved mind, he thought of nothing but more information, and more.
Max, who had been successful in his supplementary examination and was
now engaged in the fourth year of his medical course, frequently dropped
into Mauney’s room for a smoke and a chat. Max never spoke about his
own home, and Mauney refrained from questioning him. The basis of their
friendship was something personal and gloriously indefinite, that neither
thought of analyzing. They felt at home with each other, and never, from
the very beginning of their acquaintance, did anything disturb this quite
unaccountable understanding. Mauney always felt that there was a hidden
thought at the centre of Max, with which some day he would be favored,
for behind his dark and often weary eyes great dreams seemed to pass,
greater than the drawl of his clever and sarcastic tongue. He ventured
to think that perhaps Max had drifted into a profession for which his
nature disqualified him, for he naturally gained the impression that a
medical student needed to be, in one particular sense, a feelingless
person, with certain vulture-like qualities to steel him against the
revoltingly physical aspects of his work. The skull in Max’s wardrobe,
the illustrations in his books—there were many symbols of the idea. In
secret, however, Max was evidently no materialist, but sought the wide
comfort of philosophic generalities. No one, to be sure, would suspect it
at seventy-three Franklin Street, where he was known by his smile, but
Mauney would catch the plaintive note in some quiet remark, as when one
evening, in discussing college work in general, he said:
“Wrap up your colleges and throw them in the ocean. They furnish us a few
years of diversion, but after that there’s life, and, strange to relate,
Mauney, my son, they have not prepared us for that.”
Mauney excused such criticisms of the university on the basis of a
personal warp in Max’s character, forgave him for what seemed a vandal
attitude, and went on believing more firmly than ever in the light that
spread from the lamp of learning. By its flame, comforted and inspired,
he forgot the passage of time. He failed to notice the blush of late
autumn that swept like a passion over the trees of the city, scarcely saw
their bare arms raised in supplication to the greying skies, nor heaven’s
response of swift winds carrying fleecy burdens. Not until the firm banks
of snow began to settle down, smaller and smaller, under the warming suns
of a windy March, and energetic streams of murky water rushed along the
street gutters, did he wake from his steadfast dream to realize that his
term was nearly over. Then came a sharp bout with the examinations and at
the end of May he stood looking curiously down at the withered old tutor
who was smiling less stiffly, less professionally, than usual.
“I am pleased to tell you,” he said, “that you have gained your
university entrance standing. Your work with me in the preliminary
subjects has been, to say the least, good, and it will afford me pleasure
to produce documentary evidence of your success.” He paused to reach a
small certificate from a drawer. “This,” he continued, handing it to
Mauney, “should be carefully preserved and forwarded to the university
in making your application for admission thereto, sometime before
September.”
“Thanks.”
“And before you go,” said the tutor, rising stiffly from his chair, “let
me express the pleasure I have had in overseeing your early academic
career. Moreover, I would be interested to learn what particular course
you contemplate taking at the university.”
This was a new idea to Mauney. He looked at the instructor for a moment,
with a perplexed expression.
“I’m much interested in people,” he said, “and I think if I could get a
course in history it would suit me.”
“Remember,” cautioned the old man, lifting his finger as if admonishing
a wayward son, “history is a culture course which, from the financial
standpoint, leads you nowhere. It would fit you only for teaching,
a profession which, as I have learned from acrid experience, is not
perfectly appreciated by the public. You have other courses to choose
from, the more practical ones, as they might be called, such as
engineering, law, medicine.”
“Well, I’ll have to consider the question,” Mauney replied.
“Just so. In the meantime, I would be glad to advise you on any points
and to see you, from time to time, in order to learn of your academic
progress.”
There was a light almost of kindness in the wrinkled, yellow face as he
bade him good-bye. Mauney did not know how seldom that light had been
there under similar circumstances, nor did he know that the affection
of the old tutor was the same kind of affection that he unconsciously
inspired in most of his associates. Burning with gleeful happiness over
his success, he hurried home to tell Max.
“Well, you old bear!” exclaimed Lee, violently shaking Mauney’s hand on
learning the news. “You couldn’t have done better. I’m as happy as if I’d
done it myself.”
“Behold the hero,” Max said, as they went into supper together. “He’s
just laid ’em all out. Four years’ work in one.”
“Hurrah!” shouted Mrs. Manton, putting her arms about Mauney’s neck and
kissing him prettily on the cheek. “I knew you’d do it, Mauney,” she said.
“Maybe you did, Gertrude,” he laughed, trying to cover his embarrassment,
“but I didn’t expect that. However, don’t think I didn’t like it.”
Even though Mrs. Manton’s impulsive embrace was decidedly consoling,
Mauney nevertheless disliked it. He felt immediately afterwards that he
would increase his diligence to detect her next time before it was too
late. He accused himself of being perhaps by nature too cold. But from
the evening, some years since, when he had felt a woman’s hand upon
his own, he had disliked the feeling. A woman’s hand was too soft. It
reminded him unavoidably of a snake, and made him shiver. This thesis
ran through his private thoughts a good deal. He did not know women. He
thought they were rather pleasant beings at times, but the danger of
having their warm, soft hands suddenly upon him, inspired an attitude
of caution. He felt confident of managing them in conversation, but
confidence flew to the winds at the approach of hands, or arms, to say
nothing of lips.
* * * * *
The summer months passed with snail-like tardiness. Having no place
in particular to go, and nothing in particular to do, he remained in
Merlton at his boarding house, and divided his time between reading and
making excursions on foot, exploring the city. He now seized his first
opportunity to gratify a long desire, and spent many of his mornings on
the river. Max, who had this time passed his annual examinations without
stars, had gone out west to teach school for the summer, in order to make
enough money to finance his final year in medicine. The balance of the
personnel at the boarding house remained unchanged, until one morning
at breakfast he learned that Jolvin was about to return to England. The
news came from Stalton, who said he had been talking to Jolvin the night
before.
“Gertrude,” he said, “do you know what’s happened to that bird? He’s
fallen into a big estate—his uncle’s estate. Why, it’s worth a couple of
hundred thousand. I saw the lawyer’s letter last night. What do you know
about that?”
Mrs. Manton ate in silence for a moment. “Do Jolvin’s socialistic beliefs
prevent him from accepting it?” she asked.
“Not very much!” Stalton replied with sarcastic emphasis. “And, by the
way he was talking last night, he’s forgiven England for being such a
dough-headed outfit. Why, that fellow came out here two years ago like an
understudy of Columbus. England? Not if he knew it. And now I’ll bet he
gets the first boat home. Just watch him skidaddle.”
It was not many minutes until Jolvin, the centre of conversation, came
down to breakfast, unusually smart, his face wreathed in smiles.
“Good morning, people!” he said expansively, with a very full bow. “Isn’t
it a lovely morning? Good-morning Stalton!”
“How do you do?” said Stalton crisply.
After taking his seat, the Englishman, noticing the silence of the table,
thought perhaps to stir up conversation.
“You know,” he began, glancing at his dish, “these corn-flakes are really
beastly grotesque things. In England one scarcely sees them. They are,
I fancy, an expression of American commercialism which invades even the
time-honored ritual of breakfast.”
Stalton suddenly dropped his spoon on the table.
“Well, I’m damned,” he said, simply, and once more took up his spoon,
having received a stern look from Mrs. Manton.
Jolvin appeared not to have heard Stalton’s remark, but continued, “But,
of course, America is too busy to cook porridge. There is no leisure or
time for what one might call a comfortable dignity.”
“All this don’t jibe very well with what you usually say about England,”
Stalton remarked. “Most of the time you seemed to hate the word.”
“Not at all,” argued Jolvin. “Any criticisms I have ever made of England
were meant most heartily. But they were criticisms, not blasphemies. If I
were indifferent to England, I should never bother even to criticize.”
“Have it your way, Jolvin,” said Stalton. “But you were always damning
the leisure class. Now you’re praising them.”
“I still damn them for their faults. Why, then, should I not praise them
for their virtues?”
“Sail right ahead,” invited Stalton. “You’re in good form this morning.
Got me outclassed, that’s a cinch.”
Even without Jolvin the place was still a most unusual boarding house.
Mauney had learned, by this time, some of its tacitly-established
principles. In the first place Mrs. Manton, at thirty-five, being
widowed as was understood, regarded her house as a master hobby. Great
attention was bestowed upon the furniture, the rugs and the walls. She
wanted her guests to be comfortable and, to that end, would put herself
about unceasingly. No advertising of vacant rooms was ever done, for
it was better to have an empty room without a monthly revenue, than a
full room with an unknown, undesirable stranger. Certain standards had
to be satisfied. Mrs. Manton’s boarders had to possess what she tersely
designated as “_savez_.” This meant a number of things. It meant the
faculty of living in harmony with other boarders, of being informally
polite and not impolitely formal. It meant keeping in the background all
grandiose ideas, but at the same time indulging in enough conversation to
register one’s consciousness. It meant that one should not comment upon
the doings of others, but at the same time that one should avoid doing
anything to invite comment. It meant even this, that if one’s breakfast
were not placed before him as quickly as desired, he was expected to
go to the kitchen and get it; or if one’s bed was not made up, the
understanding was that it be made up by oneself. And finally, of course,
that after a few days’ residence as an introduction, one would notice
that the landlady was to be addressed familiarly as “Gertrude.”
Mrs. Manton preferred men to women boarders. Mrs. Dixon was permitted
because her husband was a good sort, with funds of information about
racing horses and the track in general. Sadie Grote, a stenographer down
town, was agreeable and sweet, very unselfish and therefore helpful.
Women had often been under consideration. At one time Mrs. Manton
conducted an experiment by letting the whole top flat to four university
girls. They remained a whole term, but when the last of their baggage had
left the front door in the spring, Mrs. Manton had turned to Stalton with
all the impatience of a disappointed experimenter.
“Freddie,” she had vowed, “never again! If we ever have girls, they’ve
got to have blood in their veins, not pasteurized milk. Isn’t it pitiful
how that dreadful disease known as brain-wart seems to get them.”
There was no gainsaying it—eligibility to seventy-three Franklin Street
required unusual, indescribable qualities. If Mrs. Manton had written
down rules of conduct (which, of course, she never did), and hung them on
the wall, they would have read much as follows:
“1.—Avoid extremes.
“2.—Nourish high-falooting ideas, if you wish, but keep them
under your hat.
“3.—Be as happy as you choose, but don’t explode with nauseous
hilarity, since somebody else may be sad.
“4.—Be downcast when you must, but don’t spread your gloom.
“5.—Be erudite, but don’t teach your ideas.
“6.—Be chuck-full of anything you choose to be chuck-full of,
but sit on it.
“7.—Remember that seventy-three aims at averages, prefers
neutral tints and the soft pedal.
“8.—Don’t effervesce—most of us have passed that stage.
“9.—Don’t criticize—we all have to live.
“10.—Live, but don’t plan. To-day was to-morrow, yesterday.”
Mauney felt unlikely to transgress many of these tacit rules of conduct.
He was quiet enough in disposition to melt into the quiet shadows of the
place, and was fond enough of the inhabitants to pattern his superficial
manners after theirs. But he well knew that there was danger of breaking
one of the rules. He had not yet passed the stage referred to in number
eight, and was quite liable to burst forth enthusiastically to some one.
His enthusiasm for his books and the sheer happiness he obtained from
them was dangerously concealed. It troubled him. He wanted to talk to Max
Lee, and longed for his return. Then, too, the present, though charming,
was so incomplete! The others at the boarding house truly lived for the
present moment, but Mauney was feeling the great future beating like a
pulse. He was standing like a benighted sailor on the dark coast, feeling
the break of waves he could not distinctly see, and coveting the dawn
when all would be revealed.
CHAPTER III.
THE OTHER HALF OF THE CLASS.
“_A morning sun, and a wine-bred child and a Latin-bred woman
seldom end well._”—_Herbert’s Collection._
Mauney met Lorna Freeman the first day of college. He did not know her
name at first, but she impressed him. This was partly because certain
grooves, instituted that day, promised to guide her in his company for
the next four years, brilliant in prospect. It happened that out of the
great University of Merlton, only two first year students had chosen
the “straight” history course. Many others had elected to take combined
courses of history plus something else or other, but of the entire
academic population of the first year only two showed the real specialist
thirst for history alone. This meant that they would receive much that
the others would not. They would be inducted more deeply into the records
of human development. They would be together, a class all by themselves,
at times, penetrating further than the dilettanti, who stopped with
constitutional history of Germany. For these two out-and-out students
there would be interesting journeys afield.
He faced Lorna Freeman, therefore, with at least the vague knowledge that
they two were the real, serious history class. They enrolled together
with the assistant professor of history, Dr. Alfred K. Tanner, M.A.,
Ph.D., D.C.L. (and other degrees usually taken for granted), in his
particular upstairs office in one of the wings of the Arts Building.
Miss Freeman had already submitted her name, just as any other student
might have done, although there were reasons, as shall be seen, why it
was superfluous. There were a score of students outside Dr. Tanner’s
door, waiting to be enrolled. But they were the part-timers, the
non-specialists, the great unwashed. First attention must be given to the
“straight” students, and Alfred Tanner had already given his attention to
Lorna Freeman, had waved her to a stiff chair by the mullioned windows,
and was now giving his attention to Mauney.
He was a big, energetic figure, even as he sat behind his flat-topped
desk, with a look of keen awareness mixed with love of his work. He was
grey, and bald, and hugely present. He leaned forward, gesticulating,
snapping his grey eyes eagerly.
“Your name is what?” he asked.
“Bard.”
“Bard, yes, Bard. What else?” he mumbled, as he wrote it down.
“Mauney.”
“Mauney, yes; Mauney Bard! I see!” he looked up to subject Mauney to a
severe scrutiny, during which he was absent-mindedly biting the nail of
his little finger.
“And now, tell me, Mauney Bard,” he said suddenly, aiming his plump
forefinger at his new pupil, “Tell me, as well as you can—that’s to say
offhandedly—tell me exactly why you elected the straight history course?”
As he waited for an answer, he looked frowningly toward the window,
rubbed his nose, and held his head like a musician preparing to judge the
quality of a chord of music.
“I would say the reason is simple enough,” said Mauney.
“Good,” commended Tanner, hammering the desk with his fist: “Simple
enough? Yes? Good. All right, Bard; explain that. Tell me exactly why you
elected it?”
“Because,” said Mauney deliberately, “I’ve always wanted to understand
the basic principles of human progress.”
Tanner, still frowning at the window, mumbled in an absent-minded tone:
“‘Basic principles of human progress.’ Yes; basic principles.” Then,
turning suddenly toward Mauney, he once more aimed his finger like a
pistol at his face, while his voice came out with great clearness and
deliberation: “Good for you. That’s good, Bard, very good. Now, you will
consult your time-table to find out your classes, and, by the way, it’s
a very small class this year.” He turned toward the young lady seated by
the window.
“Lorna!” he said.
“Yes! Uncle Alfred,” she responded, in a clear voice, rising and
gracefully approaching the desk.
“This is Mauney Bard—Miss Freeman!”
“How do you do,” she said, with a faint smile and a nod of her head.
As Mauney bowed to her he noticed what clear, blue eyes looked fearlessly
into his—calm, quiet eyes, with almost a suggestion of challenge. She was
in a grey street costume that clung neatly to her spare, trim form, and
wore a wide-rimmed black hat that sat smartly upon her blonde hair and
emphasized the natural pallor of her face. Her features were regular—a
straight, refined nose, and thin, pretty lips. Her hands were extremely
white. In different attire she could have played a part in a tableaux
of the vestal virgins. She gave Mauney the same feeling as he had often
experienced on looking across the meadows in the white light of a dewy
dawn.
“You and Mr. Bard are the class,” laughed Dr. Tanner. “I hope that a
friendship of reasonable rivalry may exist in the class, at all times,
and that we will be able to find a room somewhere small enough to hold
us.”
“I know a good place, Uncle Alfred,” said Miss Freeman.
“Where, then?”
“In the tower.”
“Well, we shall see, Lorna. We shall see. I don’t like it myself, but
your suggestion merits consideration. H’m! The tower? Why on earth, my
dear child, do you say the tower?”
“It isn’t in use.”
“No. Neither is the furnace room.”
“But the tower would give one such a philosophical elevation, just like
old Teufelsdrockh in Carlyle’s book.”
“Oh, damn Carlyle!”
“Uncle Alfred!”
“Excuse me, Lorna,” he laughed mischievously. “Well—a place will be
found. Now, you two, clear out. There’s a congregation of pilgrims near
by, seeking the shrine of Magnus Apollo.”
Mauney did not know that the young lady with whom he walked down the worn
stone steps of the history department was the daughter of Professor
Freeman of that same department, whose office they passed on their way to
the square. That was to be learned later. He only knew that she seemed an
exceptionally fine person.
“Isn’t it funny,” he remarked, as they passed through the long corridor
of the Arts Building. “That there should only be two of us in the class.”
“No, I don’t think it’s funny,” she said.
“I mean remarkable,” he corrected himself.
“Well, it’s a small class, certainly,” she admitted. “There are few
people who elect history as a straight course in Merlton, I believe.
There should be more. I had wished there would be at least another woman.”
“That would have made it pleasanter for you, Miss Freeman.”
“Naturally.”
Mauney noticed how little deference her manner contained. After he
had left her at the front entrance and was on his way home, he wished
that she had said: “Oh, I think we’ll get along all right.” But she
had frankly admitted that another woman in the year would have made it
pleasanter for her. Queer little blaming thoughts rose up in his mind
against her. Then his thoughts changed. He began to admire her attitude.
She had been absolutely frank. Was that not rather unusual? Was she not
an unusually truthful kind of girl?
Presently he lost all touch with the argument. His brain was painting
pictures of her, in dignified poses, representing some abstract idea of
virtue. Finally he checked the images and cursed himself for being such a
susceptible person. Miss Freeman was merely a member of the class. Half
the class had no right to be thinking such thoughts of the other half.
Nevertheless Mauney’s first impression of university life was an
impression of a woman, the first woman, in fact, who ever seriously
disturbed his thoughts. That night he went into Max Lee’s room to have a
smoke. Max was tired after his summer of teaching, and was viewing the
fifth and last year of his course with evident distaste.
“Sit down, Mauney, my son,” he invited. “There’s some good cigarettes.
I’m glad you’re taking to smokes. It will make things evener between us.
Well, how’s things?”
“Not bad, Max,” he replied, taking one of the easy chairs. “I got
enrolled to-day, but haven’t seen much of the university life yet. The
assistant professor of history, Dr. Tanner, is a good fellow. I’m going
to like him. He’s got a big-brotherly sort of way with him, and I hope
he lectures to us. I didn’t see the professor yet. I suppose he’s too
important for a mere first-year man to meet so soon.”
“How many are in your group?”
“Just two. Myself and a young lady, whom I met this morning in Tanner’s
office. Her name is Freeman—rather a good-looking person. She and I are
apparently booked up together for a four-years voyage.”
“In that case,” smiled Max, “I hope she’s companionable.”
“Well,” he replied very seriously, “that’s doubtful. I wish there was
another man along—somebody I could swear at when I felt like it. I’ll
make the best of it. She may be a really fine person. She’s a niece of
Tanner’s, too. When do you start work?”
“To-morrow. Fifth year is pretty easy, but I wish it was over. I’m
getting sick of the whole game.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Money, of course.”
“Do you mean you’re short of cash?”
“Sure. It’s going to be tough wiggling to get through this year,” he
admitted. “Do you know, lack of money is the one, big, damned tragedy of
my life?”
“Could I lend you some?” Mauney asked simply.
“Could you—what?” exclaimed Lee, sitting up. “Have you got money?”
“Some,” admitted Mauney. “I could lend you a few hundred, if you need it.”
“It’s mighty decent of you, boy,” Max said. “But I couldn’t accept it.”
“You don’t need to feel that way.”
“But I do nevertheless. No, I couldn’t. That’s all.”
“Will you promise to let me know if you need it, later?”
“Look here,” said Lee, settling back in his chair wearily. “I mentioned
money only to dismiss the topic. I have no desire for wealth, and it’s
not immediate needs I’m thinking of. But here I am, fagged, at the start
of my last year. When I get my M.D. I’ll be as far from making money as
I am now. It’s getting to be an up-hill game, you see? There are certain
things that a fellow wants to do some time before he dies, and getting
married is one of them.”
“Yes,” said Mauney; “I suppose that comes into the scheme of things.”
“The scheme of nothing!” scoffed Lee. “It simply gets into your blood
when you meet the right woman.”
“Am I to suppose,” asked Mauney, in a teasing tone, “that you have met
her?”
Lee was silent. His dark eyes were seriously looking into space, while
his cigarette burned slowly between his fingers. Mauney realized that he
had trampled carelessly on holy ground, but allowed his own silence to be
his only apology.
“We’ve known each other long enough, Mauney, to understand how things
affect us individually. I’ve never mentioned women to you. But there has
been one, all along—this past year. She’s real. I love her, but I can’t
tell her. She regards me only as a friend, and I wouldn’t let her know
how I feel for anything.”
“You may wonder why I wouldn’t,” he continued. “Well, it’s like this,
I’ve made up my mind to go into research work next year, if my health
remains good, and that kind of work won’t give me a living, let alone
enable me to marry. She’s a girl who deserves happiness. Some one else
will give it to her—not me.”
“But the future may be brighter than you think, Max.”
“I’m not a pessimist, Mauney,” he said thoughtfully, leaning his head
away back and closing his eyes. “I keep up a cheerful front most of the
time. But I know—I simply know that I’ll never marry Freda MacDowell.”
“What is she like, Max?”
“I’ll have you meet her some time. She’s just like nobody else.”
* * * * *
The opening days of college dragged slowly for Mauney. There were
broken classes, time-tables not yet perfected, initiations and other
interfering details. Then, as if suddenly, the great university wheel
quivered to a start and immediately swung around with remarkable
smoothness and astonishing rapidity. In the daytime he sat listening to
interesting lectures. In the evenings he lived with his books, deeply
absorbed, as the weeks passed, with the problems of history. The records
of human progress drew him with a warm, romantic attraction, for his
imagination filled in the gaps that make history different from story.
Characters became real and living. He rose and fell in sympathy with the
dim fortunes of forgotten men. The formal page, with its caption and its
paragraphs, faded into invisibility, leaving a glowing passage of actual
life in which he brought himself temporarily to live.
It was very engrossing. Lorna Freeman found it so, too. She grew somewhat
more friendly as the weeks passed, and by mid-term she would talk volubly
with Mauney on historical subjects. He found her mind to be an acutely
exacting one. It surprised him at first to discover such a mind in a
woman. He thought her mental powers exceeded his own, because she could
nearly always trip him up in an argument, a thing which she habitually
did without exultation, but just methodically, as if tripping him up were
part of her natural occupation. One day he learned that her father was
Professor Robert Freeman, the seldom-seen head of the department. Mauney
only saw him once, as he was pointed out walking thoughtfully through
the corridors, a small, shrewd-appearing man, with grey eyes and a fixed
smile.
History was absorbing, but our young hero was finding himself a good deal
in thought about Lorna Freeman. Not once had he ever said a thing even
faintly familiar. One Monday morning, however, the temptation became
unduly strong. Miss Freeman was seated in the seminary room by the long
table, waiting for Dr. Tanner to take the class. It was winter, and her
fur coat was laid neatly over the back of an empty chair. She never
removed her hat, a prerogative gained from the intimate size of the
class. As Mauney entered the room she looked up from a book and nodded.
“Good morning,” he said, as he took a chair at the opposite side of the
table. The large Gothic window at the front of the room commanded a view
of the square, busy with students hurrying in various directions to their
lectures. Dr. Tanner was late. They sat for fully a quarter of an hour,
she quietly reading, Mauney stealing occasional glances at her pensive
face. He tried to categorize Lorna Freeman, but could not. She did not
fit into any types existent in his mind. She was definitely unusual.
She attracted him on this account. There was also about her a certain
queenliness. Why had they never once found anything to talk about except
their work?
“I guess Dr. Tanner has been waylaid,” he ventured at length.
“He’s usually so punctual, too,” she replied, and then continued reading.
“Do you ever get tired of studying?” he went on, determined to sound her.
“Well, naturally. Don’t you?”
“I certainly do. I suppose if there was another man in the class I
wouldn’t mind it so much.”
She glanced quickly up.
“Mind what, Mr. Bard?”
“Well, you see, Miss Freeman, perhaps there’s something else in life
besides continual study. I’d like to have somebody to chew the rag with,
once in a blue moon.”
She laughed.
“I don’t know whether I’m qualified for chewing the rag or not,” she said
slowly. “What does the process signify?”
“Oh, just being sort of human, once in a while.” There was a savor of
mild cautery in his tone that did not fail to reach his fair companion.
“And what, pray, does being human mean?” she inquired.
“Personal, I imagine. It means cutting down this constant barrier you
keep up.”
Her eyebrows lowered into a delicate frown, while her calm, blue eyes
took on an expression half-way between surprise and displeasure. Then her
pale face blushed.
“Well, Mr. Bard, I hardly understand!” she began. “I—”
“Hold on,” he interrupted. “You mustn’t be offended. That’s the last idea
in my head. If I didn’t care at all I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”
He rose from the table and walked slowly, to stand by the great window.
Her eyes followed his big form, and then rested on the back of his auburn
head. She was not only puzzled, but even confused. After a hesitant
moment she rose very slowly and then walked quickly to his side.
She touched him on the arm and looked up into his face.
“Oh, tell me,” she said with some distress, “have I done anything
to hurt your feelings? You’re such a genuine sort of a man, I really
wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
Mauney’s blue eyes opened wide with surprise. He saw such child-like
simplicity in her face that he smiled with admiration. He knew, just
then, that he could have surrounded her shoulders with both his arms.
“Thanks,” he said. “You’ve got me trimmed a mile for brains. That’s the
whole trouble.”
“How do you mean?”
“Brains! You seem to have more of them than I have.”
She frowned and glanced at his mouth.
“Well, does one usually say that, even if one thinks so?”
“I don’t know,” he answered seriously. “I said it because it’s so, and
because it’s just your brains that keep you from treating me humanly.”
“Oh—you mean chewing the rag?”
“Sure. You see, I don’t know how to act with you. We’re always together
and I think it would be better to be a little more informal.”
She placed the end of her fountain pen against her lips, pensively.
“Oh, let’s!” she suddenly exclaimed. “That would be so nice, wouldn’t it?”
“You see,” he said, glancing toward the great square, “the trouble has
been that I didn’t know whether you had any heart or not. You have just
been a sort of disembodied intelligence.”
“Now, listen,” she said, with a look of mild reproach. “I’m sorry if
I’ve made things unpleasant. As you say, it would be better if there
was another man in the class. But there isn’t likely to be. So,
consequently, we will have to hit upon a reasonable _modus vivendi_. I
think it’s really awfully nice of you to be so frank. But, really, I
don’t quite understand what’s wrong. I have always just been natural, I
think.”
“Perhaps. But we never took time to get acquainted,” he explained. “I
know what you think about the secession of the plebs, but I have no idea
what you think about Tanner, or me, or music, or friendship. I don’t know
what your hobbies are, or what you think about in your spare time. I’d
like to talk over these things if you ever find time.”
“That’s fine. Why shouldn’t we? Will you come over to my house for tea
some day?”
“When?”
“Why—any time. Say to-morrow?”
It was agreed.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PROFESSOR.
“_Let the fools talk, knowledge has its value._”—_La Fontaine
Fables._
The tea at Freeman’s was over.
Mauney was sitting in Max Lee’s room after supper. These evening chats
had become almost necessary. There was a time when they could both digest
their evening meals downstairs in the dining-room in conversation with
the rest. But now they neither felt ready to settle down to their studies
without brief exchange of ideas and impressions.
“Anything new, my son?”
“Very new,” admitted Mauney, lighting a cigarette. “Sit down, Max. I’m
going to tell you about the Freeman’s.”
“The young lady, Lorna, I suppose,” drawled Lee, as he sprawled in one
of the easy chairs. “Women are always an interesting matter to me. And
you’re a popular devil with women, too—”
“Hold on—”
“True. Only they all wonder. They all wonder at you.”
“At me?”
“Correct. You have a woman-hating nature. You don’t warm up to women very
much. That acts as a challenge and keeps them coming. Do you do that on
purpose?”
“I don’t hate ’em, boy,” he contradicted. “But I find they are very
uncertain beings. Take this Freeman girl. Why, you’d travel fifteen days
before you’d find another brain like hers, Max. She’s like a steel-trap
with the real snap to it. If she doesn’t quite ‘savez’ what you’re
talking about, she lights right into your remark, like an expert surgeon
with a knife, and dissects it down to the heart. Then, having established
your meaning, she frames her reply with the greatest care.... My God!”
“What’s wrong?”
“You’d think she was being interviewed by a reporter. She’s so precise
about giving you her real, unbiased, judicial opinion. Whew! That brain
of hers! It’s wonderful, wonderful. I wish I had her brains, Max. A
memory like a photograph album. Just turn it up, see? A judgment as deft
as Solomon’s—a good judgment—nothing leaks out of it—every point receives
due weight. She’s different. She speaks differently from most people. You
never know what she’s going to say. In fact, you can be sure she won’t
say what any other girl would say. Suppose you were to ask an average
girl how she likes playing cards, what would you expect her to say?”
“Oh, she might say ‘I adore cards,’ or ‘I’m not especially keen,’ or ‘I’d
like to play them with you in a cosy nook,’ and so forth, _ad nauseam_.”
“Well, you’d never guess what she said. I asked her if she liked cards.
She said, ‘That all depends on the cards. If they’re very new and
slippery, I could sit for hours sliding them through my fingers; but if
they stick the least bit they make me shiver.’ That’s only one example.
I asked her what her aim in life was.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“You impertinent rascal! Nobody does that.”
“Why not?”
“Nobody has any aim in life—we just drift. Well, what did she say?”
“She sat back in her chair, smiling as if she enjoyed trying to figure it
out. Then she said, ‘Oh, Mr. Bard, did you ever listen to a violin until
you were entranced?’ I admitted that I had, at times, done so. ‘Well!’
she said, ‘that’s just it. I want to make my life just like a beautiful
strain of music.’ Now what do you think of that, Max?”
Lee frowned. “Frothy stuff to me. Unreal, hyper-imaginative, away off the
trail, anæmic and supermellifluous.”
Mauney laughed.
“You should have taken up writing,” he said. “Queer family, these
Freemans. I never met nor ever heard of anybody a bit like them. The
professor is as gentle as a woman, but he gives you a feeling like
a storm brewing. It’s hard to express. He’s courteous, refined, and
pleasant, but he’s diabolically clever. We haven’t had any lectures from
him yet. He was up in his study at home, slaying a book. She introduced
me. He couldn’t have been nicer, and yet—well, damn it—you can’t get hold
of him. He’s like the ivory playing cards. He slips through your fingers.
You think you’ve got him, and just then you notice that he’s miles ahead
of you.”
Mauney then shook with sudden laughter.
“What’s the matter with you?” Max said, glaring at him. “Been having a
tooth extracted under gas?”
“No. But, I don’t get that family at all. There’s Mrs. Freeman, too.
She’s like a velvet comforter laid softly about your soul. Her voice is
like velvet. She’s more genuine, I’d wager, than her husband. But—oh,
Lord!—there’s some tragedy. Such an endless, engulfing tragedy; so big
and endless that she has developed a kind of martyr attitude. She’s like
a Sister of the Perpetual Adoration, suddenly required to do penance by
living a civil life.”
“I’ll bet the tragedy is her husband!” said Max, with a tone of certitude.
“Maybe it is. Well, Lorna’s an only child. A queer girl; never met
anybody like her, and—”
“You seem quite interested, though, don’t you, my son?”
“Well, she’s beautiful, Max.”
“Oh, that changes the situation. More power to your elbow. But wait.”
His black eyes wandered casually over Mauney’s open features and a smile
stole over his lips. “Do you know, you’re liable to fall for her.”
“I know it. I’ve fallen already,” Mauney admitted. “I’m in hot water. I
want to be near her. She’s like an Easter lily. I want to—to pick that
lily.”
A man never knows his capacity for action along any line until put to the
test. Mauney, burdened with trying to find himself in many ways, received
the added burden of a woman’s attraction. It was all new to him. Never
before had it happened. Here was Lorna Freeman, fresh as the lily to
which he had referred, with him every day of the week except Sunday. Even
the Sabbath began to hold her, too, for she accepted his invitations
to stroll out Riverton way. There were long reaches of broad, board
walks stretched beside the river where they perambulated, just like less
sophisticated clerks and stenographers, who also found Riverton good. The
Freemans never had a motor-car. Mauney did not realize that he had money
enough to buy one. Consequently their feet took them wherever they went.
Long strolls on Sunday, during which they got away from history entirely!
In fact nothing could be farther removed from history. The vivid present
swelled up before him so gigantically that he had trouble sticking to his
books.
He wanted to say something to Lorna, but kept putting it off, partly
because he was uncertain as to the thing itself, and partly because more
preparation seemed necessary. He found that he could keep on looking at
her for hours, but that, on attempting to describe his feelings, he was
overtaken by a sense of diffidence. Would she quite understand him?
He was on the third term time-table now. Christmas and Easter were
past. Spring and the prospect of examinations were at hand. There came
languorous evenings. The precincts of his bedroom grew tiresome. April
moved the lace curtains inside his open window. He got up from his desk
and stretched himself and went straight to Freeman’s, on Crandall Street,
and asked if Lorna was at home. She was out, but was expected home soon,
and he was invited to wait for her. Perhaps, Mrs. Freeman suggested, he
would like to go up with the professor until she came back.
“Of course you know where to find him,” she said, with a soft gesture
toward the staircase. “Up in his study. Always, always studying, you
know.”
He thanked her and went up. He had been up once or twice before with
Lorna, indulging in very deep talk. Moral philosophy, ethics, conceptions
of history! Very pleasant occasions, to be sure, but equally as strange
as Freeman himself. Now, to be alone with the head of the department! The
study door was closed and he knocked.
“Come,” called the professor.
As he entered he beheld the historian, lounging in a deep Morris chair
before a grate fire, with an open book on his knees.
“Well, Mauney,” he said pleasantly, as he rose. “Won’t you sit down?”
Professor Robert Freeman was such a mite of a man that Mauney wondered
how he had managed to brave the storm of life for fifty years. Whenever
he saw him he felt like saying: “Well, professor, I expected, before
seeing you again, to hear of your funeral. I expected you’d pick up a
pneumonia germ somewhere and pass out.”
Mauney would know him better later on, for the biological tragedy
entailed in a struggle between germs and this frail body had been given
as careful consideration by its owner as almost everything else, and,
arguing that continued existence depended either on keeping up a strong
physical resistance or else on avoiding germs altogether, Freeman chose
to pursue the latter policy. His cunning brain saved him. He never rode
on street cars. He avoided funerals, theatres and churches. “Germs? Why,
don’t get them. That’s all!”
Freeman’s long, thin face, with its grey eyes trained upon the world like
vigilant sentinels, smiled perpetually. His nearly-bald pate sported a
little patch of thin, grey hair, parted carefully in the centre. But
that smile! It was, in a sense, all of Freeman.
“What kind of smile, in reality, is it?” thought Mauney.
Never a happy smile, though at times it betokened delight. Never a
suspicious smile, though it frequently indicated deep-buried fires of
irony that could not be given full scope. Usually it was a polite,
deferential grimace, that suggested Voltaire ever so slightly. So far
from being repulsive, it put Mauney immediately at ease. Its social value
was its hospitality, an almost pitying hospitality, as if the professor
was pleased enough to have intercourse with others of the same biological
species, seeing what a mess life was for all of them.
“That’s exactly it,” soliloquized Mauney. “That unpleasant, insuperable,
unavoidable mess—human life. It’s his stock-in-trade.”
The man’s erudition was profound. He had wracked his brains energetically
on every department of thought, from religion to geology, and back again
several dozens of times, looking for just one peep-hole of light and
hope. The tragedy was that not one peep-hole had been found. Philosophy,
logic, ethics, comparative theology, political economy, history of all
kinds, literatures of all nationalities—he had dissected them all, pruned
them all, reduced them all to their elemental fallacies, and there the
matter stood.
“Mauney,” he had said during one of their discussions, “you can’t be
sure of anything. You can prove nothing. Why? Simply because, in any
conclusion at which you arrive, you can never be sure of your premises.”
Just why the uncertainty of one’s premises should so rob life of its
many enthusiasms, Mauney could not understand. At heart he never enjoyed
talking with Freeman, for, although he admired his adroit intellect,
the professor always left him temporarily transfixed on the horns of a
logical dilemma, or else temporarily treed by a savage, snarling premise.
But as a mental exercise it was great fun, and its depressing effects
yielded to fresh air as an antidote.
At any rate Robert Freeman was a great man. His opinion on historical
questions was a high court of appeal. His monumental work on
the constitutional history of France was on the shelf of every
self-respecting library in the country. It was an honor to have access to
the great man’s home. “Freeman on Constitutional History” was a familiar
marginal reference in text books. Freeman, alone in his library, with a
big pipe and a huge, red can of tobacco beside him on the table, was a
privilege. With almost reverent eyes Mauney looked upon the man who held
the chair of history in the renowned University of Merlton—Merlton, that
light set upon the summit of the world for the world’s illumination, that
arch-planter of wisdom’s germs, that spring of the river of knowledge.
And Freeman, that inextinguishable flame, whose brilliant radiance shone
abroad—here he sat, smiling, smoking, conversing.
“I hope I’m not taking your time, Professor,” he apologized.
“No, I’m just reading a light thing,” he said, indicating his book. “You
know I read everything, Mauney. I’m like a butterfly—taking a little
honey from this flower and a little from that!” His long fingers turned
lightly through the pages. Mauney observed them—those long fingers, those
restless hands of Freeman’s, those long, thin hands like a woman’s, that
were always twining themselves about some object. If they were ever still
it must have been during sleep, but even then Mauney could more easily
fancy them moving sinuously about the folds of his counterpane. They were
like his mind. If they held a book before his eyes they kept feeling
the covers, as if his brain, in its intent of complete mastery, took
cognizance even of the texture of the binding.
“And I find,” continued Freeman, “that it’s wise to read light, little
things like this. You know, enjoyment is everything.”
“But is it?” ventured Mauney, consciously drifting into the familiar
channel of their arguments. “Is enjoyment really everything?”
Freeman’s face became delicately ethereal as he considered the question.
“I think so,” he said softly. “But if you are in any doubt, please begin
by stating your own opinion, will you not?”
For a moment Mauney smoked in silence, reminded of Socrates.
“Yes,” he consented. “Now I think that enjoyment is comparatively
incidental. A man has a duty to perform in the world, and he must perform
it whether he enjoys doing so or not.”
“All right, Mauney,” smiled Freeman. “But won’t you admit that the
motive that empowers you to perform your duty is the prospect of future
enjoyment in seeing your task completed?”
“That, professor, is equivalent to saying that all effort is inspired by
the hope of getting a thrill.”
“Well, isn’t it true? We are selfish at all times. We want the thrill.
I don’t care where you take it. It’s the same principle everywhere.
Socrates drank hemlock because it thrilled him to think he was abiding
by the legal decision of his country. And even of Jesus Christ it is
written: ‘For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross.’”
This last example came as a jolt to Mauney’s being. His thoughts
drifted. There was a long pause before they resumed conversation. For an
hour they continued. To whatever argument they turned—and they turned
to several—Mauney felt that, while he was consistently defeated in a
superficial sense, he was victorious in a deeper sense that Freeman
could not, or would not, grasp. As in their previous conversations, they
eventually arrived at the blind, stone wall of nullity, where Freeman’s
declared position was one of absolute mental helplessness, and Mauney’s
one of undeclared boredom and impatience.
When at last he heard Lorna playing downstairs, he rose and took leave of
the professor.
Why had he come so eagerly to-night? The question forced him to pause on
the lower steps of the staircase. In the drawing-room he saw her seated
by the piano. The riddle of his attraction faded out of his thoughts as
he leaned on the banister to watch and listen. She was absorbed in the
skilful rendering of a scale-infested classic. Although her hands, like
racing elves, flew with dexterous speed upon the ivory keys, her body
was reposefully still, her chin slightly lifted, her eyes viewing the
performance like impartial critics. When she finished, quite unconscious
of Mauney’s presence, and picked up her kerchief from the music holder to
rub her hands, he remained on the steps spell-bound with admiration. Then
she turned her head and, as she saw him, rose gracefully, but with much
coloring of her face.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” he explained, as he came near her. “What is
that?”
She told him the name of the selection.
“It’s quite difficult, Mauney. Not very entertaining, either. I fear it
will be some time before I venture to exhibit it.” She looked up with a
serious, accusing glance. “You took a very unfair advantage of me, didn’t
you?”
“How, Lorna?” he asked in surprise.
Then he realized what she meant. Queer frankness! Queer bashfulness!
Did she ever think anything without saying it? Did she ever withhold a
criticism?
“Why, no,” he said, “I—I didn’t mean to be—rude, you know. Aren’t you a
strange girl?”
“What will I play for you?” she asked, turning through some sheets of
music. “Do you like this?”
She held up Nevin’s “Day in Venice.”
“Um—h’m,” he nodded. “That’s wonderful!” He had never heard it in his
life. He was looking into her blue eyes above the sheet of music. “Don’t
you think so, Lorna?”
“What are you staring at?”
“Was I staring? Forgive me.”
As she began the piece he lounged in a chair near by. Nevin’s dream, in
all its pretty moods, all its imagery! He half-listened. He wanted to
think.
The Freeman home was growing comfortable. All its members were, no
doubt, off the beaten path. Mauney felt a commendation in their very
originality. If the professor chose to spend his time in the desultory
travail of mental investigations, was not his occupation as justifiable
as the time-wasting hobbies of most men? If Mrs. Freeman wished to
limit her mind, as she apparently did, to devotional pursuits, was this
any more to be criticized than the asininity of bridge-parties and the
hypocritical commitments of woman’s average social life? And if, finally,
Lorna chose to be so uncomfortably frank as to inform him how little
she relished eaves-dropping over a banister, was her frankness not, in
reality, part of a truthful, clean-cut personality, that admitted no
deception? The home was growing comfortable.
But he did not know what he wanted to say to Lorna. Their conversation
roamed aimlessly and pleasantly along accustomed paths. He found himself
admiring her queenly face and groping for words. After an hour the
professor’s soft step was heard on the stairs. He came in, to find them
sitting in separate chairs, five feet apart. He smiled and glanced from
one to the other.
“Well, people,” he said, in his quiet voice, “what is the big topic of
discussion to-night?”
“We haven’t struck one yet, sir,” Mauney replied. “We’ve been avoiding
controversial subjects.”
“Would you like some tea?” Freeman asked.
This was the historian’s failing—tea at night, hot, weak and in
quantities, before he retired to the midnight vigil of his more serious
study. Lorna led the way to the dining-room and made it. Holding their
cups and saucers they stood talking about art for art’s sake. This was
introduced by a still-life group in oils, hung over the sideboard, and
completed, at length, by an appeal to the professor, who stated that,
without any shadow of doubt, art had no higher aim than art. But while
he talked he looked from one to the other, as if, in the undercurrents
of his brain, he was attempting to decide how intimate a relationship
existed between them, and as if, so Mauney felt, he himself would be the
greatest obstacle to any suitor for his daughter’s hand.
Later Lorna bade Mauney good-night in the vestibule, between the
hall-door and the street-door. Some sense of being closeted from the
world stole upon him and with it a desire to take Lorna passionately in
his arms. With an effort he checked the impulse.
“Lorna,” he said, “do you know that I nearly kissed you. What would you
have done?” He still held her hand.
“I suppose I should have shivered and been angry!” she replied, simply.
“Then,” he said, giving her hand a little pat, “aren’t you glad I didn’t?”
“Naturally.”
From her complacent tone he might have been asking the question, “Do you
prefer wealth to poverty?”
CHAPTER V.
DINNER AT THE DE FREVILLE’S.
“_Her voice, whate’er she said, enchanted;_
_Like music to the heart it went._
_And her dark eyes—how eloquent!_
_As what they would ’twas granted._”—_Samuel Rogers, Jacqueline._
Mauney soon realized that, unsatisfactory as was the progress of his
affair with Lorna Freeman, he was gaining some advantages from his
connection with the family. Life was now a very different thing from
that of Lantern Marsh farm. He had at last arrived into the midst of
education. He had found people who knew things and were willing to teach
him out of their knowledge. Moreover, he could discern that he was being
gradually adopted by the Freemans. Through their influence he received
an invitation to a dinner at the home of François de Freville. It was
written in French. It was to be, for him, a most unusual pleasure and
a very exciting one. He had a tailor measure him for a dinner-jacket
suit. Lorna fell in love with it, when she saw it, on the evening of the
function at de Freville’s. They met at Freeman’s and walked up Crandall
Street behind the professor and his wife.
François de Freville, the popular professor of French, always entertained
charmingly. He could not do it in any other way. This was a “Faculty
dinner,” all the guests being members of the university staff, with
a few exceptions, as in Mauney’s case. As a matter of fact it was a
rare privilege to be invited and to meet personally the brilliant
men who, on such an occasion, put off the garments of their wonted
academic restraint, to indulge in free, good-fellowship. François
himself lent a distinctly exotic atmosphere. With delightful informality
he stood butler inside his own street door, and roared greetings to
the guests as they arrived. He was a giant who must bow his head on
entering doorways to avoid striking his skull—a man of unusual stature,
big-bodied, big-handed, big-headed. Perhaps the charm of being received
tempestuously by François lay in the ludicrous idea that this herculean
host need not necessarily receive anyone, for if a party of armed militia
presented themselves demanding reception they would certainly never
get in. François, standing with his big, red face, his enormous black
eye-brows, his enormous smile, that burst forth from lairs of brows and
black moustaches, would hurl back invasion with smiling ease. In every
detail of appearance he suggested the strong-sinewed “kicker-out” of
the continental restaurant—just as brusque, just as impulsive, just as
toweringly imposing. It was his perversion of function that titillated
the fancy, for he was welcoming his guests. One by one he received them,
with a fitting word for each, a word of liberty, in fact, which only
François would be permitted, of all men, to speak.
“Ah! Madame Freeman!” he took her hand, as she entered, between his own
enormous hands to pet it. “Vous êtes très charmante ce soir!”
Mrs. Freeman was not charming to-night. She was never charming, being
always too instinct with the soft, great mystery of her personal
tragedy. That, however, was quite immaterial. Even if, after thirty years
of married life, only dim relics of charm had survived, there was still
a truant delight in being told this falsehood. Mauney saw her warm to
the salutation of François, and manage to get past his great bulk in
excellent spirits.
“Ah, M’sieur le Professeur!” bellowed the giant as he greeted Freeman.
What a contrast the two men formed! Freeman smiled apprehensively at the
pile of vibrant life before him, as if dreading the forthcoming _bon mot_.
“Le grand homme, mes amis,” François vociferously announced to a cluster
of guests in the drawing-room. “Le grand homme est arrivé!”
The laughter which greeted this announcement was restrained because,
apparently, the guests felt that Freeman actually was a great man.
“Bon soir, Mam’selle,” to Lorna.
“Bon soir, M’sieur Bard. Vous êtes bienvenue.”
The host still stood at his post, when Mauney wandered, a few minutes
later, through the hallway, and beheld him welcoming a new arrival.
Mauney was impressed with the new arrival’s appearance. A woman of
perhaps twenty-two, and of bewitching beauty, she stood, her hand still
grasped by the Frenchman and laughing at his words.
“Bon soir, bon soir, Oiseau!” burst forth François and bent to kiss her
hand with perfect gallantry. “Bienvenue, ma petite Oiseau, la maison est
à toi!”
Mauney wondered at the nickname. Perhaps her movements, her manner, as
lightsome as a bird’s, had suggested it, or perhaps the plaintive alto
note of her voice made François think—as it did Mauney—of treetops on
summer evenings. She stood for a moment looking up with admiration into
her host’s eyes.
“I don’t know the French for it,” she laughed, “but if your house is
Oiseau’s it’s a roost, isn’t it?”
Thereat de Freville roared, and, holding his sides, watched Oiseau’s neat
ankles (as did Mauney also) while she climbed the staircase to remove her
cloak.
While the guests waited for dinner, they talked in several groups
about the hall and the tastefully arranged drawing-room. De Freville
found Mauney standing alone and introduced him to “Oiseau.” Mauney had
difficulty understanding the Professor’s French, his only admitted
language, but managed to draw from his explosive encomium, that
Miss MacDowell was in some way or other an exceptional person in
the University of Merlton. When François left them she laughed with
amusement, turning from his hulk of a figure to her new acquaintance.
“Have you known the professor long, Mr. Bard?” she asked.
“Just met him to-night. A good sort, isn’t he?”
“Oh, remarkable,” she said. “His robust voice always makes me think of
somebody yelling into an empty rain barrel.”
Miss MacDowell was a decided brunette, with very beautiful dark brown
eyes that permitted themselves to be looked into. Mauney at once felt
depth after depth revealing themselves as he looked—comforting eyes, that
seemed as much alive as the rest of her oval face. She gained strength
from her arched nose, and tenderness from her delicate lips. Her upper
lip drew up at times, exposing a white gleam of teeth. There was an
unusual sympathy about her upper lip. It drew up with delicate quiverings
as if attuning itself to catch his mood. Her black hair and brows,
together with her youthful color, completed the outward appearance of a
woman in whom he became immediately interested.
“Do you attend the university?” he ventured.
“Yes. It’s a habit,” she laughed. “Three years of it.”
“What line are you especially interested in, Miss MacDowell?”
“None, Mr. Bard. I didn’t come to college to get an education.”
“Indeed! Why, then, did you come, may I ask?”
“Oh, just to get enough highbrow information so that I would know what
highbrows were talking about.” She said this quite seriously, with a note
of unexpected bitterness in her voice. “If there’s one cruel advantage
one person ever takes of another it’s to talk about something of which
the other person knows nothing. If I hadn’t come to the university,
then, no matter where I went, any girl who had waded through Horace, or
physics, or solid geometry, could make me shrivel into insignificance by
mentioning ‘O fons Bandusiæ,’ or Boyle’s law or conic sections. As it
stands now I know a Latin poem by its sound. I know that a law in physics
isn’t essential to individual happiness, and that conic sections (so far
as I’m concerned) are nothing but an inconsiderate imposition.”
Mauney laughed and drew up a couple of chairs.
“Now, for argument’s sake,” he said, when they were seated—“mathematics
is great. It’s wonderful to know that there is an eternal principle of
fitness governing problems of numbers.”
“It may be wonderful enough,” she conceded, leaning over the arm of her
chair, “but to dwell on it would take the pastoral quality clean out of
life for me. I’m lacking in appreciation of such marvels. I’m interested
in folks—just folks. I want to know how they feel. I want to understand
folks.”
Mauney was somewhat put to it to gauge the strong individualistic note in
Miss MacDowell, but was determined to try still harder.
“Do you believe in woman suffrage?” he ventured.
She shook her head.
“Surely,” he said, “you believe in women’s rights.”
“Certainly not,” replied Miss MacDowell, calmly. “We are the weaker sex.
God made us weak on purpose.”
“Never!” argued Mauney, although he liked her attitude. “That’s an old
bogy that got a fatal foothold in antediluvian days, and it’s taken about
fifty centuries to get the idea even questioned. Ask any woman. She’ll
tell you that the greatest movement of the twentieth century is the
emancipation of women!”
“Tell me,” she said, pointedly, “from what do women seek to be
emancipated?”
“Why! from an inferior rating. Woman’s intelligence and her equality
demand a better label than man’s helpmeet.”
She cast a shrewd glance at Mauney, as if doubting his sincerity.
“Aren’t you a bit of a bluffer?” she asked. “Well, listen; you’re off
the track. Woman’s inherent weakness is the very secret of her strength.
Take any man, no matter how stubbornly masculine, and there’s a woman
somewhere who can just simply make or mar him.”
“Do you think so?” queried Mauney, looking more deeply into her pretty,
dark eyes.
“Well, if you don’t believe me, open your eyes and look at life!”
Mauney enjoyed her mild exasperation and determined to extract her
viewpoint still further. There was as yet no sign of dinner, and the
score of guests still kept up a monotonous buzz of conversation. He
noticed Lorna talking with Mr. Nutbrown Hennigar, a lecturer in the
history department.
“Don’t you think men are irrational beings, Miss MacDowell?” he said,
turning his chair a little toward her.
“What difference does that make?”
“You might have more respect for them if they weren’t!”
“Respect men!” she laughed. “Why I think they’re just wonderful. I just
love men. But, tell me, Mr. Bard, what are you taking at the university?”
“History.”
“Like it?”
“Yes, I do. What are you taking?”
“General course.”
“Like it?”
“Oh, please don’t ask me!” she implored, playfully putting up her slender
hands in mock impatience. “The college game never quite phizzed on me,
I’m afraid. I’m tired of it. May as well tell the truth, as lie about it,
eh?”
“Surely. But what is it you dislike about education?”
“Education’s all right. It’s the university. Some day I’m going to write
a book on how to run one’s university—just like a hand-guide on how to
run one’s automobile. I’ll send you a copy, if I don’t forget.”
“Please don’t. I imagine it would be hot stuff.”
“Thanks. I take that as a compliment, whether it is or not.” She laughed
as she turned toward the other guests. “There’s Nutbrown Hennigar over
yonder talking with Lorna Freeman. He’d murder me if he heard me talk
about college this way. You know him of course. Funny chap. Likeable in
many ways. And he’s certainly in the swim.”
“Swim—how?”
“Why! His father owns the university—Senator Hennigar, yonder, talking
with Madame de Freville. He looks like cupid at seventy, minus the wings.”
“He’s the Chancellor, isn’t he?” Mauney asked. “I’m just a green-horn in
Merlton. I’m afraid of my shadow at an affair like this.”
“Chancellor—yes—and then some! You certainly are green if you don’t know
all about the Hennigars. However, you’ll learn, Mr. Bard. Hennigar is the
great password. You can do anything if you have a little bit of Hennigar.
There’s Nutbrown, for example, lecturing in history. Someday he’ll be the
professor. There’s Professor Freeman, married to Hennigar’s daughter.”
“No,” said Mauney, suddenly sitting up in astonishment.
“But, yes,” quoth Miss MacDowell in surprise. “Didn’t you know that?”
“I certainly did not.”
“Well, how much will I tell you? Who are your friends here?”
“The Freemans.”
“That’s too bad,” she sighed playfully. “My tongue will get me in wrong,
sooner or later.”
“Not at all. Shoot ahead. I’m very keen on what you’re telling me.”
“In that case I’ll continue. Professor Freeman is a brilliant man,
but, without a little bit of Hennigar, his brilliance would have been
doomed to obscurity like the jewel in the cave. He started life as poor
as a church mouse, but saw help in two directions. I know him like a
book. He got a job as lecturer in history. He stuck to business and
avoided individualistic tendencies. I give him great credit. He knew
that since the days when Socrates held tutorial groups in porches down
to the present when he held his own in university halls, a fair volume
of knowledge had been amassed—quite enough historical data to engage
anyone comfortably. He had opinions of his own, but ascension on the
academic ladder meant consistent self-suppression. He quietly taught
the young idea old ideas, and rose in favor, until, gradually passing
through assistant-ships and associate-ships, he stretched out finally in
the chair of history. But, of course, the magic behind it all was his
connection with the Hennigar family. You see, the senator is Chancellor,
chairman of the building committee, friend of the university in general,
and heaviest endower in particular. If Freeman could have done a cleverer
thing than marry Miss Hennigar, it would have required a committee of
corporation lawyers to discover it.”
“That’s news to me,” said Mauney. “I appreciate getting in on a little
gossip like this, too. Who’s your friend here, Miss MacDowell?”
“I haven’t any,” she said. “Nutbrown Hennigar fusses over me at times.
But I’m here just because François met me in the east corridor this
morning and told me I had to come up for dinner. I never made any bids
for getting in with this crowd. I don’t fit, anyway. But François
insisted, and then Madame ’phoned me, so what could I do?”
“They seem like a friendly bunch of people, though,” Mauney remarked.
“Friendly!” she returned. “Why not? They’re pretty nearly all related.
There is Alfred Tanner—he’s a real fellow—but he married Senator
Hennigar’s other daughter. Everybody else here, if not related to
Hennigar, has a very special stand in. It’s the great eternal family
compact. I’ll mention that in my hand-book, too.”
“But the senator seems to be a good old chap!”
“Certainly. I admire him. You know how he made all his money, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Jam,” said Miss MacDowell simply. It was apparent from her animation
that she loved talking about the man. Mauney wondered at her,
nevertheless, for it struck him that she was ill-advised to say so much
to a stranger. Fortunately, everything she had said, thus far, had struck
home with unusual force and greatly appealed to him. But how could she
take the risk of committing herself so freely?
“You see, it’s just like this,” she said, lowering her voice and smiling
with the mischievous glee of a child consciously undertaking some
deviltry, “Hennigar discovered early in life that plums and ginger-root
blend in a manner most gratifying to the palate. He persevered with his
formula. With the austere self-denial of the specialist, he worked hard
and became the arch-confectioner. He pyramided profits into advertising—”
“Is he the maker of Hennigar’s jam?” interrupted Mauney, incredulously.
“Of course he is. He kept at it, as I was saying, until to-day a ten-acre
factory buzzes with its manufacture and the plum-trees on a thousand
hills grow for Hennigar alone. Oh, but it was wonderful jam,” she
laughed, smacking her lips prettily. “It has ‘jammed’ out a small-sized
marble palace in Riverton, a fleet of motor cars from Rolls to Buick,
one for every mood, an army of liveried servants, one for every duty. It
has ‘jammed’ Elias Hennigar into the Senate, into the front ranks of the
Church, into the intimate counsels of the university—in fact, this jam
has made him. But, of course, one doesn’t mention jam, now. He’s got it
all washed off his hands by this time.”
“Doesn’t that beat the devil!” exclaimed Mauney. “Oh, I beg your pardon,
Miss MacDowell.”
“Not at all,” she laughed. “I like to hear a man cuss. I sort of know
where he stands, then. Listen and I’ll tell you a secret.”
Mauney leaned a little nearer her.
“I’m going to drop my course this spring,” she whispered, “and take a job
under Professor Freeman as departmental secretary in history. Won’t that
be fun? I’ll have Alfred Tanner to work with. He’s better than a circus
any time, and then there’s Nutbrown Hennigar. Have you had him to lecture
to you yet? No? I guess he sticks to the general course students. Well,
he’s a scream, anyway. He’s very, very fond of me, mind you. Just imagine
a Hennigar on my trail. He takes me to theatres often. And dances—oh, he
can’t dance at all; he just rambles. He thinks it’s awfully queer of me
to have accepted this job in the history department.”
Mauney’s attention was completely engaged by his charming companion. She
puzzled him beyond measure. Why, he wondered, did she talk so confidently
to him? She did not appear to be a rattle-brained woman, and yet how
strangely familiar she had become.
“Say,” he said, after a little pause. “You’re kind of human, and I’m just
going to ask you a question, if I may.”
She nodded.
“Why do you tell me so much?” he asked. “Mind you, I like it a whole lot.
But how did you know I would like it?”
She laughed tantalizingly.
“Because I know all about you, Mr. Bard,” she replied.
“Me?”
“Certainly. You’re a pal of Max Lee’s, aren’t you?”
His eyes opened with enlightenment.
“Are you Freda MacDowell?” he asked eagerly.
She nodded and teased him with her eyes.
“Of course I am. Max has told me all about you. When I heard the name
Bard, to-night, I wondered if you were Mauney.”
“I sure am,” he said, warming up, “and this is a great pleasure, indeed,
I—”
“And I was positive it was you,” she interrupted, with a roguish glance
at his face, “because Max told me you had an awful head of red hair.”
CHAPTER VI.
IN WHICH STALTON SEES THE DOCTOR.
Mauney did not enjoy the dinner-party. He kept looking at Freda MacDowell
and wishing he had never met her. He knew, without further contemplation,
that she was the most attractive woman he had ever met. He could have
gone on talking to her all evening long, but he was glad that such had
been impossible. Every time he looked at her he felt a warmth gripping
his breast. Her eyes—well, he knew that he had never seen eyes like them.
They were perfect. They were vastly comforting. They haunted him, all the
way back to Freeman’s, and then all the way to 73 Franklyn Street. He
remembered Max’s description of her, and knew that it was no idle remark:
“She’s just like nobody else.”
He demanded of life to know just how such a thing could come to pass,
namely, that he should be attracted so strongly to a woman, all at once,
at first sight, at first talk. Of course he would have to put her clean
out of his mind. He felt weak when he thought of her. He knew just
how much of her he could stand. He was positive that another hour’s
acquaintance would have completed the most enthralling fascination.
He sat in his own room smoking furiously, trying to accuse himself
of a hyper-vivid imagination and an over-developed susceptibility.
He tried to tell himself that he was not infatuated with her. He
smoked many cigarettes. It grew late. He pulled down a book and began
reading, with the book in his lap. Then he came to himself gradually
and discovered that he had not been reading at all, but only inspecting
his finger-nails, while his thoughts kept returning constantly to Freda
MacDowell.
Max would wonder why he had not dropped in to-night. Somehow he could not
face Max. He had no wish to see Max to-night. It would be hard to talk
to him—just as if he had wronged him in some way. Then, at length, he
gained a better perspective of the situation. He tossed aside his book
and walked along the hall to his chum’s door.
“Hello, you!” said Lee, looking up from his desk, which was littered with
note-books and texts. “You’ve been dolling up a little, eh? Been at a
dance?”
“No, just a kind of dinner party, Max. What are you doing?”
“Can’t you see?”
“Sure. What is it, though?”
“Oto-laryngology, if you insist.”
“Is it?” asked Mauney, absently, as he leaned against the wall by the
door.
“Well, of course, you fish. If I say it’s oto-laryngology I don’t mean
anything else. What’s the matter with you? Sit down. I’m out of smokes.
If you’ve got any, hand ’em over.”
Mauney tossed his package of cigarettes on the desk and stretched himself
in a chair near by.
“Well, Max,” he said at length. “You’re the luckiest dog in Merlton!”
“How do you make that out, my son?” Lee asked, as he turned to throw away
a burnt match.
“Because you are, that’s all. You’ve got a woman who really loves you,
and—”
“Wait, now, you poor fish. Did I tell you she loved me?”
“Well, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Lee cast a puzzled look at Mauney, who sat, as if in reverie, gazing up
through blue rings of smoke that emerged in slow clouds from his mouth.
“Are you suddenly overtaken with a bachelor’s remorse?” Max queried,
sarcastically. “Is that why you come in here to disturb my faithful
studies? Why envy me so much? Why don’t you nab onto somebody yourself?
You’ve got more to recommend you than I have.”
Mauney was not listening to him, but continued gazing up at the ceiling.
Even there he could not avoid the vision of a woman’s dark, comforting
eyes.
“You’ve got better mating points than I have. You’re a better man than
I am, _Gunga-din_. Look at that chest of yours—any woman would sigh
petulantly to have her head pillowed there. All you got to do is to
go out and walk down Tower Street and the girls will be running into
lamp-posts as they turn to behold your Apollo-like form.”
Mauney looked into Max’s face, confused.
“What?” he asked.
“Oh I didn’t say anything. I was just humming a snatch from Mendelssohn’s
‘Fatal Step.’ Say, Mauney, what the devil’s the matter with you, anyhow?”
“Nothing.”
“All right: smoke on. I’m going to study. Stay till you get it all
straightened out, and, when you’re ready to go, don’t forget the door is
on your left. Good-night, dearie.”
Lee turned to his desk and resumed his reading of numerous pages of
badly-written notes. From time to time he mumbled sentences, then shifted
in his chair, then lit a new cigarette, and mumbled again. During
this time Mauney sat quietly back, busy with unpleasant thoughts. He
remembered that Lee had explained the hopelessness of his relationship
with Freda MacDowell. He had said that, although he loved her, he would
never let her know. Mauney had always admired Max. Now he respected him
more than ever. He thought it was very noble of him to preserve silence
regarding his love.
“I guess we’re both sort of out in the cold, Max,” he said, at length.
“I guess so,” Lee absent-mindedly agreed, as he continued to read. “Out
in the cold? How do you mean?”
“With women.”
“Oh, damn women. I’m busy with oto-laryngology. Exam’s coming on
to-morrow.”
Mauney rose and stretched himself.
“I’m going to bed,” he announced, tossing his package of cigarettes again
on the table. “Keep ’em; you’ll need a few fags before morning.”
Mauney resumed his accustomed life next day with a feeling of gratitude
that he had at least his work to occupy his mind. He put Freda MacDowell
out of his consciousness—she was the property of Maxwell Lee, and nothing
would ever permit him to encroach on his good friend’s property. She grew
smaller as she receded in the vista of his thoughts, and he considered
it fortunate that he saw nothing more of her during the term.
At the spring examinations Lorna Freeman gained top place, defeating
Mauney by many marks and winning the Hennigar scholarship for proficiency
in history. He congratulated her cordially, and inwardly admitted her
superior ability. She deserved the distinction. He was not jealous,
for even at the end of his first year his eye was looking at something
different from marks and scholarships. He had passed his exams—that was
all he cared. There were other rewards—quiet, inner compensations, from
the reading of history. These he had not missed. The story of humanity
was growing real to him, something he could touch with his hands and
cherish. There came thoughts that pleased his fancy, and he wrote them in
a big, empty ledger—wonderful thoughts about history, that he wanted no
one but himself to read. He prized his ledger. Many a night during the
long summer vacation he took it from the locked drawer of his desk and
added more paragraphs to it. It was nothing—just his fancies.
Maxwell Lee, having successfully graduated, and having acquired the
degree of M.D., gained an appointment in the department of biochemistry,
as a research fellow, at a salary of seven hundred dollars a year, and
began work immediately. Mauney was introduced to his laboratory, a big
upstairs room in the Medical Building, with two bald, great windows that
flooded the place with a brilliant light. It was a busy room, filled with
long tables of intricate apparatus, retorts, gas burners, and complicated
arrangements of glass tubes, resembling a child’s conception of a
factory. He often dropped in to talk with Lee, who was always absorbed
in his new work, bent over steaming dishes of fluid, or seated before
a delicate scales, contained in a glass case. He spoke seldom of Freda
MacDowell, now, but much of a certain disease upon which he was working,
in an attempt to discover its cause. Mauney disliked the laboratory,
pungent with fumes of acid, but was glad to see Max so happy in his work.
Lee still remained at Mrs. Manton’s boarding-house and in the evenings,
when he was not busy at the Medical Building, was to be found, sitting
in his shirt sleeves, in an alcove of the upstairs hallway, reading
technical treatises on biochemistry.
Fred Stalton gradually formed his own original opinion about the intense
occupation of Lee.
“Since he got that M.D. tacked on to his name,” Stalton remarked to
Mauney one night in the dining-room, “he’s sort of waded out into
biochemistry a little too deep. Max has changed, Mauney. He’s changed a
lot. When he first came here to stay, he was the life of the party, a
real midnight serenader, believe me. Of course, I suppose somebody’s got
to do the tall studying, but I hate to see him so much at it. His health
won’t stand it. He’s not very strong. He ought to rig up an office down
on College Street, hang out his shingle and practise. Why, if he just
had the lucre I’ve spent on doctors he could take a holiday in Honolulu.
People would be bound to come to him. Doctors don’t do any good except to
ease your mind a little, and that’s why people go to them. You get a pain
in your almanack, and you hike right over to the nearest medico. He just
lays on the hands, tells you it’s a very minor trouble; you pay him a
couple of bones for a piece of paper and go home tickled all over. It’s a
game, but Max ought to play it. He’s getting too serious.”
“Maybe,” admitted Mauney. “But he’s all taken up with the idea of
striking the cause of pernicious anæmia—”
“Anæmia?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that like?”
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you. Max did describe it to me. People with it are
sort of pale and yellow and lose their pep.”
Stalton’s brow puckered up thoughtfully.
“I wonder if there’s any chance of me having that lot,” he said slowly.
“I certainly haven’t got any more pep than a Ford car leaking in oil in
three cylinders. Here I am, Mauney, only forty-two years old; I shouldn’t
be like this. I can’t do much more work than a sundial on a rainy day,
without getting all in, down and out. I’ve been to about a hundred
doctors and only two ever agreed on what ails me.”
“What seems to be the trouble, Fred?”
“All I know is how I feel,” replied Stalton. “Some say it’s hyperacidity.
Some call it auto-intoxication. One bird claimed I had an ulcer of the
stomach. About ten of ’em laid all the blame on my teeth. Others said
I had weakness of the nerve centres. I don’t believe any of them ever
really hit it yet. As soon as I collect enough dust I’m going to call and
see Adamson.”
“Is he good?” asked Mauney, but casually interested in Stalton’s recital
of his bodily woes.
“Good? I guess he is! That chap, they say, never makes a mistake. He’s a
professor in the Medical School. You have to make an appointment four
weeks in advance to see him at all. He charges about a hundred a minute,
but, from what I hear, he’s worth it. I’d never begrudge it to him. I
haven’t been able to hold down a steady job for five years.”
Mauney had observed Stalton’s manner of life. Gertrude allowed him
to play on an easy financial margin. He made what money he got by
speculating on theatre tickets, playing the horses at Riverton Park,
and from his rare, but always successful, indulgence in big poker games
down-town. When he was in pocket he paid his board cheerfully and bought
new clothes and quantities of cigarettes. When he was financially
embarrassed he helped Gertrude with the housework and made his own
cigarettes. He was the soul of good-heartedness. He would lend money to
any of his friends if he had it. If not, he would thank the intending
borrower for the compliment of being asked. His popularity at 73 Franklyn
Street always remained at flood-tide—he was so cheerful about his own
infirmities and so eager to listen to the troubles of others. Mauney
found him as restful as other men who lived purposeless lives.
Late one night Mauney was awakened by the sound of his bedroom door
opening. In the light which entered from the hall he beheld Stalton
standing in his bathrobe, smoking a cigarette. He was unusually pale.
“I didn’t want to disturb, Max,” he said, “but I’m suffering the tortures
of the damned with this stomach of mine. I wonder if you would mind going
downstairs and calling up Dr. Adamson. I’ve got to see that bird, sooner
or later, and I’d like to have him see me when this real attack is on.”
Mauney agreed, sprang out of bed, and feeling that Stalton was actually
in great pain, persuaded him to take his own bed. After helping him to
get into it, he covered him quickly with the sheets and descended to the
telephone. After giving the number he waited for fully a minute before
receiving a reply.
“Yes,” said a tired, business-like voice at length.
“Doctor Adamson?”
“Yes.”
“Could you come to seventy-three Franklin Street?”
“What appears wrong?” he asked pleasantly.
“Mr. Stalton has a severe pain in his stomach.”
“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” he replied. “It might be a surgical case, you
know. Anyway I never go out at night, except under very exceptional
circumstances. I think you had better call my assistant, Dr. Turner.”
“Well, listen, doctor,” persisted Mauney, “Mr. Stalton is a fine chap and
he thinks the sun rises and sets on you.”
The physician laughed.
“Indeed? Well, that’s very nice of him,” he said. “Tell him I’ll break a
custom. Seventy-three Franklin? I’ll be up soon.”
Within half an hour the distinguished physician arrived. He was a
cheerful, clean-shaven, well-dressed man of perhaps forty-five, and
looked extremely awake, considering the hour. Mauney showed him upstairs
to his room and introduced him to the patient.
“How do you do?” said Dr. Adamson, pleasantly, as he took Stalton’s
proffered hand. “Are you in trouble?”
“I feel as if there was a mud-turtle inside my stomach, doctor, trying to
land on the edge of my liver,” confessed Stalton.
Adamson laughed as he drew up a chair, and sat down leisurely beside the
bed.
“Well,” he said, in his cheerful way, “your description lacks nothing in
vividness. Do you think he will manage to land?”
Stalton put his palm over the pit of his stomach.
“Right there,” he said.
“Pain?” queried Adamson.
“It isn’t exactly pain, doctor. It’s an all-gone feeling. If it would
only pain I’d know where I stood. But it really doesn’t pain—it’s just
sort of churning.”
Adamson’s grey eyes became keen, as he inspected his patient.
“When did you first notice it?” he asked.
“I’ve had it for ten years; only it’s got unbearable to-night.”
“Exactly,” nodded the physician, as he lapsed into a silence, and felt
his patient’s pulse.
“Are you a student?” he asked, glancing about the room.
“No. This is Mr. Bard’s room. I haven’t followed any regular occupation
for a few years back.”
“Why?”
“I don’t seem to have the pep, doctor.”
“Exactly. Do you have headaches?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Right in the dome,” explained Stalton, placing his hand on the top of
his head.
“Exactly. Any backache?”
“You’re right.”
“Where?”
“All the way from my neck to my heels. My legs ache most of the time,
too.”
After the physician had very carefully examined him he dropped his
stethescope into his bag, which he closed with a snap.
“What horse is going to get the Lofton Plate to-morrow?” he asked, as he
sat down and lit a cigarette and proffered the case to his patient.
“I’d bet on the Grundy stables to-morrow, doctor.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. I don’t pose as an expert, but if I had the money I’d play Grundy
to win for a thousand dollars.”
“I used to imagine I could pick the winners,” laughed Adamson. “I think
every man passes through that stage.”
“Yes, and the sooner he passes it the better,” smiled Stalton.
“Exactly.”
For a few seconds the physician smoked in silence.
“What’s the matter with me, doctor?” asked Stalton, at length.
“Are you prepared for my verdict?” replied Adamson, somewhat seriously.
“Well—yes—that’s why I sent for you. I know you will tell me.”
“No matter how serious, I presume you would rather know the truth?”
“You bet I would,” said Stalton, perching himself up on his elbow, and
gazing with fearful apprehension at the renowned physician. “Some doctors
said there wasn’t anything wrong with me.”
“But there is,” said Adamson, emphatically.
“Well, I knew it, I—”
“You have a really serious complaint, Mr. Stalton.”
“Is there any hope of curing it?”
“That all depends on you, Mr. Stalton. But first let me explain. And in
doing so I want you to believe every word I say. I don’t want you to be
hurt by anything I say, either. I have given you a careful examination
and have located your trouble, but it’s not the kind of trouble you think
it is.”
“No?”
“No. Your stomach is anatomically normal, although it is not working
in perfect physiological harmony. It is influenced by your mind very
considerably. Your head contains a real ache, and your back contains
a real ache, and your legs get really tired. You feel weak most of
the time. You find it hard to stick at one occupation. These are real
troubles, not imaginary. Your body is—well, rather rebellious against
work. Is that not true?”
“It certainly is, doctor. I—”
“Exactly. It doesn’t want to be put to a test, where it knows it will be
unsuccessful.”
“You’ve sure expressed it, doctor.”
“And now, Mr. Stalton,” said Adamson, leaning back in his chair and
fixing his patient with his keen, grey eyes, “would you believe me if I
told you that your body is merely working in harmony with a wrong idea in
your mind?”
“Well, I’d believe anything you say, doctor,” said Stalton, slowly, but
with evident surprise.
“Good. I appreciate your confidence very much. You have a wrong thought
complex. In some way or other you have acquired a wrong mental attitude
toward work. It’s not your fault. I do not blame you in the least. But
I want to remove that thought complex, because in so doing I will remove
your disease, and if you will but believe me now, you will be immediately
cured. You have for the past few years actually feared work.”
“I know it, doctor, but I—”
“This fear of work has been a real disease, Mr. Stalton. You feared work.
You mentally rebelled against work. Your body took its cue from your mind
and rebelled also. Your body rebelled so much that it instituted pains
and aches, so as to avoid the thing your brain feared. In other words,
your whole trouble has been a mental and physical rebellion against work.
Do you believe me or not?”
“Well, doctor, I’ve got to believe you,” said Stalton slowly. “But what
am I to do?”
“First, you are going to remind yourself that work is really a
blessing—nothing to be feared—but rather something to be desired. It will
not hurt you. I give my word. You need not have this old timidity any
longer. In the second place, you are going to get a job somewhere at once
and begin to work steadily at it. Have you any trade?”
“I learned electric wiring years ago.”
“Fine. Go to-morrow, confidently, and get a job, wiring. If you do, you
will find all your pains and aches gradually disappearing. If I am wrong,
I will charge you nothing for this call. I know I’m right.”
“How much do I owe you, doctor?” asked Stalton, getting out of bed, as
the physician started toward the door.
“It will be twenty-five dollars,” he replied. “But I would like it to be
the next twenty-five you earn. Good-night.”
He extended his hand.
“Good-night, sir,” said Stalton, taking it. “I believe you’ve hit the
nail on the head.”
When Mauney returned to his room, after accompanying Adamson to the door,
he found Fred Stalton walking up and down.
“What do you know about that, Mauney?” he asked. “That bird certainly put
his finger on the tender spot that time. In one way I feel like a damned
slacker now. Don’t mention this to anybody, Mauney. But Adamson is right.
Why, that pain is gone already. I’m a liar if it isn’t. No drugs about
that bird. I’m going out to-morrow to buck the old world for a living
again.”
A few weeks saw a great change in Stalton. He embraced work with a
good will and never once faltered. He obtained a good position with a
down-town electrical company, and came home each night hungry and happy.
Gertrude was puzzled completely.
“Why, Freddie!” she said one night, “you’re all better. What on earth did
it? You look ten years younger, and I haven’t heard a word about teeth
for a long time.”
“Do you remember that last bottle of Burton’s Bitter Tonic I punished?”
he asked with a broad smile. “Well, it’s the greatest stuff on record.
I’m going to pose for a portrait and give ’em a red-hot personal letter
of recommendation to put in the newspaper. ‘It has cured me—why not
others? Eventually—why not now? At all druggists, the same wonderful,
world-beating, little tonic!’”
BOOK III.
THE LAMP OF KNOWLEDGE
CHAPTER I.
ADJUSTMENTS.
The next two years passed very quickly for Mauney, with few perceptible
changes. The war was over. Merlton, one day, had gone crazy with
armistice celebration, only to settle down on the next to its usual life.
The university was crowded now with returned soldiers. It was a familiar
scene to behold the great square dotted with limping students still in
uniform. The sight of them brought sharp emotions to Mauney—mingled
sympathy for their sufferings and regret that he had been denied a
share in their adventures in France. He knew that he, himself, had been
peculiarly untouched by the war. Nevertheless, the stupendous event
had made an impression upon him, the more severe by reason of his own
non-participation in it. A sensitive depth in his nature was perpetually
harrowed by thought of it. Having, by this time, followed the records of
history from their dim beginnings up to the present, he was confronted,
as was every one, by an impassable barrier, which refused to yield to
any philosophic explanation. Perhaps he was too near the catastrophe,
in time, to gain the needed perspective. But the facts were constantly
before him. Something had slipped in the great, good purpose of God.
In the substrata of life a tremendous fault had occurred, bearing its
outward upheavals of death, suffering and disorder.
Three years at college had made a great difference in Mauney Bard. He had
passed through the academic terms, like the unnoticed steps of a great
staircase, without noticing that he was, in a sense, always climbing. He
was climbing nearer to something—something perceived to be intangible,
but worthy.
From his humble beginnings on Lantern Marsh farm, where his perspective
was hedged by blind walls of pettiness on every side, he had emerged into
a grateful breadth of vision, where, at his very feet, lay the treasures
of accumulated knowledge and whence, too, the horizon was attractive with
mystery.
He had become a man, at length, with a man’s viewpoint and a mature
sense of a personal participation in the affairs of the world. Three
years of history had brought him to a point of view which included
himself. Every student cannot be so favored by the unseen mechanism which
moulds personality. Many, including the brilliant Miss Lorna Freeman,
failed nothing in gaining an accurate knowledge of history. She seemed
in eagerness for learning to be like the dry, cracked earth, eager for
the rain that never quite fills it; but with all her great capacity for
information she lacked the quality that had made Mauney older and more
serious. The war did not make any appreciable difference in Lorna. It
was a phenomenon, similar to, if vaster than, other wars, which would,
in due course, afford her fascinating study. But to Mauney it had
already loomed up as a vital obstacle to his philosophy of optimism, for
all things culminated in it. All good that had ever been, met in it a
blasting contradiction. All hope of a satisfactory society met in it a
destructive rebuff; all the quivering aspirations of his own developing
mind found in it a dark abyss, frightful enough to quench them.
So it was that Mauney, at the end of his third year, lost immediate
interest in his academic work and grappled with a problem of reality.
He grew serious and questioning. His auburn hair, which had darkened
until its color was scarcely present, was parted carelessly above a face
somewhat paled by thought, a face whose blue eyes were intense with sharp
mental strife, and whose lips had changed from their boyish happiness to
the determined line of serious manhood.
His problems had thus changed a good deal from the time when they
concerned merely his personal liberty, for they now concerned rather
the liberty of the human race. He had gradually emerged from selfish
considerations. He had lost touch with his family. Old bonds no longer
held him. The new thing—the cosmic consciousness—which he owed to the
university training, took possession of his mind. Wonderful gift of the
college! That a man, through its agency, should unconsciously loose
himself from all that relates to personal passion and tune his being to
the pitch of the general passion of mankind!
From Maxwell Lee, constantly bent over his laboratory desks, constantly
delving into the secrets of disease, constantly at work, heroically
striving against handicaps of poverty and ill-health, he absorbed a great
truth of conduct, for he gradually came to understand that it was the
vast desire for human betterment that inspired this frail, but active,
research student. Max loomed bigger than ever in his esteem. Three or
four years had ripened their friendship, tested it in many ways, and
proven it to be solid. Neither of them cared to leave 73 Franklin Street,
partly because Mrs. Manton and Fred Stalton and the others had become
strange fixtures in their lives, but mainly because they meant more to
each other than either quite realized.
And Freda MacDowell had joined the ranks. Shortly after dropping out
of her arts course she had met Gertrude and adopted 73 Franklin as
her boarding house. She had now served two years as secretary in the
Department of History, and was no more favorably impressed by education
than on the evening of her conversation with Mauney at Professor de
Freville’s. Frequently she had a good deal to say on the subject,
although Mauney always tried to avoid her. She had the big front room
opposite Max’s on the first floor, and there was a tasteful alcove with a
desk and chairs in the hallway, where Max and she always sat to talk.
Apparently she had at last found her ideal boarding house. Her taste,
cultivated by a half-dozen seasons in Merlton, and moulded by a gradual
elimination of features objectionable or stereotyped, had become as
whimsical as a middle-aged Parisian’s taste in diet. Two years as an
undergraduate of the university had sufficed to draw the ban upon women’s
residences and the mild espionage of fellow students. Her third year in
arts had taught her conclusively that living with a maternal aunt was
laying oneself needlessly open to constant misinterpretation. There were
things she wanted to do—such as show herself friendly with Max Lee.
There were other things which she did—such as allow Nutbrown Hennigar
to call upon her. Evidently, Mrs. Manton’s house furnished what she
wanted—freedom, comfort, protection from idle scandal. At any rate Mauney
drew as much from her usual conversations.
But he was too busy to be greatly concerned with Freda; and, moreover, he
had long since decided that she belonged to Lee. Max occasionally denied
this, and characterized their relationship as merely a good friendship,
but Mauney heard between his words.
Moreover there was Lorna Freeman, whom he had watched develop into an
attractive womanhood. They were still together daily. He still took
dinner at the professor’s occasionally and followed dinner with long
discussions in the smoky study upstairs. He liked the Freemans. He liked
Lorna. He liked Merlton and his university life.
But at the end of three years, with only one more year to study, he began
to take synoptic views of the general situation and to cast into the
immediate future for a career.
During his fourth year the problem of a life-work forced itself upon him.
He told Professor Freeman his troubles as they smoked together. The
historian seemed to appreciate the confidence.
“Well, Mauney,” he said seriously, “The logical thing for you to do is to
find out what you are best fitted for, and take up that work. You will be
graduating next spring. The world is before you. No one but yourself can
decide the question.”
Hours when Mauney might have been cogitating on the subject, were
usually spent in delightful loneliness in his room, writing down
his thoughts on history in his ledger, which had now grown to be a
considerable volume of literature. He took it out of its long privacy one
evening to show to Lorna. He read her snatches of things he had written,
consciously opening the somewhat sacred recesses of his being to her.
When he asked her for an opinion she had little to say.
“Oh, it’s pretty stuff!” she admitted coolly—“a sort of effervescence
from a student’s mind!”
She was right. He mentally applauded her judgment. Surely, after all, it
was nothing else. All the nights he had spent on it! All the impassioned
moments he had worked to express his personal ideas of history! Nothing
but a sort of effervescence! Surely, she was right. Cold, frank, truthful
Lorna! How his admiration was wrung from him by her bald statement! He
had wanted her to like it tremendously and praise it and acclaim it as
worthy writing. But now he felt like thanking her for categorizing it
with accurate appraisal. How accurate she was! “Effervescence!” When he
returned home he threw the ledger down on his desk.
“Damn this effervescence!” he cursed with ruffled feelings. “Damn my
student’s mind! If this isn’t real then I’m not real.”
Of course, the situation in the class, with only two of them, always
the same two, was provocative of a strain between them. He never felt
that they had discovered the very thing that she had recommended in the
stilted language of her first year—a _modus vivendi_.
She consistently defeated him at the examinations, although he was quite
indifferent to the fact. He noticed a peculiar jealousy in her that
came to the surface at odd moments, when their respective intelligences
were compared by the challenge of academic demands. He knew that, often
enough, he could have answered a tutor’s question first, but that he
refrained in order to give her the advantage of priority.
She had become a beautiful woman, a blonde goddess of severely classical
line and color. When he looked at her he favored her intelligence, and
continued to accord her priority. But he felt that she was overshadowing
and hindering him, and that a _modus vivendi_ could be discovered only by
some spiritual change in their relationship.
One solution seemed to be a personal declaration of independence. She
deserved, no doubt, to be regarded as an academic rival, and thus
treated; for, if ever an opportunity came for her to defeat him by
a clever word or argument she never held back. If now, he were to
retaliate, forgetting her sex, and try earnestly to beat her at her
own game of wit, he would be truer to himself, and would create a more
natural relationship in the class.
But, on the other hand, a different solution cropped up. If, by any
means, he could spiritually overshadow her, break down her being into
dependence upon his own; if, in short, he could but touch her affections,
he would thus create harmony in the class, as well as accomplish a
desirable feat. He knew well enough that he had ached to touch her hidden
heart. He had sat, for nearly four years, looking at her, admiring her
body as well as her mind, but had never been able once to tell her in
words, or in any other way, just how he felt about her.
This problem added itself to the several others that confronted him. He
accused himself over and over of continued weakness. He must do something
about Lorna Freeman. That was the great certitude before him. She could
not be ignored. It was incumbent upon him either to dislike her or love
her. Which would it be? She was like a bulky obstacle in his path, that
could not be moved. His progress depended on shoving her aside or else
winning her. Naturally he embraced the second method, as a trial.
He hired a car one autumn evening and took her driving out past Riverton
into the country. The air was crisp and the west aglow with luminous
green.
“You seem frightfully serious, Mauney,” she remarked.
“So I am,” he admitted. “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
She glanced from under her black hat and smiled a little impatiently.
“When one goes for a motor-drive one doesn’t usually like to be so
oppressively serious, does one? Have I the right to enquire as to what is
making you so much absorbed in your thoughts?”
He nodded as he turned toward her.
“Yes,” he said forcibly. “You’ve got a peach of a right to ask. I’m
serious about you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I’ve tried for four years to get something said, and you’ve always
been so preoccupied with an overweening interest in the surrounding
world, that I’ve never managed to say anything. Even now I haven’t got
five cents’ worth of assurance. I don’t altogether blame myself, either.
I’m not an especially timid or fearful creature. I usually say what I
want to say and let the devil take the consequences. And that, Lorna, is
what I’m going to do right now.”
She was surprised. Her blue eyes widened. Her perfect, if severe, lips
opened to reply, but he was leaning toward her, ready to interrupt.
“Why have I always been so meekly worshipful?” he demanded. “Why have
I always let you have your way? Is it just because you are a woman? If
so—if you are a woman—why don’t you sometimes treat me as if you were?”
Her face was a picture of utter astonishment.
“Mauney Bard!” she exclaimed. “Why don’t you ask me one question at a
time? You seem dreadfully upset about something, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted, as he leaned closer to her. “I am. I’m upset over
you.”
She was strikingly good-looking at the moment. Her customary classical
paleness was gone. A warmth of color, provoked by some sudden emotion,
had usurped its place. She was surprised by his words and her eyes
frankly looked her confusion.
“Lorna,” he said, putting his arm about her shoulders. “I had to bring
you here, away from everything. I—”
“Don’t!” she implored, drawing quickly back. “I—I can’t!”
Then she made a queer, gurgling sound in her throat, tried to speak, and
ended by weeping with her face held between her hands.
As the car sped on Mauney sat regarding her in absolute mystification.
“Why on earth does the girl weep?” he meditated. “What have I done to
her? Is my proffer of love an insult?”
It was a hoax of a drive. It became unbearable. After a long silence he
ventured to change the subject entirely, and found her presently quite
agreeable to talk about other matters. He was glad when he at last put
her down at her home and said good-night. Then, returning to the car, he
drove to the Medical Building, where the windows of Lee’s laboratory were
brilliantly lighted. After paying the driver he stood for a few moments
on the walk trying to collect his self-control. He wanted to see Max,
but knew that unless he paused he would stamp into the laboratory like a
madman. He owed Lee some deference on account of the latter’s important
work. It was ten minutes before he opened the great front door of the
building and ascended the iron staircase to the first floor. He rapped on
the laboratory door.
“Who’s there?” came Lee’s voice, in an unnatural tone.
“Mauney.”
“All right.”
In a moment Max unlocked the door and stepped back. He had a bottle
of whiskey in his hand with a corkscrew stuck into the cork. Without
noticing Mauney’s surprised expression, he turned to walk to a table
where he continued his occupation of trying to draw the cork. His lean
body was clothed in his long, white, laboratory gown, and his black hair
hung in confusion over his pale face. He evidently forgot that something
in the present scene was bound to be dramatically new to Mauney. Without
explanation he drawled, in his gentle voice:
“This whiskey, Mauney, is neither Olympian nectar nor fixed bayonets.
I’ve frequently sipped better spirits, and I’ve occasionally tasted
worse. Like you and me, my son, it was made before the war. Fortunately
it lacks the throaty sting of recent distillation, but, on the other
hand, it can hardly be said to possess the superb smoothness, the
velvety, liqueur-like softness of real old spirits, such as I, and such
as you, no doubt, have, at sundry times and in divers places, imbibed. I
use the word ‘imbibed’ advisedly, and with nice selection from the swarm
of verbs meaning to drink, such as sip, taste, sample, swallow, tipple,
to say nothing of swig, and to leave out of consideration entirely such
inelegant terms as snort, or even gargle.”
Mauney was leaning against the desk watching him curiously and smiling at
his mood. He wondered especially why Max was drinking.
“Do you want any help?” he asked, seeing that Lee still struggled with
the cork.
“No, I scorn your assistance,” he laughed. “There we are! Pop! It had a
nice pop, hadn’t it? And here’s your glass. I suppose you’re drinking?”
“Why, Max, old fellow! I’ll drink with you, yes. I’m in a good mood for
murder or anything, to-night.”
Lee held up a beaker full of whiskey.
“Murder—eh? If that’s how you feel put that glass back on the desk. Don’t
touch it. You’re not in a fit mood for drinking, my son. In order to
drink one should be bathed in delightful reminiscences; one should feel
at peace with the spacious present and most hopeful for the future.”
“And yet,” Mauney said, looking into his friend’s dark eyes, “I don’t
seem to think you’re in that delightful mood either. What’s wrong?”
Lee laughed rather unrestrainedly. After quaffing off the beaker of
liquor he filled the receptacle with water from a tap, drank it, smacked
his lips, and then, putting down the beaker on the desk, lit a cigarette.
“I’m not really drunk, Mauney,” he replied more soberly. “I’m taking this
stuff for stimulation. My health is not the best, unfortunately. Keep it
dark; but I was up to pay a visit to Dr. Adamson this afternoon. Well, he
went over my chest, and I guess I know why they turned me down for the
army. I’ve got T.B. all right, so he thinks. Don’t be alarmed—”
“But you shouldn’t be working,” interrupted Mauney, in great astonishment
over the news.
“So Adamson tried to tell me. But it’s the fibrotic type—just a sort of
shrivelling of one lung. Not a bit contagious, you know. Of course it
weakens me, sure enough. And I do think it’s a damned great misfortune,
my son. Here I have my work pretty near in hand”—he made a gesture toward
the apparatus that littered the desks—“and another year’s work would
probably give me the secret I’m after. I’m on the track, Mauney; I’m on
the track.”
“Good.”
A tremendous pity for Lee possessed him, a pity that one man could never
express to another. He thought of the quiet, gradual process of disease
that had gone on in Max’s body, steadily sapping his strength. Why
should fate have ordained this brilliant student to bear a disease that
might have been visited more reasonably upon one who could never mean so
much to the cause of science?
“Now, what I intend doing is to work on until I finish this bit of
research work,” Max informed him. “If I discover the cause of pernicious
anæmia I’ll be fairly happy, as you can imagine. If I don’t—well, I’ll
have another whack at it after I rest up and get back in shape. I’m going
to work right now. There’s a chair and some cigarettes, Mauney. Sit
down and stay a while anyway.” He turned presently from his laboratory
apparatus. “But you didn’t explain your murderous mood. What’s the
matter?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing worth talking about,” Mauney replied, simply.
Whether it was worth talking about or not, the next few days seemed to
prove that it was worth thinking about. He found himself in the same
unsatisfactory relation to Lorna as ever. He called one evening and asked
her if she would like to stroll with him on their back lawn.
“Oh yes,” she consented, “although it does sound childish, doesn’t it?”
It was far from childish to Mauney. He looked down upon her pale,
exquisite face, as they sat on a bench in the faded twilight and knew
that something had to be done about her. He was determined not to let
another day pass without settling once and for all the relationship that
was to exist between them. Here beside him on the bench was the one woman
who had managed to cast a constant spell of attraction over him. For
three years she had occupied a good deal of his thoughts. During this
time he had become tolerably well acquainted with himself and longed now
to become acquainted with the woman who had always held him so coolly
at arm’s length. He was particularly curious to know what explanation
existed for her conduct a few nights previously in the motor car. Why had
she resisted his embrace?
“Lorna,” he said, at length, “I want to ask you a question. It may not
mean much to you, but it means a lot to me.”
“Well, Mauney,” she said, with just a fleck of impatience in her voice.
“I’ve been dreading this conversation. I know what you want to ask me and
I’m not at all certain that I can explain. And yet I can’t very easily
deny you the right to ask.”
“I don’t see how you could in fairness, Lorna. I merely want to know why
you repelled me the other night, when I tried to kiss you. Tell me if
there was any other motive than just plain lack of affection for me. Was
that it?”
He was leaning toward her for her reply, and his arm which lay across the
back of the seat, touched her shoulders lightly. She did not move from
the caress.
“Look here, Mauney,” she said, in such a clear, unhampered tone that he
almost started. “I think I can explain. I’ve always liked you a lot.
You’ve always been a perfect gentleman to me. I’ve always admired your
courtesy at all times. And I’ve always liked your ideas. I think I could
have gone on for ever, dreaming life with you if—if—”
“If what, Lorna?”
“If you hadn’t spoiled—I mean, when you tried to take me in your arms,
that was a totally unknown idea. Not so much that, perhaps, but it
was beyond me entirely. I felt that it symbolized something big, yet
something so vastly new and foreign to my mind that I was frightened.”
“Frightened?”
“That’s it, exactly,” she nodded. “I was frightened at having a new
vista of life opened up suddenly, that way—unawares, taken off guard, if
you can understand. I wasn’t ready for it. You see, my mind is, in many
ways, inexperienced. I don’t know men at all. You’ve had more emotional
experience than I have. I didn’t mean to be cruel. In fact, that’s why I
cried, because I was afraid I had hurt your feelings.”
A street lamp on Crandall Street now blossomed into light and sent a
long, glancing shaft against her face. Mauney quivered with attraction.
“Are you actually afraid of me, Lorna?” he asked.
She looked up into his eyes a moment very thoughtfully.
“No—I guess not,” she replied, with a noticeable hesitancy.
“Listen,” he said, leaning nearer her and grasping her hand. “I’ve been
torn to bits over you for three years. I’ve tried to put you out of my
mind, but couldn’t. What’s the use of going on the way we have been?”
even as he spoke his arm pressed her shoulders close to him, while she
looked up into his face, pale and apprehensive.
“Don’t you try to get away from me, either,” he said in a stern voice as
she pushed with her hand against his bosom. “I won’t stand for that any
longer. You’ve got to listen to me, Lorna.”
A dim passion akin to revenge possessed him. He pressed her close an
instant and kissed her full upon the lips. Then she wilted, and dropped
her head softly, with little sobs, against his shoulder.
“Lorna,” he said. “Will you be my wife?”
She did not reply, but remained sheltered within the circle of his arms.
“You do me a great honor,” she said at length, in a low voice. “But I
will certainly have to consider this business very carefully. I’ll tell
you soon.”
“How soon?”
“In about a month, I guess.”
CHAPTER II.
MAUNEY FINDS A FRIEND.
While Mauney waited the month for Lorna’s matrimonial verdict, he
occupied himself chiefly with study and with more writing in his ledger.
Whatever might be the true character of these flashing impressions which
he jotted down, they had become an essential part of existence, for they
came to him with imperativeness.
The alcove in the hallway upstairs was a good place to write. He found
that he could arrange his thoughts better within earshot of other people
talking than within the quietness of his own room. The dull, monotonous
murmur of conversation from the dining room below had the peculiar
effect of keeping him psychically in touch with humanity. The frequent
selections of the gramophone music, with the sound of Gertrude’s feet
slipping gracefully along the floor in the rhythm of a dance, or the
voice of Fred Stalton singing some popular song to the gramophone’s
accompaniment, reminded him that history was concerned with all people,
that it was not a subject of mere academic interest, but of life and
blood, of gaiety and despair, of every emotion that warmed or cooled the
hearts of people. Freda MacDowell would often pass him, seated by the
hall desk, on her way to her room, nodding with a friendly smile or
indulging in a short word or two of conversation.
One evening she showed considerable interest in the subject of his
labors, and excused herself for asking upon what he might be so
assiduously bent.
“I’m afraid I’m wasting time, Miss MacDowell,” he said, looking up
from his big volume. “It’s a hobby I have. Just scribbling down my
impressions.”
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s waste time or not,” she said, “as long as
you like doing it. I wish you’d loosen up a little, Mr. Bard, and invite
me to read your stuff. Having seen you at work so constantly here every
night, you can’t blame me for having a woman’s curiosity.”
“Nothing would suit me better,” he laughed. “If I had thought you would
be interested I would have invited you long ago.”
He rose and indicated a chair near his own.
“If you have time,” he said. “But perhaps you are busy.”
“Me—busy? Oh no! I’m the most leisurely person in the world. I’m just
crazy to read your impressions. But what are your impressions about?”
She sat down and leaned her elbows on the edge of the desk.
“History.”
“Dear me,” she sighed, with a little chuckle. “How disappointing. I,
too, have my own impressions of history, or should I say the history
machine. I thought you were writing a romance with a lot of thrills in
it. However, I’m anxious to see what you think of history.”
For a moment she turned through the pages of his scrap-book, reading odd
paragraphs here and there.
“I’d rather talk to you about it,” she admitted, at length. “I’ll start
by asking you what history is.”
“I’m not strong on definitions,” he replied, glancing at the base of
the desk lamp, purposely to avoid the gaze of her deep eyes. “And I’m
hopeless when subjected to a catechism.”
“Good. I knew you were. If I were to ask Nutbrown Hennigar that
question—of course I know better—he’d proceed to bore me for an hour.
Do you know, I hate history like sin. I wouldn’t stay at this job of
mine, except I’ve got to live by the sweat of my brow. There’s Robert
Freeman—just a kind of hard-boiled brains—he gives me the creeps. Alfred
Tanner is bad enough. He’s pretty well submerged in the business, too,
although he has preserved a sense of humor. And Hennigar. What _do_ you
think?”
“What?” asked Mauney.
“He’s writing a history of the war,” she laughed. “I read some of his
manuscript. He invited me to do so.” She looked a playful reproach at
Mauney, as though conscious of her self-invitation to read his writings.
“And it’s just the most amusing thing ever! He’s got the whole war so
definitely sized up that you don’t feel any surprise at anything that
happened. You feel that the war was just as natural as taking your coffee
into the drawing room after dinner. You feel that the strategic movements
in the battles cost nobody a moment’s thought. The soldiers just
emerge from the west salient and the east flank like so many automatic
chess-pieces headed for their preordained positions. There’s no smoke or
explosions or blood in his battles at all. Just 3,000 casualties, 500
prisoners, and a dent in the Allied line or the German line. He’s done it
so hardheadedly that I’ve nicknamed him Napoleon.”
“But isn’t he a pretty good friend of yours, Miss MacDowell?”
“Oh, wonderfully good,” she smiled sarcastically. “He thrives on
destructive criticism, and he really receives nothing else from me. The
more I criticize him the more he thinks of me. I’ve never given him a
single word of encouragement, never, and yet he keeps right on my trail.
There used to be a saying that the best man is the one that’s hardest for
a woman to get. Hennigar can’t qualify—he’s the hardest to get rid of.”
“Funny,” said Mauney. “I half knew that was the case.”
“Well, I must go and dress,” she said, rising. “He’s taking me to a dance
to-night and I don’t want to keep him waiting over an hour. His car has
been at the door for twenty minutes already. By the way, I wish you would
put your manuscript in on my desk. I’ll be home some time to-night and
would like to look over it.”
At breakfast next morning he asked her what she thought of his writings.
“My judgment isn’t worth a Chinese nickel,” she replied. “But I read it
all and I think it’s a whizz and when I enjoy anything like that it must
be unusual anyhow. I think it’s just like you, and I thought of a dandy
scheme just before I lopped off to sleep. Would you like to know what it
is?”
“You bet,” said Mauney eagerly.
“Well I’ll tell you. I think you ought to whip it into shape, call it
‘The Teaching of History’ or some such title, and have it published.
It’s a direct slam on the conventional methods of teaching history.
It would start a mild sensation and sell like life-preservers at a
shipwreck.”
“I hadn’t thought of publishing it,” Mauney admitted.
“Give _me_ credit for the idea,” she laughed. “I’ve had an awful lot of
experience with manuscripts, especially historical ones. Now, I’m game to
take all that dope of yours down in shorthand from dictation and type it,
if you approve of the idea.”
Mauney’s eyes burned with enthusiasm.
“It’s a go!” he said, “Do you really mean it?”
“Try me, fair sir,” she yawned.
“Of course I will insist on paying you for your services, Miss MacDowell.”
“Naturally,” she said. “You didn’t think I’d work for nothing, did you?”
It was decided to wait until the Christmas holidays before commencing
work on the manuscript. Mauney had an invitation to spend Christmas
in Lockwood, at Jean Byrne’s, but this could be easily declined. He
knew that Jean was anxious to have him come to Lockwood after his own
graduation, to teach in the High School. Her letter mentioned the fact
that the present master in history was leaving in the spring, thus
creating a vacancy. But to teach in Lockwood held no attraction for
Mauney, and as for spending Christmas at her home—it would not be as
enjoyable as getting to work on his manuscript.
* * * * *
Lorna’s verdict was not given. Mauney saw her every day and found that,
having once propounded the question that vexed his soul and having once
broken down the barrier of reserve between them, their relationship was
much more workable. She treated him now, at last, like a woman, with more
of the woman’s art in her general address.
But Mauney’s nature was severely independent. While he waited to learn
her decision, he remained more strictly a friend than ever. He wanted
her to decide the big question without the slightest influence from him.
He was strangely content with his own attitude. He possessed enough
masculine irrationality to feel boundlessly satisfied with what he had
done, and failed to observe with what stolid apathy he was awaiting the
result. One thing he knew—that he had taken up a definite attitude toward
his old classmate, that had at least settled the unrest.
What particular arguments Lorna might be employing in the delicate mental
process of arriving at a decision he was far from knowing, but he was
tolerably certain that she had taken her family into her confidence, for
the Professor and Mrs. Freeman both exhibited a new and fresher interest
in him on the occasions he visited their home. Behind Freeman’s cold,
grey eyes lurked a stealthy light of objective analysis that rendered
Mauney uncomfortable. Nothing was said for a time, until one Sunday
evening after dinner the professor referred again to his choice of a
career.
“It’s very hard, Mauney, to make up one’s mind what to do,” he said
quietly, with his customary smile. “You have, of course, before you the
question of an academic career. It takes considerable courage to adopt
such a life-work. There are many dangers of scholarship, such as the
tendency to stereotypy and the temptations to mental error. Then again,
the scholar’s work is unspectacular.” Freeman raised his long index
finger for emphasis. “You do not need to mind that. The popular idea of
the scholar is the musty individual with high-powered spectacles, his
nose one inch from a book at all times except when he’s eating. But the
truth is that the scholar is the real hero of society.”
“I quite agree, Professor,” Mauney admitted.
“Why! this world of ours is ruled not by government, but by ideas,”
said Freeman enthusiastically. “The university casts the legislature
into shadow. The scholar toils as no laborer ever knew how to toil,
through painful growth of mind, comparing, judging, until he gains a new
conception of reality. From the difficult records and phenomena of life
he bears forth his new ideas.”
The eminent historian sat eagerly forward in his chair.
“Then the new idea spreads,” he said, with a soft gesture of his hand.
“It spreads like the mustard seed. Like the cloud no bigger than a man’s
hand it soon overspreads the whole sky to give rain to a parched earth.
It is your scholar, Mauney, working in his intangible medium of thought,
who builds up society from barbarism to civilization.”
Mauney nodded.
“It’s a wonderful life,” he said. “I’ve often thought of taking up
teaching.”
“Well, in that case, you must decide what kind of teaching. Now as head
of our department, I am constantly on the lookout for young men. We will
have need for a new appointee on the staff this coming autumn. I am in
the position of offering you a lectureship, if you choose to consider it.”
“That’s much more than I ever expected,” Mauney replied eagerly. “I’m
sure I didn’t even dream of any such wonderful opportunity. I scarcely
know how to thank you. But I’m very much afraid of my own inability to
fill such a post.”
“We try to train you for your responsibilities,” Freeman declared,
evidently pleased with Mauney’s attitude. “Perhaps you will need a few
weeks to consider my proposal.”
“No sir, I really don’t need a minute,” he asserted, “If I’m in order I
would like to accept it immediately.”
“Good,” smiled Freeman, rising and extending his hand. He gave Mauney’s
hand a warm pressure. “Your enthusiasm augurs well and, as I naturally
have most to say about departmental appointments, I am now really
welcoming you to the staff. Of course, the information must be regarded
as strictly confidential until your name is published in the fall lists.
Even Lorna must not know. Continue your academic work faithfully. There
will be sufficient time during the summer to prepare you for your duties.”
Mauney’s elation over this incident carried him along in secret happiness
for the remaining weeks of the term. With a definite purpose in view he
took up his historical work with renewed enthusiasm. Once again, as in
his first days in Merlton, the lamp of knowledge shone brightly and he
lived in great happiness within the zone of its cool, clear rays.
The Christmas vacation came, with the customary lull in college life,
and he faced Freda MacDowell one morning, ready for the keeping of their
private contract. They discussed their plan of attack, after breakfast,
seated together on the dining-room sofa. They decided to utilize the
alcove in the upper hallway, and asked Gertrude’s permission.
“Naturally,” she consented, pausing in her occupation of transferring the
breakfast dishes to the kitchen. “As long as you are not contemplating
seditious literature.”
“It is going to be pretty seditious, isn’t it, Mr. Bard?” laughed Freda.
“In that case,” purred Mrs. Manton, “I think the occasion demands a
better setting. You may have the parlor, if you like. There’s a table you
can rest your typewriter on, and a comfortable couch upon which Mauney
can extend his thoughtful form while he dictates his words of wisdom.”
“Don’t rub it in, Gertrude,” he pleaded.
“Well, do you want the parlor, or not?”
“You bet we do,” he agreed. “But you may grow tired of the noise.”
“Oh, that’s just fine,” declared Freda enthusiastically. “If Sadie Grote
wants to use the piano she can wait till we get through. Music is only
music. But this book is going to be an event, mind you, Gertrude.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t, my dear.”
“You’d better not, either.”
“Little did I think,” said Mrs. Manton in her low voice, putting down her
dishes on the table, and facing the two with gentle cynicism, “that my
humble abode would be the scene of authorship. Take my unbounded approval
as granted.”
“Shut up!” said Mauney.
“It’s only what might be expected,” remarked Fred Stalton, who was
commencing his own Christmas holidays. He was lounging, as of old, in his
shirt sleeves, enjoying the first respite for months. “You know, Gert,
it’s a wonderful little home. It has seen some queer stunts pulled off.
You remember we once harbored a man named Jolvin here. He evidently drew
a lucky card when he signed on our staff as boarder. That bird drew a
half million touch. There’s luck in seventy-three. Take my word for it.
I’m not jolted to find that a book is going to be written here either.
I’ll buy one of the first copies. And there’s another stunt going to be
pulled off in a couple of weeks, too.”
“You don’t tell me,” purred Mrs. Manton. “What is it, pray?”
“Sadie Grote is going to get married!”
“Well, for heaven’s sake,” quoth the landlady, dropping into a chair and
pulling her kimona about her. “When did Sadie decide to join the ranks of
the tormented?”
“A day or two ago. Ain’t she stepping some?”
“You bet she is, Freddie. She’s a sly little fox. She never told me a
word. I’m surprised that Sadie would tell you first.”
“Well you see, Gert, she owed me that little courtesy, as I’m the guy
that asked her to get married.”
“Fred Stalton!” exclaimed Mrs. Manton.
“Hurrah!” exclaimed Freda. “Congratulations!”
“Thanks, Miss MacDowell. I’ll give you an invite to the wedding ceremony.
We’re going to pull it off about New Year’s in swell style. Down at
Belmont Tabernacle. Got the preacher engaged and everything. You’ve all
got to come. Cheer up, Gert, I know what’s troubling you. We’re not going
to keep house. We’re going to live right on at seventy-three. There’s
luck in the number.”
“Well, Freddie, I’m surprised at you,” she admitted. “To think of a
shrewd chap like yourself getting married.”
“Isn’t marriage a good thing, Gertrude?” he laughed.
“Yes. A good thing to be through with! May the ashes of my deceased
husband lie perfectly peaceful as I talk! But this astonishes me
considerably.”
Mrs. Manton carried her dishes out to the kitchen and returned for a
second load, in her customary suave manner, as if, in sooth, nothing
however astonishing, could break in upon the even tenor of her life.
“Wonders and more wonders,” she said. “It won’t be long until my little
family are all gone. Think of me, widowed at thirty-five, with my
children getting married like this. What am I to do, Miss MacDowell?”
“Why, there’s just one solution under the sun, Gertrude,” said Freda,
seriously.
“What’s that, pray?”
“You’ll have to get married again. You’ll have to select another husband.
Of course I never heard anything about your first one, but perhaps if you
try again the picking will be better.”
“My first husband was really a prince of a chap,” she said calmly. “I
don’t keep any photos because I hate to be reminded of what a fine fellow
he was. But if you had seen him you would have fallen for him at once.
No, Miss MacDowell, my quarrel was certainly not with George Manton in
particular, but rather with the fact of marriage in general.”
“I see,” laughed Freda. “I suppose you didn’t like to be tied down.”
“Precisely the case, my dear. My nature was, and is, one of those
unfortunate ones that doesn’t see sermons in stones, or poems in running
brooks, or eternal happiness within the confines of a brick residence.
I have never, even yet, reached the slippers-and-fireplace stage, and
have never wearied of variety. I have never shed a tear of remorse that,
at thirty-five, I am not putting my children to bed, and I was brought
up to love commotion and a life of shifting change. I’m really a gypsy,
you know, I love horses and I love to be going. My dear husband was a
successful business man with a germ of the _pater familias_ about him. He
never quite got me, unfortunately. I worshipped the ground he walked on,
but I never considered that my affection for him should change my home
into a nunnery, nor that I should acknowledge my affection by living a
hermetically-sealed life. Marriage! You really mustn’t mention it to me.
I’m afraid I rebelled against its restrictions once and for all.”
“Gertrude is rather deep,” Mauney said to Freda, later, as they started
putting the parlor in order for their task.
“Yes, she is,” Freda admitted. “She has as many brains as three average
women, as much pep as twenty, and less caution than any I ever met. She
really is a gypsy, I believe. I’d like to know her whole life.—Don’t you
think I had better use this table?”
“Sure. Put the typewriter there. We can have more light on the scene,
too.”
Mauney raised the front curtains to let in the dull, white glare of the
snow-covered street.
“Now I’m going to lounge on the sofa with this scrap-album on my
knees, if you’ll pardon my informality, and let you have my ideas in
straight-from-the-shoulder sentences.”
“That’s the correct way,” she laughed, seating herself beside the round
centre table and adjusting the ribbons of her typewriter. “If you don’t
go too fast I can catch it directly on the machine. What are you going to
call the book?”
“Thoughts on the Teaching of History.”
“Fine. What about an introduction?”
“Better have one, eh?”
“Yes. I would suggest a breezy opening of some sort for the purpose of
getting under way.”
Mauney reclined on the sofa and smoked a cigarette. Presently he
dictated, between periods of noise from the busy typewriter:
“Solomon was right. There is no end to making books. Why should any
modern writer, with surfeit of literary heritage from past ages, seek
to augment their number? Everything worth saying has been said already.
Every vagary of thought, every wisp of emotion, every particle of
knowledge has been crystallized in books. It is impossible for any
contemporary to insinuate his thought, however perspicacious, further
than human thought has been already insinuated. It is impossible for a
modern writer to wiggle his pen in any form of gyration different from
the gyrations of the multitudinous pens, crow-quills and styluses that
have wiggled throughout the centuries. Repetition, imitation, plagiarism!
Everything we write down has been written under, as in a palimpsest,
whether or not we perceive the dim characters, all but erased through
time. A book is no longer ‘the precious life-blood of a master spirit,
embalmed and treasured up,’ but rather a craven member of a jingling
throng who limp in tedious masquerade past the grand-stand of a plethoric
and indolent public.
“Books, books! Acres of books, as if a poor, solitary author could
possibly maintain his inspiration in the midst of such overpowering
evidence of ultimate futility!
“The public have been bored with much writing on the subject of history,
and recently much new history has been made. We hold no assurance, nor do
we give any, that this rambling communication on the Teaching of History
will do more than limp past the grand-stand already mentioned. What will
be herein set forth is a description of the author’s sentiments rather
than a didactic scheme, written from the standpoint of a student of
history rather than from the full knowledge of a scholar.”
“I think,” said Freda, as she pounded out the last words of the preface,
“that you’re too modest. But never mind, you’re writing the book, not me.
You don’t seem to realize that what the public want is hot air, not a
gentleman’s modest viewpoint.”
Mauney laughed, and sat up on the sofa, watching her fingers fly over the
keys.
“I appreciate the value of hot air, thoroughly, Miss MacDowell, but I
really want to be sincere in this business. Do you know—it’s great fun
writing a book—with you.”
“I thank you,” she said, dropping her hands in her lap with a sigh. “Now,
have you got your first chapter ready to commence?”
“Yes, call it, ‘The Beginner’s Preconceptions of History.’ Are you
ready?”
“Ever at thy service!”
With a glance at her roguish face he settled down again upon the
comfortable sofa and dictated once more from the fullness of his heart.
They worked hard until, at noon, Maxwell Lee opened the parlor door,
sticking in his head and glancing from one to the other.
“Hello!” he said, in a surprised tone. “You two look busy.”
“Indeed we are, Max,” said Freda, stopping her work. “Mauney—I mean Mr.
Bard—is pouring forth his theories of history, reconstructed, and I, as
you see, am his amanuensis.”
“Great stuff!” drawled Max, entering the room, and standing beside the
sofa he continued: “You old bear, I’m glad you’re blossoming out into
letters, and I’m glad you’ve got such an excellent amanuensis.”
Mauney glanced from his face to Freda’s with a peculiar feeling that he
had been caught trespassing, ever so little, upon Lee’s property, but
consoled himself with the knowledge that his relation to Miss MacDowell
was frankly a commercial one, or at most, but friendly.
“How are things, Max?” he asked.
“So, so. I’m going home for a week’s rest. I just found out to-day that
the sight of that laboratory was beginning to bore me to tears.” He
paused to remove his overcoat. “Am I butting in?”
He turned toward Freda, as he asked the question.
“I suppose you are, Max. But who has a better license?”
“Hear, hear!” said Mauney. “Sit down, you prune, and have a smoke. I’ve
just about drained myself of language, anyway, and I can smell beefsteak
frying.”
“And while you two are smoking,” said Freda, rising, “I’m going out to
give Gertrude a hand with the dinner.”
When she had gone Mauney smoked in silence for an awkward moment.
“How’s the work, Max?”
“Coming along fine. I really think I’ve struck something big.”
“Gee, that’s good. More power to you. Feeling all-right?”
“Oh yes!” he answered. “Fairly good, I could stand a little more pep,
though. After I get rested up for a week or so I’ll be right on the job
again.”
Mauney rose and walked slowly toward the front window and stood looking
out on the snow-covered street. For once he failed to understand his own
feelings. There was a hot spot in his bosom, burning larger and larger.
It had something to do with Freda MacDowell he was sure, because he could
see her face before him with its bewitching comfort. It had something to
do with Max, too. He longed for words, but they were tied securely within
the remotest recesses of his being. He turned and walked slowly back.
Lee was sitting idly smoking, with his lanky legs carelessly crossed. He
noticed that Max’s face was now flushed.
“It’s a devilish cold day, Max,” he said awkwardly.
“Um-h’m. I think it’s going to snow,” Lee responded, rising and starting
slowly for the door. It was dinner-time. In getting out the door they
made mutual offers of priority to each other. As they walked toward the
dining room Mauney reflected that they had never done this before, and
that never before, during their long acquaintance had the weather been a
topic of conversation.
CHAPTER III.
THE GREAT HAPPINESS.
The groundwork of Mauney’s book on history was completed, with Freda’s
careful assistance, during the Christmas holidays, and finished in final
form by the end of March, when the manuscript was submitted to Locke
& Son, Publishers. Mauney was willing to allow Freda to choose the
publisher, having learned to repose mysterious confidence in her judgment
of such practical matters. He possessed none too sanguine an opinion of
the book’s fate, suffering from an author’s customary self-depreciation,
and was, therefore, greatly and pleasantly surprised a month later, to
receive a letter from Locke & Son stating that they had accepted it for
publication and would shortly carry it to press. When he expressed his
surprise Freda seemed not at all excited by the news, as evidently she
had not shared his diffidence.
“Mauney,” she exclaimed, with a hopeless shake of her head, “you are the
most mournful prophet. In the first place, what you said in it is just
contrary enough to the accepted view of history to stir certain folks up
a little. But I have withheld from you the real story until now. Do you
know why Locke accepted it?”
“No,” he answered. “That’s what’s puzzling me.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” she laughed. “I knew that the publisher would
submit that manuscript to somebody in the History Department for an
opinion. They picked on our friend Nutbrown Hennigar. Well, maybe you
can imagine what he would have to say about it. He dictated his letter
to me. Of all the letters I have ever seen it took the red ticket for
pure, unadulterated blasphemy. He told Locke that your manuscript was, to
begin with, merely the asinine vaporings of an unsophisticated stripling
from away back. He said that your attitude towards history reminded him
of a starving laborer suddenly confronted with a seven-course dinner. He
considers your arguments subversive, crudely iconoclastic, tinctured by
a raw individualistic attitude, blurred by an emotionalism approaching
sentimentality, that your position could never be subscribed to by any
serious student of history, and that the firm of Locke & Son would be
extremely ill-advised in publishing so puerile a production.”
“The dirty cur!” interrupted Mauney. “All he has to do is live on his
father’s reputation and crowd down the under-dog. I’d love to poison that
small, squeaking excuse for a man!”
“Oh, don’t think of it!” mocked Freda, with a subtle smile. “Don’t poison
anybody that can help you. Love your enemies, for they’re useful. If he
had contented himself to praise faintly, Locke would never have printed
it. It was Nutbrown’s loud damns that excited their curiosity. They
thought that anything so subversive and revolutionary and so tinctured
by crude feeling would sell pretty well, and I think so, too, Mauney.
You did _me_ good when you lambasted these fossilized specimens of the
teaching profession who think History is merely an opportunity for
displaying academic methods. You are indeed a very raw youth,” she added
with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, “but you said a mouthful, for
until university students are shown that history is _human_ they will
never take a proper interest in the subject.”
“I believe that,” said Mauney.
Freda sat up sharply. “Just you wait,” she said, tapping the desk with
her knuckles. “It’s going to be a great old splash and Nutbrown will be
suddenly seized with an acute pain in his higher criticism.”
“Say, do you know I’ve a secret to tell you,” said Mauney, after a
moment’s reflection. “I’m not really supposed to tell anybody, but I’m
going to tell you. What do you think has happened?”
“Well, perhaps I have an idea,” she said with a particularly blasé yawn.
“But I might be wrong, so maybe you’d better tell me.”
“I’m going to lecture in history next fall. What do you think about that?”
“My dear man, I’ve known that for two months.”
“Well, aren’t you glad?” he asked, puzzled by her apathetic expression.
Her eyes narrowed as if she were weighing the elements of the case.
“I can’t say that I am,” she replied. “You weren’t cut out for a
professor. Please pardon my abruptness, but that’s just it. I’m sure
you’re happy over it, and I have no intention of prophesying. My
knowledge of university life has been gained by keeping my eyes open, and
I know the crowd. You won’t agree with them. You’ re too vital, if I may
be allowed to use the expression.”
“I feel like thanking you for that, Miss MacDowell.”
“You don’t need to. They aren’t such a bad lot. My first attitude was
one of intolerance, but now I pity them. There they are, up to the ears
in thankless routine, frozen by the currents of pure mentality, no
heart left, lopsided, fossilized, hopeless. I wish I were running the
university.”
There was such frank zeal in her wish that Mauney inquired as to what
changes she would make if she had her way.
“Well,” she said. “In the first place I’m so sorry for the president that
I could shed tears of real brine. They put him up in the clouds with
a gold halo round his head and forget that he eats meat and potatoes
and frequently perspires. He’s so busy addressing meetings, signing
documents, preaching sermons and being necessarily nice to everybody in
general that he has practically nothing to do with the university. He
might as well have an office down town and be done with it. They expect
him to be as perfect as the god they have made of him, and if he ever
makes a mistake the big howl starts. I’d like to go into his office some
day and kiss him right on the forehead and say: ‘Cheer up, old chap,
you’re a winner!’”
“That ought to help a little,” laughed Mauney. “What else would you do
for the university?”
“Why, I’d cut a great big window to let some sunshine into the history
department. And I’d fire Nutbrown Hennigar and give him a job as
aide-de-camp to some fat society woman up in the North End. He’s an
example of the vapid young man who gains preferment solely through family
influence. Then I’d take Uncle Alfred Tanner aside and explain to him
that he can never gain the personal development to which his noble
heart entitles him so long as he submits to the curbing influence of
his brother-in-law’s clever dictatorship. Then I’d walk into Freeman’s
office and, for purposes of smoothness, agree with him at the outset that
nothing is good for anything, that all human effort is futile, that there
naturally is no God, and then inquire naively, having got this settled,
what he wanted to do next? I’d like to see that man get loosened up, just
for once. I’ve often sat at my desk and just simply suffered to foxtrot
with him all over the history department. When Freeman dies they ought to
put a book in his hand instead of a lily.”
* * * * *
Mauney was reminded of Freda’s tirade against Freeman a few nights later
when he accepted an invitation to dine at the historian’s quiet home. Of
late he had unconsciously shunned the family, for reasons none too clear
even to his own understanding. At heart he dimly realized that Lorna
herself was the reason. He justly accused himself of having treated her
with a species of neglect which must have been decidedly puzzling to her.
Her matrimonial decision might have been arrived at long ago, for all he
knew. Although it was his place, as the lover he had depicted himself,
to inquire, he had nevertheless procrastinated. There was a great deal
of apathy in his nature. He noticed that, so long as he did not see her
or talk with her, he found no element of his being that regarded her as
necessary. When, however, he was presented with Lorna in person, as upon
this evening, the old attractions sprang to life once more, as if her
presence were the essential cause.
He arrived early and talked with her on the rear lawn while they awaited
dinner, which was being prepared by Mrs. Freeman herself. The high stone
wall at the back of the lawn abutted directly on the western portion of
the university grounds, so close to the history department that a small
door had been cut in the wall to facilitate the professor’s short cuts to
and from work.
They talked of many impersonal matters. It struck Mauney as almost
absurd that this young woman had been asked to marry him. The impersonal
attitude into which he had gradually drifted seemed to suit Lorna well
enough, and as he talked with her he began at last to understand her
real nature. Though pure and blameless, she was so narrowed by the lack
of certain emotions as to be, from a romantic standpoint, negative. He
saw it better now than ever before. The words that are a woman’s words
and never a man’s, the whimsical details of deportment and address that
belong peculiarly to women, the glances, the accents, the delicate
tricks of wit, the sallies of playfulness—these were not in Lorna. He
knew she liked him, but her presence was neither warm nor comforting.
Her college training had bestowed, or perhaps merely emphasized,
this negative quality of mind which Mauney at length recognized and
disliked. Lorna knew that men loved women; knew it to be an accepted
and doubtlessly beautiful arrangement, and one worthy of emulation, but
she did not realize that this love of a man was no mere arrangement of
pretty presentations, but a vital, all-absorbing, tremulous thing from
beginning to end. Most women lived by the power of it: Lorna labelled
it, pigeonholed it, and missed it.
He was tolerably sure that she did not hold it against him, that he had
not again referred to matters of love. He could more easily imagine her
appreciating his silence. Like her father and mother, her true character
became evident only after long acquaintance.
He had imagined the professor and his wife to be passably happy together
until impressed by Mrs. Freeman’s constant, mysterious sadness. Whether
or not they began life together in perfect personal harmony was
uncertain. But regarding their present relationship Mauney entertained
no doubt. They had drifted so far apart that scarcely any common ground
remained. Mrs. Freeman, shocked by her husband’s growing agnosticism, had
clung for refuge more tightly than ever to dogmatic tenets of religion
which at all times she had held to tightly enough. The farther Freeman
drifted from simple religion the more desperately did she hold on,
until their home life was rendered a frequent scene of controversial
unpleasantness.
At one time, not many years since, they had both attended church
and found sufficient spiritual satisfaction in the service. But the
increasing adventures of his mental life had gradually wooed Freeman
away. Something of an authority on ritual, he fell to investigating
the subject afresh, to be rewarded by the discovery of a few errors.
These had reference to recondite matters of priestly vestment and
entailed hair-splitting differences of no importance. It became a hobby.
The investigation led him on into comparative theology and biblical
criticism, the upshot being a declaration of a position of religious
agnosticism. At first he became a cheerful pragmatist, then an adroit
sceptic, whereupon Mrs. Freeman’s childlike faith, harshly fortifying
itself, grew slowly militant and became eventually not so much childlike
as childish.
Even an outsider felt the friction just beneath the surface. Mauney,
unprepared to believe how completely man and wife could be separated by
matters of faith, nevertheless saw the patent duality of the Freeman
home—the professor, ruling his upstairs study and using the place as
a boarding house, while Mrs. Freeman roamed the rest of the house in
spacious tragedy of manner. The one common ground between them was
Lorna, who, as might be expected, had problems of tact and opinion to
solve. When guests were in the house she frequently came between her
parents in the role of shock absorber, displaying considerable ingenuity.
On one occasion, Mauney having broached a religious argument at the
dinner-table, Lorna purposely upset a tumbler of water. This meant a
quick jump-up for every one and was a complete tactical success since,
with the deluged cover tented up on serviette rings, other topics
suggested themselves.
On this particular spring evening, relationships seemed happier. They sat
down at the table in good spirits. Freeman was apparently satisfied with
his mental progress during the day just finished, for he was lightsome
of manner, disposed to talk in a good-natured way and looked from Mauney
to Lorna with an expression almost of tenderness. Mauney had never been
made to feel quite so much at home. The fading light of evening looked
in through the large back-windows of the cozy dining-room like a soft
caress upon a scene of family compactness, where the four, seated at the
cardinal points of the circular table, enjoyed their food by the rich,
yellow light of a centrally-placed, silver candelabra. Lorna, gowned in a
simple white frock, flickered pleasantly opposite Mauney. The professor’s
face stared at the candles while his wife bowed her head to say grace.
Mrs. Freeman referred to the younger members of the family as “You
children.” It was all very snug and private and natural.
“Just think,” she said in her soft, slow inflection. “Another two weeks
and you will both be finished with your college courses. How the time
does go! You leave college halls to enter God’s great world.”
“Now, Mother,” said Lorna, good-naturedly, “it’s not quite so serious as
all that, I hope.”
“We are taught to believe it’s a pretty serious affair, Lorna,” she
responded. “The Scriptures tell us—”
“And the Scriptures are quite right,” smiled Freeman bitterly. “It is
certainly a serious, tragic affair. Personally, I can’t conceive of
anything half so tragic as life.”
“In what way, Dad?”
“Why, any way you wish to look at it,” he answered quietly, as he served
the dinner. “I think life is the most stupendous tragedy imaginable, from
the very bottom of the scale to the top. The battle is to the strong,” he
said impressively. “It’s the strong who defeat the weak and survive.”
“I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Freeman, “that Mr. Darwin will have quite an
account to give in the day of reckoning.”
Mauney was not accustomed to such conversation during his meals and felt
embarrassed by the evident estrangement of the two viewpoints expressed.
“And when, my dear, is the day of reckoning?” enquired the professor
gently.
“If you had been at church last Sunday, Robert,” she said in a childish,
teasing way, “you would have heard about it from our pastor.”
“He has no more information on the subject than I have,” affirmed
Freeman. “Why should I go to listen to a man who could not possibly
express any ideas or argument with which my mind has not already
grappled? If there were any such thing as a day of reckoning—which there
definitely is _not_—Darwin would be able to present as good a front
as most of us. He merely emphasized a few biological laws which have
precisely the same application to the _genus homo_ as to the rest. If I
could see one solitary reason for thinking that there is a God who cares
one iota for us and our fates I might be convinced. But I know one fact
for sure—that the strong win and the weak lose. There’s no argument about
it, people. It’s a fact.”
“But don’t you think, Dad,” said Lorna politely, “that the weak may win
by being wiser than the strong?”
“Oh, yes, but if a man’s wise he’s strong, not weak. Man is stronger than
the elephant and the lion for that very reason. He’s wiser than they. His
brains have made civilization safe from the inroads of the wild animals.
He has subjugated all other species to his own control.”
“And having done so, Professor,” asked Mauney, “what remains? What is the
future of man?”
“Endless labor,” he immediately replied. “All he can do is to study his
past mistakes, profit by them, and attempt, ever and anon, to improve his
social state. New moralities will crop up from time to time, for moral
standards are evolutionary and are merely suited to existing states.
Man’s fate is solely to move through shifting phases, through various new
codes of ethics and to dream of a happiness which is always out of sight.”
Mauney refrained from continuing the argument, for he noticed that Mrs.
Freeman was flushed as she ate her dinner in preoccupied silence. They
tried to change the subject, but the meal ended in awkward stiffness.
Mauney continued to think of that happiness, which was always out of
sight and that struggle which was always won by the strong. The thoughts
really disturbed him, for he was thinking indefinitely of Maxwell Lee.
Could it be possible that Freeman was right?
The historian finished his meal in silence. Mauney, with queer biological
insight, imagined the man to be secretly glorying over the victory
suggested by the meat on his plate. It had once been alive. Man was
subjecting it to the service of his pilgrimage of being.
A subtle chill had entered by the window from the outside world,
rendering this compact family group no longer intimate friends. They
were now selfish animals, eating other animals, by the light of
burning tallow. And it seemed fitting that the light was so dim and
flickering—all was mystery, cold, impenetrable, and the great happiness
was out of sight.
The two men smoked anon in the familiar study upstairs. Mauney conversed
with his professor in a mood of semi-detachment, unable to pull
from his eyes a screen that was changing the apparent world to new
interpretations. Even the study was permeated with the chill atmosphere
that existed only in the imagination. Little currents of cool air played
upon his spine like horrid fears. The volumes that filled Freeman’s
capacious shelves stood like dangerous enemies against whom he felt he
must be on guard. In the chair before him sat and smoked a puny man whom
Merlton and a continent acclaimed as great. But the screen was drawing
across him too—a dangerous menace grew mysteriously out of the perennial
smile that played upon his lips. He would smile life out, this dangerous
man who had conquered existence, and reduced existence to its bare
biological structure. While Mauney sat beside him the historian’s words
affected him more deeply than they had ever done before. The hot spot
burned in Mauney’s breast, as it had burned at Christmas with Maxwell
Lee. He suffered from its heat; he struggled inwardly, knowing that even
seated in a quiet upstairs study, his own fate, hinging on the direction
of his tempted thoughts, was in danger of change.
At last it was ended. It was time for him to leave the scholar with his
books. He rose from his chair and went downstairs, glad to be away from
him. He carried confusion of mind with him to the drawing room where
Lorna sat at the piano, playing. He was puzzled. He did not interrupt
her, but stood near the instrument watching her. He wanted to leave the
house, for the burning, the unexplained, but painful burning continued in
his breast, and he coveted solitude.
“Did you like that?” she said, as she finished, and her blue eyes turned
to his. In them she saw no conscious response. “You’re moody to-night,
aren’t you Mauney?” she asked indifferently.
“Oh, play some more, Lorna,” he said, trying to smile. “Please do.”
He sank thoughtfully into a chair as she continued, but he heard not a
note of her music. A sadness such as had never possessed him had settled
upon his being. It was as if he had already gone to the professor and
said:
“I am leaving. I am going far away. I appreciate all your kindness. But
I’ve got to go.”
It was as if he had already gone to Mrs. Freeman and said: “Good-bye. You
have been decent to me, but something takes me away for ever from your
sad home.”
And it was exactly as if he had interrupted the girl at the piano to say:
“Lorna, it was all a sad mistake. Forgive me, I’ve been inconsiderate.
I thought I loved you, but now I know that it was the challenge of your
mind that attracted me. I am going. Think of me as a foolish boy who did
not understand himself.”
In the keen stress of his present mood he had mentally said these things
as he sat near her. Some challenge of this home had awakened him to a
confused realization of the vital quality of life. What was it? He could
not understand. But he knew that he had a great account to settle with
things. His deepest convictions had been touched at their source. He
wanted to be up in arms to protect them.
The most absurd thing that he could possibly bring himself to imagine was
the fact that he had asked this woman at the piano to become his wife.
Still more absurd was his present obligation of chivalry to enquire now
as to her final decision. With a sense of playing with sacred things, he
wound up his courage and spoke to her, when she finished her music.
“Lorna, please come and sit near me,” he said, automatically rising. “I
want to say something to you.”
She turned slowly on the piano stool and hesitated, while she looked
in a surprised way from his face to the chair and then at his face
again. She had never seen the commanding features before. His blue eyes
were severely direct, his brow puckered with seriousness, his mouth
determined. He was not to be denied, as she could divine from his manner.
He turned the chair for her to sit down and then when she was seated he
quickly resumed his own chair.
“Matters have hung fire long enough between us, Lorna,” he said. “I want
to know what you have decided to do about me?”
“Mauney!” she replied, in a tone of anger, that brought a flush to her
face. “I thought you had forgotten all about that.... And I have been so
humiliated!”
“Naturally you would be,” he admitted. “I apologize for what seemed my
indifference. You have had a long time to consider what I asked you, and
I am here to enquire as to your decision.”
“Why on earth be so wretchedly business-like about it?” she blurted
angrily. “One would imagine you were trying to sell me a house?”
“Again, Lorna, you must pardon me,” he said slowly, and paused, while he
shifted in his chair. “I really did not mean to give that impression.”
“You’ve hardly come near me since that night when you—when you kissed
me!” She was beside herself with anger, although she spoke in almost
a whisper. “Do you think I am the kind of girl you can kiss when you
please, and then, after acting coldly for several months resume
operations once more at your own whimsical choice? Do you imagine that I
relish such treatment?”
“No doubt you don’t, Lorna,” he said. “But do you, on the other hand,
realize that you are a girl whom I find it very hard to know _how_ to
treat? When I asked you to marry me you replied quite calmly that you
would have to consider the business very cautiously. Well, then, I’ve
given you time to be about as cautious as you wish. What have you decided
to do?”
“I haven’t decided to do anything, Mauney,” she replied in a tone of
complete exasperation. “How do I know whether I want to marry you or not?
I think it’s totally absurd. I scarcely know you. I know nothing about
your family—you’ve never mentioned them.”
“Why should I? The girl I marry isn’t going to marry my family—am I to
take your answer as ‘No’?”
“I’m afraid you are,” she replied tensely. “How could you possibly expect
any other answer?”
“Well,” he said, hotly, “there are several reasons why I might expect
another kind of answer.”
“Oh, please don’t!” she half gasped, raising her hand as if his mood
greatly disturbed her.
“I’m going to tell you one or two of those reasons, Lorna. I don’t think
I have an exaggerated opinion of myself by any means, but, at the same
time, I believe my family were just as good as yours and—”
“Oh, Mauney, don’t, please!” she implored, rising, and burying her face
in her hands. While he paused he was surprised to observe her shoulders
twitching. In a moment she wept.
“I can’t stand this,” she said, sobbing. “I’ve never quarrelled with
anyone before.”
Mauney walked to the piano and leaned thoughtfully against it.
“I’ll say no more, Lorna,” he said at length. “I’m really sorry to have
upset you this way and ask your pardon most humbly.”
“All right, Mauney,” she said, gradually gaining control of herself. “You
are pardoned, but please don’t ever mention marriage to me again. Will
you promise?”
“I promise that,” he said simply.
“You know we are both so young,” she continued. “We were childish to
mention it. Don’t you think so?”
“I do indeed.”
She came close to him and did a very unexpected thing. She put one hand
on each of his shoulders and looked up seriously into his eyes.
“I don’t know anything about men,” she said with all the simplicity of a
child. “I hope I haven’t hurt your feelings. I wouldn’t want to do that.
I’ve always liked you. Why can’t we be friends?”
“That will suit me, perfectly,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Lorna,
that’s all we _can_ be.”
“I know it,” she replied, turning away. “Let’s not be foolish again. Dad
told me something to-day and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to
mention it—your appointment on the history staff.” Her voice had resumed
its customary tone. “You’re awfully lucky, Mauney. Dad has unbounded
faith in your ability. I just thought I’d mention it. Aren’t you terribly
happy about it?”
“I can’t tell,” he said slowly. “I’m not in a mood to lie just now. I’m
not happy just now. I’m most unreasonably sad.”
CHAPTER IV.
MAUNEY AND FREDA HAVE A TALK.
Mauney could not sleep that night when he had returned to his room. For
two hours he tossed restlessly on his bed when, finding sleep utterly
impossible, he got up, put on his slippers and dressing gown to descend
to the dining room, where the hostess and Stalton and two strangers, one
a man the other a woman, were seated at cards around the table. Mrs.
Manton looked up at the sound of his slippered step.
“Well, look what God has sent us,” she softly exclaimed. “If you have any
money you’d better get into the game, Mauney.”
She introduced the strangers.
“Mr. Wright and Miss Wanly have dropped in for a few hands. Nobody seems
to be winning,” she went on. “Maybe you are the man with the rats. What
do you say?”
“Why, I say ‘yes’ of course,” Mauney quickly responded. “I don’t know how
to play, but I’m sure I could learn it in five minutes. Will you show me
how?”
He drew up a chair while she quickly explained the principles of the game.
“All right,” he said, picking up his first hand. “I’m on. I’ve got it
cold. Give me one card, please.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Stalton, “That sounds interesting. Give me one, Gert.”
“Well here’s where I drop out,” she soon proclaimed as the betting
continued. “Go on, Mauney, raise him.”
“I will, indeed,” he replied: “I’ll raise you a dollar, Freddie.”
“A dollar, eh?” soliloquized Stalton, glancing sharply at Mauney’s face.
“I’ll see you and bump her up two more.”
Both the others put down their hands and settled forward in their seats
to watch the game.
“Good,” said Mauney. “I’ll see you and raise you two. What do you say to
that?”
“Ho! ho! The boy is right there!” said Stalton, placing a chip on the
table. “I’ll just call you, Mauney. What have you got?”
Mauney placed his cards on the table.
“For heaven’s sake,” exclaimed Mrs. Manton, examining them. “A royal
flush! Rather nice, too, Freddie!”
She brushed the pile of money toward the winner and gathering up the
cards handed them to Mauney to deal.
“No,” he said, getting up from the table. “I’m not going to play any
longer.”
“What’s the matter?” she enquired, curiously.
“You tell me. I’m all out of gear. I’ve been trying vainly to sleep for
two hours. Go on with the game. Here, Gertrude, you take this pot and
play with it. I don’t want it. I’ll lounge over here for a while.”
He lay down on the sofa and lit a cigarette.
“Maybe you’ve been working too hard, Mauney,” she said, going over to his
side and touching his brow with her soft, jewelled hand. “You’re hot.”
She turned for a moment to excuse herself temporarily from the game and
sat on the edge of the sofa.
“You’ll be all right, boy,” she said in her deep tone. “I guess you’re
tired out after your long term of work. Is there anything I can do for
you?”
“I’m afraid not, Gertrude. It’s just a cranky mood I’m in.”
“Would you like some coffee?” she asked.
“No thanks. I’m not having any. I’m just fidgety and disagreeable.”
“I never saw you like this before. I’m afraid you’ve been taking life too
seriously. I know you don’t mind me talking. Excuse me a minute. I’m just
going upstairs to see if your room’s properly aired and made up.”
“It’s fine, Gertrude,” he said. “Don’t bother. The room’s got nothing to
do with it.”
However, she was not to be dissuaded.
In a few moments she returned with a folded newspaper in her hand.
“Did you see the literary supplement of the _Globe_, Mauney?” she asked.
“Well, here’s a half column that ought to cheer you up a little. Read it.”
Taking the proffered journal he read the portion indicated under the Book
Review section:
“_Thoughts on the Teaching of History, by Mauney Bard_, (Locke
& Son, 8vo, cloth, $2.50). It is some time since so refreshing
a volume has appeared, dealing with a subject of technical
education. In style, Mr. Bard, whose voice is heard for the
first time, has achieved pleasing success. Most technical
treatises have at least a few chapters that challenge the
reader’s patience, but the one under review has apparently
none. It is the work of one undoubtedly in love with his
subject, and if there are sentiments expressed which, perhaps,
can receive nothing but criticism from established authorities,
yet all differences of opinion will be excused by reason of Mr.
Bard’s delightful affection for history and all that pertains
to it.
“While not acclaiming history as the only considerable
subject on university time-tables, he nevertheless supports
his argument that it is one of the most important, and shows
graphically certain methods and mental attitudes which are
calculated to improve the teacher’s success. To him, history
is not merely a tool to be used for nurturing a strong
national spirit, although it serves this function, but is,
_par excellence_, a door to the understanding of human nature.
Some of his remarks are worth repeating, as for example, the
following passage from his chapter on the Substance of History:
“‘History is a record of the conduct of our human predecessors,
considered _en masse_, a record, which, taking groups of people
as its working unit, is necessarily sketchy and can approach
the human past only in fairly broad outlines. But there is
one perfect history. Locked up in our thoughts, hidden in our
bodies, reposes still some influence of every act, mental or
physical, performed by every one of our ancestors. The history
obtained from books is dead. Man is the living history. He is
the living past!
“‘There is no apology for this individualization of the
conception of history, for it has assisted to unify the various
departments of education which are so frequently considered
separate—religion, politics, sociology, science, literature.
In a university the need is still great for emphasis on the
importance of the individual. Man, heir to all that has been,
claiming all that is to be, is the real and only unit. Politics
is his mode of mass regulation; sociology, his study of his
own relations to his fellows; science, his weapon of advance
against the frontiers of unacquired knowledge; literature, his
graphic record of experience, and religion, his visualization
of a constant, unattained good.
“‘There is a temptation to the student of history, wearied by
the technicalities of his work, to approach life more closely
than he can do with his books, a temptation to jump out of
their pages into the current life around him and study the
more accurate, though less decipherable, history to which I
have referred—the individual. Such a temptation, coming to the
student, is perhaps the greatest sign of successful tutoring.
If the teaching of history awakens a warm, eager interest in
humanity, it has not failed.
“‘I have wished, in a fanciful mood, that there existed a
separate history book written about every individual who ever
lived, telling his total life experience. If one could roam in
that vast library he would notice that few of those histories
would boast more than a page or two, if only historical data
were recorded. But if these individual records went further,
if they enumerated and described the events, the thoughts, the
perplexities, the struggles, the victories, which seemed great
to those forgotten men, then what building on earth would house
that library? Yet such a collection of tomes would form the
world’s most precious treasure, for such experiences of men and
women are the very substance proper of history.
“‘We are taught wars, revolutions, social and political
experiments. We are led by our teachers to believe that these
constitute the bases of the subject. This movement or that
movement is vaunted as novel or important. But underneath
them all lies the insinuating power of individual thought.
All are formed by it, promulgated by it, controlled by it.
The greatest movement of this century was also the greatest
movement of the last century and of all centuries from the very
dawn of history—namely, the movement of the individual mind, by
struggle, through perplexity, to a greater, simpler life.’”
The critical article closed with an optimistic forecast of the book’s
popularity, “especially in non-technical circles.”
Mauney had been so engrossed in reading that he did not notice until he
finished that Freda MacDowell was standing beside the sofa.
“Hello, there,” he said, quickly casting the journal aside. “I didn’t see
you.”
“What do you think about the review?” she asked eagerly.
“Well,” he replied, crossing his legs and lighting his cigarette which
had gone out. “If you’ll sit down a minute I’ll tell you.”
She accepted his invitation and leaned towards him.
“Isn’t it just the dandiest review you ever saw?” she asked. “I’ve been
up in my room just glorying over it.”
“It’s good,” he admitted. “I appreciate the reviewer’s decency and I
feel like calling you my sister in adventure. You’ve stuck to me like an
Indian, Miss MacDowell. You seemed to—believe in it.”
“How could I help it?” she replied. “You managed to express a number of
things that had always lain dormant in my own mind. I wanted to say them.
But you said them for me.”
For a moment or two they sat in silence, half listening to the progress
of the game at the table which was now being played with renewed
enthusiasm.
“Gertrude told me you got a royal flush,” she said at length. “What’s
that?”
“All kings and queens,” he answered, carelessly, then asked: “Did
Gertrude wake you up?”
“No. I wasn’t asleep.”
“She must be a mind-reader.”
“Why so?”
“Because, to be frank, I was wishing I could have a little chat with you,
but I was afraid you’d gone to bed long ago.”
“And I was just simply aching to see you,” she answered. “I brought home
the literary supplement about eleven o’clock and wanted to show it to
you, but she said you had gone to bed. Just how I was going to wait till
morning I didn’t know.”
Another silence fell upon them during which they both watched the intent
faces at the table. Mauney was stealing occasional sidelong glimpses of
Freda’s beautiful profile, and wondering what might be occupying her
thoughts. To-night he had more difficulty than ever before in repressing
the strong attraction she unconsciously inspired.
“If I had known you’d be here,” he said. “I’d have worn—not this dressing
gown.”
She shook her head and laughed.
“That doesn’t make any difference,” she said. “I’m enjoying you in your
robes. That’s one reason I like this place. You don’t even have to dress
up your thoughts, here.”
He was reflecting upon how little personal he had ever been with her.
Together they had spent many hours working on the manuscript, in strict
detachment, with minds focused on the work in hand. Many times he had
felt the urge to break through the delicate shell of reserve, but had
refrained, partly because he had wanted to preserve his concentration for
literary effort, but mostly because the figure of Max Lee was constantly
in the background. He knew that his chum loved Freda MacDowell. He had
always taken her reciprocation of Lee’s affection for granted until
recently, when he began looking for signs of it.
“But I’m afraid,” she said, “that our dear old boarding-house is soon
going to become a thing of the past. Everybody seems to be leaving.”
Mauney turned in surprise.
“I haven’t heard a word about it,” he said.
“You knew that Max wasn’t so well, didn’t you?”
“He looks poorly, but he has never said a word about health to me,
lately.”
“He’s really pretty well all in, I guess. He’s leaving in a day or so for
Rookland Sanatorium—”
“What! Throwing up his work?”
She nodded.
“The doctor insists on his going at once. It’s too bad. Max is such a
bright boy. But there’s only one thing for him to do.”
“You know, Miss MacDowell,” Mauney said in a low tone, “Max has never
been the same to me since that day when he came home and found you and me
starting the book. I’ve always felt that he was jealous. But we’ve never
mentioned your name.”
“It was very foolish of him to feel that way,” she replied, with an
independent toss of her dark head. “Surely he had no reason or right to
be jealous. Max and I have just been friends, nothing more. And even if
we had been in love, I would have still had the same interest in your
book. Some people weary me. But as I was saying, Max will be leaving.
And Freddie and Sadie are going to start housekeeping up in the North
End. She’s raving about their bungalow and says this boarding house is no
place to raise a family.”
Mauney laughed.
“It looks as though Gertrude would be left pretty lonely,” he remarked.
“Oh, no,” corrected Freda, lowering her voice to a whisper, “I haven’t
told you all yet. This is naturally confidential. But Gertrude and I have
become great pals. She seems to like to tell me things. The big joke is
that she really isn’t a widow.”
Mauney’s eyes opened in tremendous surprise.
“Where is her husband?”
“He’s been living in hotels in Europe,” she said, with evident enjoyment
of Mauney’s astonishment. “He left her because she insisted on keeping
up a friendship with another man. Just separated—no divorce. Well, I
think seven years of running a boarding-house has more or less broken
Gertrude’s proud spirit. Manton has been writing her for the past year,
trying to resume married relations with her, and she has finally given
in. She expects him home in a couple of weeks and I imagine that will be
the end of seventy-three. She cried up in my room the other night, real
Magdalen tears, and I believe she has learned her lesson.”
“I hope she’ll be happy,” Mauney said. “It’s plainly another case of
false rebellion. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.”
“I know just what you mean,” Freda replied. “There’s some sort of
uppishness about her. She wasn’t strong enough to endure the bonds of
marriage life—”
“That’s it—so she rebelled,” interjected Mauney. “But her rebellion
was merely the hysterical reaction of an inadequate personality to its
environment. Sooner or later with such people there comes some sort of
circumstance that proves the falseness of their rebellion. They wilt.”
“But on the other hand,” continued Freda, with an aspect of some
inspiration in her eyes, “there are others who are true rebels. Some of
us were made to be perpetually out of gear with things. Our rebellion
is genuine. We never turn back. We can’t, that’s all. I wish you could
understand me—”
“I do,” he said eagerly, smiling into her eyes. “I understand completely.
I can’t help feeling that we are in the same boat. I’ve never yet found
any kind of life which completely satisfied me. Take this book of mine.
The fun was all in writing it, Freda.”
She blushed at the sound of her first name. It had slipped past Mauney’s
lips, but he saw no reason to apologize.
“Nothing suits me,” he continued. “The first part of my life I lived on a
farm. Nothing would suit me, but an education. Now I’ve got it—and—well,
it does not satisfy.”
He felt great comfort in Freda’s presence, greater, more mysterious
comfort, than he had ever known before. Most women existed in an unreal
atmosphere outside his own immediate consciousness. Most women were
elusive phantasies of pure appearance, without content or meaning. But it
had so happened that Freda’s dark eyes were able to pierce the zone of
unreality and stab consciously into his being, even during the first hour
of their acquaintance. It had so happened that the seeds of that first
encounter found exceedingly fertile soil. His effort to exclude her from
his mind had been just as futile as he considered it successful. He was
indeed master of his conscious thoughts, but in the reservoirs of his
being, this unusual girl had been living an unmolested life, free to come
and go, to commune with him in mysterious, unheard conversations, to
mingle her nature with his in hours when his subconscious self had fled
with her beyond the limits of recognized experience. It was because this
knowledge of her had been entirely buried that he now wondered at the
comfort of her actual presence.
They talked on and on, forgetting the others in the room, and forgetting
also the late hour. Together they described their common feelings of
rebellion against university education. It was not ordained that either
of them should realize, just then, how vast a principle underlay their
sentiments. Neither of them was to play the role of interpreter to the
other, to explain that rebellion was the necessary element of progress,
that no man or woman ever changed through the successive metamorphoses
of being who did not rebel against existing states. They were far from
understanding it all. Mauney, burning with the pent-up indignation of the
present hour, and Freda MacDowell, beautiful and vivid with the flush of
full-hearted reciprocation. The hours sped. At last the game of poker
broke up. At last the true rebels said good-night to each other and
retired to sleepless beds.
CHAPTER V.
IN WHICH MAUNEY CALLS ON THE PROFESSOR.
Youth is liable to misconstrue the world and its heterogeneous motives.
Being inordinately eager to fulfil its own pressing missions, it is prone
to belittle the halting advice of more sedate age, and to battle against
every influence seemingly hostile. Youth, with its mental astigmatisms,
is certain to misjudge situations until it gains the corrective lenses
of experience. It is bound to clothe with over-zealous colors all that
touches its fate, and to defend itself heroically against encroachment.
Mauney was no exception.
He rose next morning in vast determination to assert the rights of his
own personality, feeling that he had been spoon-fed long enough, that the
hour had arrived when, not only should he think for himself, but throw
out his formative impressions upon a moulding society.
No one will quarrel with him for this, since, even if his impressions
were mistaken, a matter for opinion, naturally, his mood upon this spring
morning, the twentieth of May, to be exact—was evidently the mood of
progress. His pain was the pain of growth. It was the pain of birth. And
birth is the moment of discontinuous growth.
“All my ideas are due for a great heart-searching, a great sifting,
a great consolidation. From now no gloom can be injected into the
atmosphere without my consent. Nothing is true because some one so
states. Truth is what I personally feel, and I feel that, in spite of the
disheartening narrowness of logic, in spite of the misanthropic outlook
of fossilized intelligence, in spite of all that a university has raised
up to alarm my mind, there does exist a cheerful future for my kind, and
a great happiness that, far away as it may be, is not quite out of sight.”
At ten o’clock Mrs. Manton came to his room to inform him that Freda
had telephoned from the university to the effect that he was wanted by
Professor Freeman in the history department. He went directly, knowing
that now with the term ended and the business of the year settled
the department was picking up the threads of its autumn work. He was
to be initiated into his new duties as a lecturer in history. It was
for this professorial interview that he had been patiently waiting.
He went quickly, with light steps, down Franklin Street, with eager
steps through the great university square where, as he reflected, he
had stood five years ago, a raw, country boy, overcome by the aspect
of the seat of learning. Much had taken place. Patiently he had sat
beneath the illumination of the immortal lamp of knowledge, charmed by
its radiations, lulled into a mood of mental delectation. How often
during these years he had crossed these cinder paths, going eagerly to
his history classes, in the fanciful delusion that God had created a
tremendously interesting world for no other purpose than that students
might glory in their investigations thereof. It had been a necessary part
of life perhaps, but it was all passed now. “What an innocent dream!”
he pondered. “How unrecking of the dire forces of good and ill that rule
the world, how delightfully blind to actual existence, how elysian, how
stupidly brilliant, how sagely detached!”
But here before him was life. Here was his Alma Mater—the great stone
house, that like a mother took her children to her breast. Within this
mysterious edifice, what quiet whispers of the restful mother did they
hear and cherish! To-day they came in, children with plastic minds.
To-morrow they went out, citizens of the world, living men and women who
must change the world. Ah, this was life! He almost paused as he entered
the Gothic portal, with fear of his new responsibilities, with reverence
for his high calling, with fear of life.
The rotunda was dusky with filtered light from the stained-glass window
above the landing of the dignified walnut staircase, and duskier with
its high, dark-panelled walls. No one was there—the customary spring
desertion. But, in imagination, there were innumerable hushed whispers,
thick in the atmosphere, like an overflow from the dead years of
lecturing, which, even now, came back to life once more.
He passed down the dark corridor, lighted by old-fashioned, carbon lamps,
with its dull-green mosaic floor, its huge walnut doors closed upon empty
lecture rooms. From the open transoms came the imaginary whispers again.
He shivered with thoughts of their poignant symbolism. At the end of the
long hall, where he turned toward the wing, stood a marble bust of Homer,
with heavy, sightless eyes. Above him hung a cracked oil painting of
some particularly emaciated celebrity, who had the appearance of peeking
timidly above the rim of his high, white collar, to see who, in this
quiet, deserted hour, might be disturbing the century-old solitude with
his echoing footsteps.
Up the few, worn, stone steps he climbed to the office door of the
department of history. Inside he found only Freda, seated as usual,
behind her flat-topped-desk. He glanced about to make sure they were
alone. Two mullioned windows on either side let in the dull daylight.
There were chairs, and shelves of documents, and the broom of a janitor
whose labors had been interrupted. A door on the inner wall stood ajar,
but there was no sound.
He came quickly toward her and covered her right hand with his own as it
lay upon the desk.
“It’s good to see you, to-day, Freda,” he said. “I—”
“S-sh!” she said softly, putting her finger against her lips and nodding
her head towards the door behind her.
“Professor Freeman has sent for you, Mr. Bard,” she said aloud, in a most
formal tone, the meanwhile returning the ardent pressure of his hand, and
acquiring a sudden complexion. “If you will be seated, please, I will see
if he is ready for you.”
“Oh, I say, Miss MacDowell,” came a voice from the inner room, “Dr.
Freeman has gone over to his house. I imagine he’ll be back soon.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hennigar,” she said politely, but with a grimace toward
the crack in the door.
“Not at all,” he replied, in his English accent, in his unforgettable
voice of harsh, bubbling overtones. “I say, Miss MacDowell, did you see
anything of those dashed first year exam. books?”
“They’re all here,” she replied indifferently. “Any time you want them.”
Nutbrown Hennigar opened the door and gave Mauney a quick, direct stare
from his intensely black eyes. He had never lectured to Mauney and had
forgotten meeting him at the de Freville dinner.
“May I introduce Mr. Bard—Mr. Hennigar,” said Freda politely.
Hennigar advanced suddenly, in his characteristic abrupt and shuffling
way.
“How d’juh do!” he said briefly, taking Mauney’s hand, and then dropping
it as if it were hot. “Mr. Bard? Why, of course, how stupid of me!” he
said, pushing his bone-rimmed, nose spectacles further down toward the
point of his nose, and pulling at a black ribbon that tethered them
around the base of his collar. “I understand you are joining our staff.”
“Yes,” smiled Mauney. “I have been given the opportunity and naturally
consider it a good one.”
“Oh, _rather_!” coughed Hennigar, with emphasis, as he took a blue, silk
handkerchief from its concealed position in his coat sleeve. “It’s really
awfully good. By the way, I have the honor to be conversing with an
author, if I’m not mistaken. I have read your book, Mr. Bard.”
“You did me an honor, Mr. Hennigar.”
“Oh no, not that,” he said. “It was really awfully well done. Accept my
congratulations. Well, I hope you like it here, and all that. It’s not a
bad place, you know. I needn’t express how glad we are to have you with
us. That goes without saying, of course.”
He swung his left arm up in front of his face and glanced at his wrist
watch.
“And now,” he said, backing slowly toward the door, “I have an engagement
with a beastly dentist and know you’ll excuse me.”
With a very full, but evanescent exposure of his very white teeth he
nodded his head and disappeared, slamming the door.
“The miserable little dog,” whispered Freda, her face flushed. “Just cur
enough to fawn. He hates you, Mauney, like sin. He asked me this morning
if I had read your book. I told him I had and that I considered it a
young masterpiece. He didn’t like me to say that. He’s one of the poorest
sports in Merlton. I’d just love to push my finger right into his eyes.”
“Freda!”
“You’re shocked! Well, I’ll bet you’ll feel the same way after you’ve
been here a year or so. Sit down and rest your bones. Professor Freeman
will be along soon.”
Before he could accept her invitation a heavy, energetic step was heard
outside the office. The door opened and Dr. Alfred K. Tanner’s familiar
form bustled in. He was, as usual, entirely occupied with his busy
thoughts and proceeded straight to Freda’s desk without noticing Mauney.
“Miss MacDowell,” he said, in a low, intense tone, leaning over the desk
and pointing his plump forefinger toward the window as if he was about to
refer to the dust that adhered to the panes of glass. “Have you had time
to make out that list yet?”
“Which list, Dr. Tanner?”
“The pass marks in ancient history. The pass marks, I mentioned
yesterday. The pass marks, Miss MacDowell.”
“No, not yet.”
“I see—not yet,” he repeated, straightening up and pressing his little
finger nail between his lips. For a moment he seemed on the verge of
decision. Then, bending forward again he pointed toward the window.
“Listen, Miss MacDowell,” he said in a very loud tone. “Delay it.
Delay it. I may not want them, you see? I may not want them. No. I may
amalgamate the pass marks in one lump, Miss MacDowell.”
Then he lowered his voice again.
“You can keep them here, can’t you?”
“Yes, Dr. Tanner.”
“Bully! You keep them here, Miss MacDowell, I may amalgamate them.”
As he turned to leave the office, he noticed Mauney. “Hello, there,
Mauney Bard,” he said, pausing. “How are you?”
“Fine, Professor, thank you,” he smiled.
“Did you beat Lorna on the spring exams?”
“No, sir, she defeated me as usual.”
Tanner laughed whole-heartedly.
“Oh—ha! She defeated you as usual. Of course, she did. Very clever girl,
Lorna. Of course, she defeated you.”
His expression changed.
“Oh yes!” he reminded himself, “I want to see you, Mauney Bard. Have you
got say five minutes to spare?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Bully! Come with me.”
He led Mauney to his office upstairs. Indicating a chair for Mauney he
sat down behind his own desk and leaned forward.
“Now, look,” he said, “I want you to understand that I’m in a most
friendly mood. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Mauney, intensely curious.
“Good! I’m really in a _most_ friendly mood. The professor has already
told me that you have joined the staff. I would congratulate you on
joining the staff except that I consider it unnecessary. I am glad
you have come to us. You are, now, more or less, one of us. I don’t
congratulate you, but I welcome you. You are one of us, more or less.”
He sat back in his chair and preserved a short silence.
“Now this isn’t any too pleasant a mission,” he declared, shaking his
head, as if Mauney had said it was pleasant. “I—I feel that, as a senior
member of the staff I should take you under my wing, more or less. You
understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now here’s what I’m coming to,” he continued. “You must regard what I
say as confidential, unusually confidential. Yes, I know you will. I
don’t need to ask. _Very_ confidential. It would seem that Professor
Freeman is considerably offended with you.”
“Me!” exclaimed Mauney. “Are you sure, sir?”
“Yes—I’m sure—I’m very uncomfortably sure, Mr. Bard. Now, possess
yourself in quietness and I shall try to make it clear to you—as it is
clear to me—why the professor should be so offended. I, of course, would
not bother telling you, unless, as you may haply surmise, I am moderately
interested in your welfare in our department. I imagine he will send for
you in a few days.”
“He sent for me this morning!” Mauney interjected.
“Indeed—and did he? Well, I’m not astonished. I was talking with him this
morning and I may say that considering everything, such, for example,
as your pleasant relationship to the family, if I may refer to that, in
passing, and considering, too, that your record has been a good one, I
say I was taken somewhat by surprise at his attitude. It has reference,
of course, to your book on the teaching of history.”
“My book—why!” stammered Mauney, quite pale. “You mean he objects to what
I said in it?”
“More or less, Mr. Bard. He feels that, as a member of the staff, you
were ill-advised in publishing a book which criticizes the methods of the
staff.”
“But I wrote it and published it before I became a member of the staff,”
Mauney objected.
“No doubt about that,” Tanner agreed. “I reminded the professor of
that. The fact, in itself, excuses you. But no fact, as it would seem,
can excuse the result. Now, I am _most_ friendly, Mr. Bard, and am
merely trying to give you the situation. I am not stating any personal
convictions. In one sense, my position denies me the right to do so. In
such an instance, I really think that criticism is helpful, from whatever
source it may come. I really think that the university, while doubtlessly
far from perfect, has, at least, attained a degree of dignity where it
does not need to fear, but should welcome criticism. I have read your
book and I am quite frank in saying that it has many splendid points. But
here’s the great difficulty. We have been trying to run the university
under grave disadvantages. Public sentiment is not always as helpful and
kindly as we might wish. Hence, we deprecate criticism which is open and
militant. However, from your standpoint, Mr. Bard, the problem is to
face the professor, with as good a grace as you can command, and, now
that you know the situation, I think you will be better prepared.”
Mauney sat staring at the mullioned windows with the unpleasant feeling
of a criminal being prepared by a minister for the death sentence. This
room was the death-cell, Freeman’s office was to be the death-chamber. He
had committed a heinous offence. He could not put off the superimposed
sense of guilt that breathed to him from Tanner’s manner and from the
ominous quietness of the room. He told Tanner that he appreciated his
confidential talk and that he was now “quite prepared” for the interview
with the professor, while Tanner seemed to be struck by a defiant note in
his reply.
A few minutes later Mauney knocked on the professor’s door, having
learned from Freda that he had returned.
“Come,” said the well-known and pleasant voice.
Mauney found him seated in a Morris chair with a book on his knee, a
pipe in his hand—picture of unruffled serenity. It was the first time
Mauney had been in the dignified official precincts of the departmental
head, but he could have described the room, so characteristic was it of
the occupant. A simple desk bereft of all paraphernalia save a ruler, a
blotter and an ash-tray. A wall with two cases of monotonously colored
volumes, and between the cases, an empty grate. It was severely simple,
just like Freeman, whose smile to-day was as hospitable as ever, as
kindly as ever, as cruel as ever.
“Well, Mauney!” he said, as if no atmosphere of displeasure were being
contemplated. “Won’t you sit down?”
“Thank you, Professor.”
He accepted the only other chair in the room and avoided Freeman’s keen,
grey eyes. He noticed that the historian’s long dextrous hand was playing
with the ornaments of his chair-arm and that his eyes, whenever he
glanced at them, seemed full of racing plans.
“I sent for you, Mauney, for two reasons,” he said, gently, so gently
that Mauney, for a moment, thought Tanner had made a mistake. “In the
first place I wanted to mention your book, which I have here in my hand
and which I am reading with interest. Are you in a hurry?”
“I have nothing to do, Professor,” said Mauney, more at ease by reason of
Freeman’s polite deference.
“You say here, somewhere—oh yes, here’s the place,” continued Freeman,
fondling the pages and quoting a passage. “‘History must cease to be a
subject for the five-finger exercises of defunct mentalities, and become
rather the earnest objective of men who are in tune with the issues of
current society. It must cease to be the property of an elite academic
dispensing agency, and become the property of those, who, valuing form
less than substance, will not so much dispense it as interpret it. It
must be rescued from fossilization, as every branch of learning requires,
at times, to be rescued.’”
Freeman closed the book gently and laid it on the arm of his chair.
“Do you really believe what you have written, Mauney?” he asked.
“I really do, Professor,” the young man replied, determinedly.
“Then we can better discuss it, knowing that you are sincere. In the
first place, why do you feel as you do?”
“Because, since the first day I came to college, I have been confronted
by this cut-and-dried, academic spirit which, to me at least, acts like
poison.”
“You mean that, here in our department, there is a spirit, on the part of
the tutors, which is disagreeable to you?”
“Yes, sir. But, of course, I made no reference to any university in
particular.”
“I know. But, nevertheless, you gained the impression here?”
“Yes.”
“That is extremely unfortunate,” said Freeman, in a tone of real
sincerity. “Of course, as you must realize, your book, in places, assumes
an attitude of frank rebellion, and, whether or not you would have
written it had you known you were coming on the staff, the appearance is
nevertheless equally as ridiculous. You see what I’m driving at?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, I don’t want you to be jeered at by the public. I want you to
preserve your dignity as much as you can. I dare say your book will not
actually have much practical effect on teaching, since it was written
rather as a semi-philosophical treatise. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes.”
“But at the same time, Mauney, having written it, you will see how
illogical your appearance on a history staff becomes.”
Enmeshed in Freeman’s subtle argument, with its pretence of deferential
consideration, Mauney burned with sudden indignation.
“There’s just one solution,” he said rising, and now facing the professor
frankly. “I’ve put my foot in it. I’ve criticized the university. I’ve
committed the unpardonable sin and must abide by the consequences.
I reiterate, without any bluff, sir, that I have suffered from the
dampening influence which kills youthful enthusiasm. I’ve dared to
believe in what I might term a bright human future. I’ve dared to
contradict and defy the cold, pessimistic viewpoint to which I have
been exposed. Many a boy comes to college full of ardent belief in the
fundamental goodness of things, but few are strong enough to wade through
the marsh of brilliant tutoring which believes in nothing. I have been
strong enough to wade through, Professor, and I am strong enough now to
offer you, most respectfully, my resignation from your staff.”
Mauney started toward the door.
“A moment, please,” said Freeman, turning in his chair. “I think your
resignation is the most logical thing you could give me, because,
otherwise, your own position—”
“Please, Professor,” he interrupted, “don’t let us befog the situation.
You wanted my resignation. You have it, sir. And let me assure you that
I hold no personal spite. On the contrary I appreciate to the very limit
your many kindnesses to me. There is nothing personal, Dr. Freeman, in
all this. It’s principle, and I regret that even a principle should
separate us. Was there anything further, sir?”
“No,” said Freeman softly, with a gentle smile on his lips. “I think
that’s all.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE FOOL.
At noon, Mauney was too upset to eat dinner. He wanted to talk to Freda
and went upstairs to wait in the alcove, until she should come up. While
he sat stolidly in one of the chairs behind the little desk, he occupied
himself with turning through the pages of a book whose title or contents
he did not so much as notice, and in gazing through the window at the
street, busy with noontide pedestrians. He had come straight home from
his meeting with Freeman, sad and angry and totally impatient. He knew
that only one sedative existed, that only one friend remained to hear his
story of personal woe. He would wait for her.
And while he waited he tried to think, in the distracted mood of the
moment, what he would do. He had been building upon a foundation, now
suddenly gone. There was nothing—nothing.
Maxwell Lee came out of his room and paused at the sight of him.
“Hello, Mauney,” he said, a little more affably than had been his recent
wont.
“Hello, Max.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Lee.
“I’m worried a little. I’ve got into the habit lately. Sit down and have
a smoke. What the devil’s come over you, Max?”
“Why, nothing, you poor fish,” said Lee, taking the other chair. “What’s
come over _you_?”
“Nothing much. Only I’m just in a mood to get this settled.”
“Get what settled?”
“Well, confound it, Max, don’t profess such ignorance. You know we
haven’t been on our old terms for months and months. I’m going away
soon—somewhere, and I don’t see why we should not part good friends.”
“There’s no reason in the world, Mauney.”
Neither of them thought of smoking, however.
“Yes there is, Max. Let’s be frank.”
“All right. Let’s.”
“I hate to talk this way to you, Max. I know you’re not well.”
Lee’s eyes narrowed as his glance shifted from the window to Mauney’s
face, but he said nothing.
“I could never talk this way,” Mauney continued, “except that I could
talk to anybody, just now. We used to be pretty good pals, but that’s
apparently over. We both know why, but neither of us will admit it.
There’s a woman behind it. No need to mention names. You told me you
loved her.”
“Well, what about it?” asked Lee.
“Just this—that I love her, too.”
“I knew that,” he said simply, playing a tattoo on the top of the desk.
“I knew that long ago. It’s no secret and, well, I suppose she knows you
love her, eh?”
“Not yet. But she’s going to be told. I hate doing anything underhanded.”
Mauney paused to look searchingly at the thin, wistful face of his
friend. “What are you going to do about it?” he asked.
“Why, nothing at all. What did you think I would do—try to murder you?”
Lee rose slowly and put his foot on the chair to tie his shoe-string.
Mauney saw his thin, white hands, thinner and whiter than a month ago,
tremble as he fumbled the knot.
“Why, no,” he said, straightening himself up. “I’m not going to do
anything about it. I’m the loser, that’s all. I’m not morbid about it.
It’s a losing game all along the line with me. But I have no fear—none
whatever. That’s what I can’t understand.”
Mauney knew that Lee was thinking of death. There was death written on
his pale face, whose cheeks had become more concave than before. His
eyes burned with a fire too bright for normal fuel to have kindled. And
Mauney’s bosom burned with pity that he could not have mentioned for
worlds, for he felt that he must treat Lee as if he were strong. He would
have given anything to be delivered from the necessity.
“Well, Max, old fellow,” he made himself say. “I’m glad I told you this.
I feel better now.”
For an instant the old whimsical smile played on Lee’s lips.
“That’s all right,” he said. “That’s all right, Mauney, my son, I—I guess
I’ll have to be going along.”
When Lee had descended the stairs, Mauney buried his face in his hands.
It hurt. He knew that life was wringing the last drop of courage from
Lee’s heart. From the window he saw him walking slowly up the street—Lee,
the frail body, the heroic mind.
“Am I going to win?” he asked himself. “How it will hurt to win! Is
victory always to the strong?”
Presently, Freda came up the stairs, and walked quickly along the hall.
“Oh, here you are!” she exclaimed, stopping. “Did you get through with
Freeman?”
“I did indeed,” he replied seriously. “I’m through with the history
department.”
“What!”
“Don’t ask me to explain now. I resigned, and I’m glad I did. Please
don’t hurry away. I want to talk with you.”
He pulled the chair out for her.
“You must excuse my abruptness, Freda,” he continued. “But I’ve got to
talk with you.”
“What is wrong?” she enquired seriously.
“Just everything. I’m all up in arms against the universe, I think.”
Life looked dark. He had thrown over, in his rebellion, the helpfulness
of Freeman’s friendship. Vaguely he knew that the solution of his
troubles lay in getting down to work, some sort of helpful work. But this
was not the only ray of light that began to penetrate.
He had no idea how he should broach the subject that was torturing him.
He loved her dark eyes and her lips that tenderly tried to understand his
mood. She had been in his deep heart for months. He was at a loss to know
how to begin. He glanced at the window as if the bald light of the dull
May noon were an intruder. He listened to laughter from downstairs as if
it conspired to hinder him.
“Freda,” he said, pressing her hand as it lay on the desk. “I love you.
I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a long time.”
Her serious face did not disappoint him. It quivered into exquisite
understanding that brought fine rims of moisture to her eyes. Mauney
could not continue, for the memory of Lee was making him sad.
“I’m going away somewhere, Freda,” he said presently. “I don’t know
where, but I’m through with Merlton. I’ve got to find my niche. I’ve got
to go away from you, too. Please, try to understand how hard it is to go.”
Her eyes softened.
“I think I understand,” she answered, quietly.
“Perhaps,” he said, with a far-away look in his eyes, “perhaps I’m a
fool. You can’t know how I feel about you. But Lee—he loves you and needs
you—and I can’t help caring. Why am I such a fool?”
Freda gently released her hand from Mauney’s, and, rising, walked slowly
down the hall towards her room. On entering it, she closed the door and
sank down upon her knees beside a big chair and deliberately rested her
face upon her arms. She was not weeping or praying. Seldom did she do
either. Her intense mind was engaged with Mauney Bard. He did not know
that he was being pierced with arrows of shrewd analysis, that he was
being tried in the fires of a woman’s relentless gauging. Nor did he see
her serene face presently lifted to the warm sunlight that flooded from
her window. Her features wore a new restfulness, for she had found the
beautiful answer to her thoughts. Delicately the balances of her justice
had tipped, to find Mauney not a fool.
CHAPTER VII.
THE LAST DAYS AT FRANKLIN STREET.
Freda MacDowell was one of the most remarked women who had attended the
University of Merlton in recent years. First as a student, then as a
departmental secretary, she had left behind her a definite impression on
the unchanging portion of the college—the faculty. Occasionally a student
does this, but never by academic prowess. The brilliant scholar passes
through his four years with lustre of a kind, but is soon swallowed up in
the oblivion of the graduate status. The remembered student betrays, even
in those budding years, a definite mould of mind, illustrates a definite
viewpoint and adheres to the peculiar details of conduct that mark a
distinct personality.
Freda possessed some unaccountable leverage on life that bestowed this
distinction. She was just a little mysterious. No one knew why she had
come upon the college world, from the very start, as a rebel, fortified
capably against the acknowledged virtues of a university. Books were
proclaimed a burden, lectures and classes were boring. Girl associates
freely disagreed with her and disliked her. But on attempting to engage
her in altercation they discovered a handful of unanswerable arguments.
Freda’s tenets were never flippant. On the surface they sometimes
appeared even affected yet were found to be based on carefully-digested
opinion.
She never ventured on speculative problems. She followed her own
injunction: “Open your eyes and look at life.” In so doing she ran the
risk of the realist. Life, too closely inspected, often seems monstrous.
Beneath Freda’s animation and apparent flippancy, reposed a silent and
very solemn tribunal before which everything of importance had to be
arraigned. Themes of elemental justice, of human motives, and of the
obscured relation of cause and effect—these she dwelt upon. Few people
knew what a sage she was, in secret. Few were permitted to see past her
bright face.
At Merlton, no university student, caring so little for the customary
rewards of education, had received as much interest from the teachers.
Most of the professors had a tender spot in their hearts for her. This
may have depended, in no little measure, upon her personal beauty, for
decades of mental acquisition do not alter a man’s response, and a
good-looking woman maintains her authority even in the sedate courts
of learning. Then, too, a realist who has smashed her way through the
brambles wins a sharp simplicity that is bound to attract all enemies
of delusion. Professor Freeman pendulated between admiration of her
mental courage and curiosity about her flippancy. François de Freville
gloried in his “Oiseau,” without stint. Alfred K. Tanner loved her, but
the great-hearted gentleman loved nearly everybody, so that it was never
noticeable. Nutbrown Hennigar had started with the emotionless, but
level-headed idea that Freda was sufficiently ornamental to grace his
distinguished presence on most social occasions and had arrived at a
point where he believed that she should be a permanent ornament in his
home. All these people composed the fringe of her existence. She took
none of them seriously, but derived a paltry pleasure from the flattery
to her vanity.
A little nearer was Maxwell Lee—so much like her in many ways, a good
chum, clever, sincere and respected. But he did not awake any amorous
response in Freda.
Thus she had continued to play with life, superficially gay, but actually
discontented. The only man who had ever believed in her was Mauney Bard.
He saw beneath the surface. This, at least, was how she felt on the day
following his ardent declarations.
Another college term was finished. Spring and the vacation were at hand.
But she knew no eagerness, as in other years, to be off to her home in
Lockwood. The morning was occupied in arranging her secretarial desk for
the summer’s absence and the afternoon in quiet day-dreams in her room on
Franklin Street.
Her opened window, beside which she lounged in her big Morris chair,
let in a heterogeneous clatter of carts and horses’ hoofs, the
constant, shrill voices of romping children and the distant melodies
of an organ-grinder from a neighboring block, the brisk movements of
the Rigoletto, and the long, rolling chords of the Aloha. It was a
very satisfactory occupation to sit passively by her window. Beyond
and beneath the noise and the music there was a sweet silence of new
happiness within her. And her eyes were not seeing the familiar objects
of the room, but feasting upon the fresh, open face of Mauney Bard. Out
of the air, his clear blue eyes looked into hers. She heard his voice
laughing. She saw his eyes, boyish and eager, light with their happy
laughter.
After a time she glanced toward her wardrobe and rose impulsively to
dress for dinner. While she was finishing the ceremony of donning a new
evening dress of rose silk the door opened quietly to admit Gertrude who,
after a glance at her bowed smilingly.
“Ah-ha!” she said, very softly, “Doing it _a la grande_, are you?”
“Gertrude,” said Freda, “see if you can get this fastened, will you?”
“I shall be pleased, my dear,” responded the landlady, coming close, “to
help you with so charming a frock. Why a dome-fastener should be placed
in such an inaccessible position puzzles me considerably. Don’t you want
your hair waved a little?”
“Have you really got time to do it up for me?” Freda eagerly asked.
“Sit down, my dear,” purred Mrs. Manton as she placed a towel over
Freda’s shoulders and began extracting hairpins. “What a respectable wad
you really have. One could do wonders with half of it. Shall I give you
that Paris touch I used once before?”
Freda nodded, “Uh, huh! Won’t it be grand?”
“Doubtless,” said Mrs. Manton. “But in the words of Shakespeare, What’s
the big idea? Going out for dinner?”
“No.”
“Expecting Mr. Nutbrown Hennigar?”
“No.”
“Pure vanity, I suppose, then.”
“You haven’t guessed yet, Gertrude.”
“You’re a poor person to risk guesses about,” admitted Mrs. Manton, “So
you may have the fun of telling me.”
“Well, then,” said Freda, “I’m in love.”
“In love, my dear!” exclaimed the landlady, “With what?”
“A man, Gertrude.”
“Never!” Mrs. Manton shook her head slowly as she stepped in front of
Freda to inspect the results of her handicraft. “Do tell me what it’s
like,” she implored.
“Well,” said Freda, “you admire the man’s style from the first—his voice,
his looks. His boots are polished. His fingernails are clean, and not
polished. His tie is carefully knotted, his trousers well in press. You
like him, but you’re not in love yet.”
“I should say, not yet,” Gertrude agreed, half cynically.
“Then, whenever you talk with him he has a faculty of understanding you.
You don’t have to repeat or explain, Gertrude. You’ve always wanted to
talk with people who _get_ you. Isn’t that right?”
“It’s as sure as mud.”
“And then,” continued Freda enthusiastically. “It works the other way,
too. You find it easy to understand him. His broadcasting machine is in
the same wave-length as your radio-receiver. But even then you’re not in
love.”
“Are you quite sure?” enquired Mrs. Manton, teasingly.
“Yes. Listen, Gertrude, to me!” Freda said, as she rose to look down
into the sombre face before her. “There are all kinds of attractions and
fascinations and mesmerisms that pass for love. But when you have known
your man for a long time and feel you can hang on him, trust him, let him
steer you, and just want to be right with him all the time—isn’t that
love?”
“It sounds suspiciously like it,” smiled Mrs. Manton.
“But you’re not taking me seriously,” Freda objected.
“What do you want me to do—weep? Oh, girl, I could deliver one of the
finest speeches on this subject that ever was heard.” Mrs. Manton spoke
with decided emphasis, and pointed toward Freda admonishingly. “Remember,
my dear, that no man lives that can understand a woman’s nature. They
can’t vibrate with us. Good or bad, they don’t need us. Mind you, they
think they do. But when the curtain is lifted on the mystery, their
fine frenzy dies. What do we do then? We wash dishes three times a day,
and listen to a voice in the kitchen fire to find out when they will
return to the glorious delirium of their first affections. Then we grow
restless. We are off up toward the sky. Then we whizz plumb down like an
aeroplane in a nose-dive. We don’t know why we do the things we do. We
are in ignorance as to why our love makes us hurt them. In short we are
women. They are only men. And a satisfied woman is the rarest work of
God!”
During the evening Gertrude gathered her little flock together in the
dining room and provided music, dancing and refreshments, as a function
in honor of Maxwell Lee’s departure. Not a word was said about his
condition. It was all as if nothing had happened. Freda was informed
quietly by Mrs. Manton that Mauney was going to Rookland with Max on
the morrow and was providing money for his better care while in the
sanatorium. He had at first refused his kindly offer, but had finally
been persuaded, after three hours’ argument, to accept it. The party
broke up early and Freda, after assisting her landlady to wash the
dishes, joined Mauney in the drawing room.
It was a rarely happy hour. Freda, accustomed to orthodox methods of
love-making, was genuinely refreshed by Mauney’s restraint. Her presence
brought a happiness that he could not disguise. It shone in his face.
Most men would have told her, of course, that she was looking very
beautiful to-night. His omission of the compliment she readily explained
by reason of his essentially undemonstrative disposition. Freda, always
dramatic by nature, expressed her own feelings by gathering herself
neatly upon a cushion at his feet. Mauney sat leaning forward, his arms
on his knees, looking down into her face. He scarcely appreciated the
real surrender typified by that lowly cushion. But he knew and she knew
that a delicious, quivering kind of peace was in the room with them. They
talked of many matters for a time.
“If I had _you_,” he said, seriously, at length, “everything would be
perfect. I wouldn’t care what happened—”
Her head turned thoughtfully away for a moment, but he soon lifted her
face with a finger under her chin.
“Try to _get_ me, won’t you?” he implored. “Try to put yourself in my
position. Lee has been the whitest chap to me that ever was. Behind my
back as well as to my face. If he had only ever done me one little, mean
trick—but he hasn’t. Can you see what a damned predicament I’m in?”
“Yes,” she replied quickly, with an understanding smile that revealed a
white gleam between her lips. “I can see it, plain as the paper on that
ceiling.”
Mauney whistled softly a snatch of an indefinite tune and made some
pretence of keeping time with his heel, while he stared unhappily at the
carpet.
“It’s not very nice to be me,” he said.
“It’s your predicament, boy,” she said, “I’m sure you’re able to settle
it somehow or other.”
Later, when Freda had gone to her room, she was glad that _her_ lover
had a hard problem to solve. She was glad that _her_ lover was capable
of such an unusual fidelity; for her innate casuistry had been busy on
the situation and had shown her that such a man would make a faithful
husband.
BOOK IV.
THIN SOIL
CHAPTER I.
CONVOCATION.
Freda returned to her home in Lockwood, advising Mauney to try for a
position on the Lockwood Collegiate staff. She told him that the town had
its faults, but her father, who was mayor, would be able to help him get
the situation. He wrote and applied, and was informed by return mail that
he would be considered in due course. Meanwhile he waited in Merlton for
Convocation, to receive his academic degree.
Convocation was an impressive function—the great assembly hall filled
with begowned and mortar-boarded seniors, and with their admiring
relatives and friends; the broad platform crowded with the professors
wearing their multi-colored gowns, while rich organ music shook like a
solemn presence through the huge auditorium. After the presentation of
the diplomas, Richard Garnett, the President, made a short address.
“You are going forth,” he said, “to sow in other soils the seeds you have
gathered here.”
The majesty of a university president lends his words an authoritative
dignity suitable to such a solemn occasion. The graduate, pausing on the
threshold of the world, finds a grandeur in this farewell address. He
becomes inspired to catch the ideal. It is he who must carry forth the
light. He, and his fellows beside him in the hall, are to be the torch
bearers. It is an exquisite moment before the Chancellor’s “_Convocatio
dimissa est_” and the final thunder of the pipe organ as they step forth,
citizens of the world.
Mauney took heart again. Denied a position on the university staff, he
thought now of those “other soils” where he was needed even more. It
would have been pleasant to remain in Merlton, adding his moiety of
effort to the distinguished total of a renowned university. In time it
might have brought fame. But the ideals of Christianity had been rife
during the past four years. No man could go through Merlton without
learning that nobility of character lay in service to humanity. The
courageous, educational formula of Garnett was responsible for this
leaven. It deserved as much praise and received as much as unspectacular
courage ever does. A thousand men scoffed at Garnett as a visionary. A
thousand fawned upon him for personal reasons. A hundred knew him. There
were many thoughtless individuals ready to teach him his function. But
there were many also who left Merlton each year inflamed by his idealism
and determined to serve humanity’s needs. Garnett might have considered
this a tribute much deeper than praise.