Niel met his uncle and Captain Forrester when they alighted from the
morning train, and drove over to the house with them. The business on
which they had gone to Denver was not referred to until they were
sitting with Mrs. Forrester in the front parlour. The windows were open,
and the perfume of the mock-orange and of June roses was blowing in from
the garden. Captain Forrester introduced the subject, after slowly
unfolding his handkerchief and wiping his forehead, and his fleshy neck,
around his low collar.
"Maidy," he said, not looking at her, "I've come home a poor man. It
took about everything there was to square up. You'll have this place,
unencumbered, and my pension; that will be about all. The live-stock
will bring in something."
Niel saw that Mrs. Forrester grew very pale, but she smiled and brought
her husband his cigar stand. "Oh, well! I expect we can manage, can't
we?"
"We can just manage. Not much more. I'm afraid Judge Pommeroy considers
I acted foolishly."
"Not at all, Mrs. Forrester," the Judge exclaimed. "He acted just as I
hope I would have done in his place. But I am an unmarried man. There
were certain securities, government bonds, which Captain Forrester could
have turned over to you, but it would have been at the expense of the
depositors."
"I've known men to do that," said the Captain heavily, "but I never
considered they paid their wives a compliment. If Mrs. Forrester is
satisfied, I shall never regret my decision." For the first time his
tired, swollen eyes sought his wife's.
"I never question your decisions in business, Mr. Forrester. I know
nothing about such things."
The Captain put down the cigar he had taken but not lighted, rose with
an effort, and walked over to the bay window, where he stood gazing out
over his meadows. "The place looks very nice, Maidy," he said presently.
"I see you've watered the roses. They need it, this weather. Now, if
you'll excuse me, I'll lie down for a while. I did not sleep well on the
train. Niel and the Judge will stay for lunch." He opened the door into
Mrs. Forrester's room and closed it behind him.
Judge Pommeroy began to explain to Mrs. Forrester the situation they had
faced in Denver. The bank, about which Mrs. Forrester knew nothing but
its name, was one which paid good interest on small deposits. The
depositors were wage-earners; railroad employes, mechanics, and day
labourers, many of whom had at some time worked for Captain Forrester.
His was the only well known name among the bank officers, it was the
name which promised security and fair treatment to his old workmen and
their friends. The other directors were promising young business men
with many irons in the fire. But, the Judge said with evident chagrin,
they had refused to come up to the scratch and pay their losses like
gentlemen. They claimed that the bank was insolvent, not through unwise
investments or mismanagement, but because of a nation-wide financial
panic, a shrinking in values that no one could have foreseen. They
argued that the fair thing was to share the loss with the depositors; to
pay them fifty cents on the dollar, giving long-time notes for
twenty-five per cent, settling on a basis of seventy-five per cent.
Captain Forrester had stood firm that not one of the depositors should
lose a dollar. The promising young business men had listened to him
respectfully, but finally told him they would settle only on their own
terms; any additional refunding must be his affair. He sent to the vault
for his private steel box, opened it in their presence, and sorted the
contents on the table. The government bonds he turned in at once. Judge
Pommeroy was sent out to sell the mining stocks and other securities in
the open market.
At this part of his narrative the Judge rose and began to pace the
floor, twisting the seals on his watchchain. "That was what a man of
honour was bound to do, Mrs. Forrester. With five of the directors
backing down, he had either to lose his name or save it. The depositors
had put their savings into that bank because Captain Forrester was
president. To those men with no capital but their back and their two
hands, his name meant safety. As he tried to explain to the directors,
those deposits were above price; money saved to buy a home, or to take
care of a man in sickness, or to send a boy to school. And those young
men, bright fellows, well thought of in the community, sat there and
looked down their noses and let your husband strip himself down to
pledging his life insurance! There was a crowd in the street outside the
bank all day, every day; Poles and Swedes and Mexicans, looking scared
to death. A lot of them couldn't speak English,--seemed like the only
English word they knew was 'Forrester.' As we went in and out we'd hear
the Mexicans saying, 'Forrester, Forrester.' It was a torment for me, on
your account, Ma'm, to see the Captain strip himself. But, 'pon my
honour, I couldn't forbid him. As for those white-livered rascals that
sat there,--" the Judge stopped before Mrs. Forrester and ruffled his
bushy white hair with both hands, "By God, Madam, I think I've lived too
long! In my day the difference between a business man and a scoundrel
was bigger than the difference between a white man and a nigger. I
wasn't the right one to go out there as the Captain's counsel. One of
these smooth members of the bar, like Ivy Peters is getting ready to be,
might have saved something for you out of the wreck. But I couldn't use
my influence with your husband. To that crowd outside the bank doors his
name meant a hundred cents on the dollar, and by God, they got it! I'm
proud of him, Ma'm; proud of his acquaintance!"
It was the first time Niel had ever seen Mrs. Forrester flush. A quick
pink swept over her face. Her eyes glistened with moisture. "You Were
quite right, Judge. I wouldn't for the world have had him do otherwise
for me. He would never hold up his head again. You see, I know him." As
she said this she looked at Niel, on the other side of the room, and her
glance was like a delicate and very dignified rebuke to some
discourtesy,--though he was not conscious of having shown her any.
When their hostess went out to see about lunch, Judge Pommeroy turned to
his nephew. "Son, I'm glad you want to be an architect. I can't see any
honourable career for a lawyer, in this new business world that's coming
up. Leave the law to boys like Ivy Peters, and get into some clean
profession. I wasn't the right man to go with Forrester." He shook his
head sadly.
"Will they really be poor?"
"They'll be pinched. It's as he said; they've nothing left but this
place."
Mrs. Forrester returned and went to waken her husband for lunch. When
she opened the door into her room, they heard stertorous breathing, and
she called to them to come quickly. The Captain was stretched upon his
iron bed in the antechamber, and Mrs. Forrester was struggling to lift
his head.
"Quick, Niel," she panted. "We must get pillows under him. Bring those
from my bed."
Niel gently pushed her away. Sweat poured from his face as he got his
strength under the Captain's shoulders. It was like lifting a wounded
elephant. Judge Pommeroy hurried back to the sitting-room and telephoned
Dr. Dennison that Captain Forrester had had a stroke.
A stroke could not finish a man like Daniel Forrester. He was kept in
his bed for three weeks, and Niel helped Mrs. Forrester and Ben Keezer
take care of him. Although he was at the house so much during that time,
he never saw Mrs. Forrester alone,--scarcely saw her at all, indeed.
With so much to attend to, she became abstracted, almost impersonal.
There were many letters to answer, gifts of fruit and wine and flowers
to be acknowledged. Solicitous inquiries came from friends scattered all
the way from the Missouri to the mountains. When Mrs. Forrester was not
in the Captain's room, or in the kitchen preparing special foods for
him, she was at her desk.
One morning while she was seated there, a distinguished visitor arrived.
Niel, waiting by the door for the letters he was to take to the post,
saw a large, red-whiskered man in a rumpled pongee suit and a panama hat
come climbing up the hill; Cyrus Dalzell, president of the Colorado &
Utah, who had come over in his private car to enquire for the health of
his old friend Niel warned Mrs. Forrester, and she went to meet the
visitor, just as he mounted the steps, wiping his face with a red silk
bandanna.
He took both the lady's hands and exclaimed in a warm, deep voice, "Here
she is, looking as fresh as a bride! May I claim an old privilege?" He
bent his head and kissed her. "I won't be in your way, Marian," he said
as they came into the house, "but I had to see for myself how he does,
and how you do."
Mr. Dalzell shook hands with Niel, and as he talked he moved about the
parlour clumsily and softly, like a brown bear. Mrs. Forrester stopped
him to straighten his flowing yellow tie and pull down the back of his
wrinkled coat. "It's easy to see that Kitty wasn't with you this morning
when you dressed," she laughed.
"Thank you, thank you, my dear. I've got a green porter down there, and
he doesn't seem to realize the extent of his duties. No, Kitty wanted to
come, but we have two giddy nieces out from Portsmouth, visiting us, and
she felt she couldn't. I just had my car hitched on to the tail of the
Burlington flyer and came myself. Now tell me about Daniel. Was it a
stroke?"
Mrs. Forrester sat down on the sofa beside him and told him about her
husband's illness, while he interrupted with sympathetic questions and
comments, taking her hand between his large, soft palms and patting it
affectionately.
"And now I can go home and tell Kitty that he will soon be as good as
ever,--and that you look like you were going to lead the ball tonight.
You whisper to Daniel that I've got a couple cases of port down in my
car that will build him up faster than anything the doctors give him.
And I've brought along a dozen sherry, for a lady that knows a thing or
two about wines. And next winter you are both coming out to stay with us
at the Springs, for a change of air."
Mrs. Forrester shook her head gently. "Oh, that, I'm afraid, is a pretty
dream. But we'll dream it, anyway!" Everything about her had brightened
since Cyrus Dalzell came up the hill. Even the long garnet earrings
beside her cheeks seemed to flash with a deeper colour, Niel thought.
She was a different woman from the one who sat there writing, half an
hour ago. Her fingers, as they played on the sleeve of the pongee coat,
were light and fluttery as butterfly wings.
"No dream at all, my dear. Kitty has arranged everything. You know how
quickly she thinks things out. I am to come for you in my car. We'll get
my old porter Jim as a valet for Daniel, and you can just play around
and put fresh life into us all. We saw last winter that we couldn't do
anything without our Lady Forrester. Nothing came off right without her.
If we had a party, we sat down afterward and wondered what in hell we'd
had it for. Oh, no, we can't manage without you!"
Tears flashed into her eyes. "That's very dear of you. It's sweet to be
remembered when one is away." In her voice there was the heartbreaking
sweetness one sometimes hears in lovely, gentle old songs.