BERTHA MEETS BEN FORDYCE
For all her impassivity, Bertha was really elated by this invitation,
for she liked Congdon, and had a very high opinion of his powers. She
experienced no special dread of the dinner, for it appeared to her at
the moment to be a simple sitting down to eat with some friendly people.
She was not in awe of Mrs. Congdon, however much she might admire her
husband's skill, and she knew their home. It was a small house on a side
street, and did not compare for a moment with her own establishment, in
which she had begun to take a settled pride.
As they rode away she was mentally casting up in her mind a choice of
clothes, when Haney remarked: "Bertie, I don't believe I'll go to that
dinner."
"Why not?"
"Well, I'm not as handy with a cold deck as I used to be, and I don't
think I ought to put me lame foot into another man's lap."
"You're all right, Captain, and, besides, I'll be close by to help out
in case you run up against a hard knock in the steak. Course you'll
go--I want you to get out and see the people. Why, you haven't taken a
meal out of the house since we moved, except that one at the Casino. You
need more doin'."
Haney was in a dejected mood. "So do you. I'm a heavy handicap to you,
Bertie, sure I am. As I see ye settin' there bloomin' as a rose and feel
me own age a-creepin' on me, I know I should be takin' me _congé_ out of
self-respect--just to give you open road."
"Stop that!" she warningly cried. "Hello, there's Ed! He seems in a
rush. Wonder what's eating him?"
Winchell, dressed in a new suit of clothes, darted from the sidewalk to
the carriage, his face shining. "Say, folks, I'm called East. Old man
died yesterday, and I've got to go home." He was breathing hard with
excitement.
"Get in and tell us about it," commanded Bertha.
He climbed up beside the driver, and turned on his seat to continue.
"Yes, I've got to go; and, say, the old man was well off. I don't do no
more barberin', I tell you that. I'm goin' to study law. I'm comin' back
here just as soon as things are settled up. I've been talking with a
fellow here--Lawyer Hansall; he says he'll take me in and give me a
chance. No more barberin' for me, you hear me!"
"'Tis a poor business, but a necessary," remarked Haney.
Bertha was sympathetic. "I'm glad you're goin' to get a raise. Of
course, I'm sorry about your father."
"I understand--so am I. But he's gone, and it's up to me to think of
myself. I know you always despised my trade."
"No, I didn't. Men have to be shaved and clipped. It's like
dish-washin', somebody has to do it. We can't all sit in the parlor."
Winchell acknowledged the force of this. "Well, I always felt sneakin'
about it, I'll admit, but that was because I was raised a farmer, and
barbers were always cheap skates with us. We didn't use 'em much, in
fact. Well, it's all up now, and when I come back I want you to forget I
ever cut hair. A third of the old farm is mine, and that will pay my
board while I study."
Neither Haney nor his young wife was surprised by this movement on his
part any more than he was surprised at their rise to wealth and luxury;
both were in accordance with the American tradition. But as they rode
down the street certain scornful Easterners (schooled in European
conventions) smiled to see the wife of an Irish millionaire gambler in
earnest conversation with a barber.
Mrs. Crego, driving down-town with Mrs. Congdon, stared in astonishment,
then turned to Lee. "And you ask me to meet such a woman at dinner!" she
exclaimed, and her tone expressed a kind of bewilderment.
Lee laughed. "You can't fail me now. Don't be hasty. Trust in Frank."
"I'd hate to have my dinner partners selected by Frank Congdon. I draw
the line at barbers."
"You're a snob, Helen. If you were really as narrow as you sound I'd cut
you dead! Furthermore, the barber isn't invited."
"I can't understand such people."
"I can. She don't know any better. You impute a low motive where there
is nothing worse than ignorance. As Frank says, the girl is a perfectly
natural outgrowth of a little town. I hope our dinner won't spoil her."
Mrs. Congdon had put the dinner-hour early, and when the Haneys drove up
in their glittering new carriage, drawn by two splendid black horses,
she too had a moment of bewilderment, but her sense of humor prevailed.
"Frank," she said, "you can't patronize a turnout like that--not in my
presence."
"To-night art's name is mud," he replied, with conviction, and hastened
down the steps to help Haney up.
The gambler waved his proffered arm aside. "I'm not so bad as all that,"
said he. "I let me little Corporal help me--sometimes for love of it,
not because I nade it."
He was still gaunt and pale, but his eyes were of unconquerable fire,
and the lift of his head from the shoulders was still leopard-like. He
was dressed in a black frock-coat, with a cream-colored vest and gray
trousers, and looked very well indeed--quite irreproachable.
Bertha was clad in black also--a close-fitting, high-necked gown which
made her fair skin shine like fire-flushed ivory, and her big serious
eyes and vivid lips completed the charm of her singular beauty. Her
bosom had lost some of its girlish flatness, but the lines of her hips
and thighs still resembled those of a boy, and the pose of her head was
like that of an athlete.
"Won't you come in and take off your hat?" asked Mrs. Congdon. And she
followed without reply, leaving the two men on the porch.
Without appearing to do so she saw everything in the house, which was
hardly more than an artistic camp, so far as the first floor was
concerned. Navajo rugs were on the floor, Moqui plaques starred the
walls, and Acoma ollas perched upon book-shelves of thick plank. The
chairs were rude, rough, and bolted at the joints. The room made a
pleasant impression on Bertha, though she could not have told why. The
ceiling was dark, the walls green, the woodwork stained pine, and yet it
had charm.
Mrs. Congdon explained meanwhile that Frank had made the big
centre-table of plank, and the book-shelves as well. "He likes to tinker
at such things," she said. "Whenever he gets blue or cross I set him to
shifting the dresser or making a book-shelf, and he cheers up like mad.
He's a regular kid anyway--always doing the things he ought not to do."
In this way she tried to put her guest at her ease, while Bertha sat
looking at her in an absent-minded way, apparently neither frightened
nor embarrassed--on the contrary, she seemed to be thinking of something
else. At last, to force a reply, Mrs. Congdon asked: "How do you like my
husband's portrait of Mr. Haney?"
"I don't know," she slowly replied. "It looks like him, and then again
it don't. I guess I'm not up to hand paintin's. Enlarged photographs are
about my size."
"You're disappointed, then?"
"Well, yes, I don't know but I am. I didn't think it was going to look
just that way. Mr. Congdon says blue shadows are under anybody's ears in
the light, but I can't see 'em on the Captain, and I do see 'em in the
picture; that's what gets me twisted. When I look at the picture I can't
see nothin' else."
Her hostess laughed. "I know just how you feel, but that's the insolence
of the painter--he puts on canvas what _he_ sees, not what his patron
sees. The more money you pay for a portrait the more insolent the
artist."
At this moment Mrs. Crego came in, and (as she said afterwards) was
presented to the gambler's wife "as though I were a nobody and she a
visiting countess." Bertha rose, offered her hand, like a boy, in
silence; she stood very straight, with very cold and unmistakably
suspicious face. And Alice Heath, who entered with Mrs. Crego, shared
this chill reception.
Bertha, in truth, instantly and cordially hated Mrs. Crego; but she
pitied the younger woman, in whom she detected another fugitive fighting
a losing battle with disease. Miss Heath was very fair and very frail,
with burning deep-blue eyes and a lovely mouth. She greeted Bertha with
such sincere pleasure that the girl inclined to her instantly, and they
went out on the porch together. Alice put her hand on Bertha's arm,
saying: "I've wanted to meet you, Mr. Congdon has told us so much of
you. Your life seems very romantic to me."
The men all rose to meet Mrs. Congdon, and before Bertha had time to
recover from the effect of the girl's words she found herself confronted
by Ben Fordyce, who looked like a college boy, athletic and smiling. He
was tall and broad-chested, with a round blond face and yellow hair. His
manner was frank, and his voice deep. His hand, broad and strong, was
hardened by the tennis-racket and calloused by the golf-stick, and
somehow its leathery clasp pleased the girl. The roughness of his palm
made him less alien than either Congdon or Crego.
They went out to dinner immediately, and as she walked beside Mart she
felt the young athlete's eyes resting upon her face, and the knowledge
of this troubled her unaccountably. Mrs. Congdon seated him opposite her
at the table, and he continued to stare at her with the frankest
curiosity. She returned his gaze at last with a certain defiance, but
found no offence in his eyes, which were round as his face, and of a
sincere, steady gray. He was smooth-shaven, and his blond hair was
rather short. All these peculiarities appeared one by one in the
intervals between her attentions to Mart and her study of the
furnishings of the table, which was decorated with candles and flowers
in a way quite new to her.
Fordyce was as fine as he looked. Nothing equivocal was in "that
magnificent boy," as his friends called him, and his interest in little
Mrs. Haney was that of the Easterner who, having been told that strange
things take place in the West, is disappointed if they do not happen
under his nose. He had heard much of the Haneys from Congdon, and had
been especially impressed with the story of Bertha's midnight ride to
the bedside of the dying gambler. The wedding in the saloon, her
devotion to the wounded man, their descent upon the Springs, and their
domestication in a stone palace--all appealed to his imagination. Such
things could not happen in Chester; they were of the mountain West, and
most satisfying to his taste.
Bertha, on her part, had to admit that the people at the table were most
kindly, even considerate. They made her husband the centre of interest,
and passed politely over all his disastrous attempts to use his left
hand. There were no awkward pauses, for, excepting one or two slips of
tongue, Haney rose to the occasion. He was big enough and self-contained
enough not to apologize for what he had been or what he was, and under
Congdon's skilful guidance told of his experiences as amateur miner and
gambler, growing humorous as the wine mellowed and lightened his
reminiscences. He felt the sympathy of his audience. All listened
delightedly with no accusation in their eyes--except in the case of Mrs.
Crego, who still breathed, so it seemed to Bertha, a certain contempt
and inner repugnance.
Young Fordyce glowed with delight in these tales, reading beneath the
terse lines of Haney's slang something epic, detecting a perfect
willingness to take any chance. The fact that his bravery led to nothing
conventionally noble or moral did not detract from the inherent interest
of the tale; on the contrary, the young fellow, being of unusual
imaginative reach and freedom, took pleasure in the thought that a man
would risk his life again and again merely for the excitement of it.
Occasionally he glanced at Judge Crego, to find him looking upon Haney
with thoughtful glance. It was a little like listening to a prisoner's
confession of guilt (as he afterwards said), but to him, as to Congdon,
it was a most interesting monologue.
It added enormously to the romance, so far as Ben Fordyce was concerned,
to look across the table at the grave, watchful face of the girl who
unfolded her husband's napkin or cut up his roast with deft hand--always
careful not to interrupt his talk.
As he thought of the quiet Quaker neighborhood from which he came, and
contrasted these singular and powerfully defined personalities with the
"men of weight" and the demure maidens of his acquaintance, Ben's blood
tingled with a sense of the bigness and strangeness of the greater
America. The West was no longer a nation; it was a world. To be in it at
last was a delight as well as an education.
Bertha, on her part, felt no strangeness in her position. Her marriage
was a logical outcome of her life and surroundings. The incomprehensible
lay in the shining women about her. Their ideas of life, their comment,
puzzled her. Their clothes were of a kind which her own money could buy,
but their manners, their grace of speech, their gestures, came of
something besides money. Mrs. Crego was especially formidable, and made
her feel the inadequacy of the black gown which she had thought very
fine when she selected it, ready made, in a Denver store. She did not
know that Mrs. Crego had dressed "very simply," at the suggestion of her
hostess; but she did feel a certain condescension of manner, even in
Alice, and was glad the Captain absorbed so much of the table-talk.
Her time of trial came when the ladies rose and, at Mrs. Congdon's
suggestion, returned to the porch, leaving the men to finish their
cigars. Not one of Ben's little courtesies towards the women escaped
her. His acquiescence, Congdon's tone of exaggerated respect, Crego's
compliments, were all new to her, and in a certain sense she resented
them. She doubted their sincerity a little, notwithstanding their
grateful charm.
Alice took her to herself and this was a great relief; for she feared
Mrs. Crego's sharp tongue, and was not entirely sure of her hostess.
Laying a slim hand on her arm, the Eastern girl began: "I am fascinated
by you, Mrs. Haney. You have had such an interesting life, and you have
such an opportunity for doing good."
Bertha looked at her in blank surprise. "What do you mean?"
"With your great wealth you can accomplish so much. Had you thought of
that?"
"No, I hadn't." The answer was blunt. "I've been so busy getting settled
and looking after the Captain, I haven't had time to think of anything
else."
"Oh, of course; but by and by you'll begin to look about you for things
to help--I mean hospitals and charities, and all that. The only time
when I envy great wealth is when I see some wrong which money can right.
Mr. Fordyce is a lawyer, but not a very famous one--he's only
twenty-eight; and while we are likely to have all we really need, we
can't begin to do what we'd like to do for others. I suppose Mrs.
Congdon has told you of us?"
"Where do you live?"
"We live in Chester, but Mr. Fordyce has an office in Philadelphia. We
have been engaged a long time, but I couldn't think of marrying while I
was so ill. I'm afraid I stayed so long that not even this climate can
help me."
This was indeed Bertha's conviction, and her untactful silence said as
much. Therefore, Alice hastened on to other more general topics. She was
very sprightly, but Bertha maintained a determined silence through it
all, quite unable to understand the girl's confidences.
When the men came out Alice took Haney to herself, and they seemed to
enjoy each other's society very keenly; indeed, their mutual absorption
became so complete that Ben remarked upon it to Bertha. "Miss Heath has
been crazy to meet your husband, Mrs. Haney. His adventurous life
appeals to her, as to me, very deeply. We don't mean to be offensive,
but to us you seem typical of the West."
What he said at this time made less impression on her than the way in
which he spoke. The light of an electric street-lamp fell upon his face,
revealing its charming lines. On his fine hand a ring gleamed. Autumn
insects were singing sleepily in the grass and from the trees. The
laughter of girls came from the dusk of neighboring lawns, and over all
descended the magical light of a harvest moon, flecking the surface of
the little garden with shadows almost as definite as those cast by the
flaming white globes of the street-lamps. It is on such nights that the
heart of youth expands with longing and sadness.
Crego and Congdon fell into hot argument (their usual method of
conversation), leaving the young people to themselves, and, Ben with
intent to provoke the grave little wife to laughter, told a funny story
which reflected on Congdon's improvidence.
Bertha was really grateful, for she felt herself at a great disadvantage
among these fluent and interesting folk, who talked like the characters
in novels. Their jests, their comment, meant little to her; but their
gestures, their graceful attitudes, their courtesies to each other,
meant much. They were something more than polite; they were considerate
in a way which showed their thoughtfulness to be deeply grounded in
habitual action. They used slang, but they used it as a garnish, not as
a habit of speech. Expressions which she had read in books, but had
never before heard spoken, flowed from their lips. Their sentences were
built up for effect; in Crego's case this was more or less expected, but
the phrases of Fordyce and Congdon were still more disconcerting. The
art of their stories was a revelation of the neatness and precision of
cultivated speech.
When Mrs. Congdon led the way back into the house Ben stepped to Alice's
side, saying, in a low tone: "I hope you haven't taken a chill. I beg
your pardon, dearest; I should have watched you more closely."
Once within-doors Mrs. Congdon insisted on Ben's singing, which he did
with smiling readiness, expressing, however, a profound ignorance of
music. "I never take my songs as seriously as my friends seem to do," he
explained to Bertha. "Music with me is a gift rather than an
acquirement."
His voice was indeed fresh and sweet, and he sang--as Bertha had never
heard any one sing--certain love ballads, whose despairing cadences were
made the more profoundly piercing, someway, by his happy boyish face and
handsomely clothed and powerful figure. "'But I and my True Love Will
Never Meet Again!'" seemed to be a fatalistic cry rather than a wail of
sadness as it came from his lips, but its melody sank deep into the
girl's heart. She sat in rigid absorption, her eyes fixed upon the
splendid young singer as a child looks upon some new and complicated
toy. The grace with which he pronounced his words, the spread of his
splendid chest, his easy pose, his self-depreciating shrugs enthralled
her. Surely this was one of the young princes of the earth. His voice
came to her freighted with the passion of ideal manhood.
He sang other songs--tunes not worthy of him--but ended with a ballad
called "Fair Springtide," by MacDowell--a song so stern, so strange, so
inexorably sad that the singer himself grew grave at last and rose to
his best. Bertha was thrilled to the heart, saddened yet exalted by his
voice. Her horizon--her emotional horizon--was of a sudden extended, and
she caught glimpses of strange lands and dim peaks of fabled mountains;
and when the singer declared himself at an end she sat benumbed while
the others cheered--her hands folded on her lap. It seemed a profanation
to applaud.
Haney gloomed in silence also, but not for the same reason. "I might
have sung like that once," he thought, for he had been choir-boy in his
ragamuffin youth, and had regained a fine tenor voice at eighteen. Age
and neglect had ruined it, however. For ten years he had not attempted
to sing a note. This youth made him dream of the past--as it caused
Bertha to forecast the future.
While young Fordyce was putting away his music the Captain struggled to
his feet, and Bertha, seeing a sudden paleness overspread his face,
hastened to him.
"I reckon we'd better be going," she said to Mrs. Congdon, with blunt
directness.
"It's early yet," replied her hostess.
Haney replied: "Not for cripples. Time was when I could sit all night in
the 'lookout's chair,' but not now. Ten o'clock finds me wishful towards
the bed." He said this with a faint smile. But the pathos of it, the
truth of it, went to Bertha's heart, as it did to Mrs. Congdon's. Not
merely was his body maimed, but his mind had correspondingly been
weakened by that tearing charge of shot.
Something of his native Celtic gallantry came back to him as he said:
"Sure, Mrs. Congdon, we've had a fine evening. You must come to see us
soon."
Ben was addressing himself to Bertha. "Do you ever ride?"
"I used to--I don't now. You see, the Captain can't stand the jolt of a
horse, so we mostly drive."
"I was about to say that Alice and I would be glad to have you join us.
We ride every morning--a very gentle pace, I assure you, for I'm no
rough-rider, and, besides, she sets the pace."
Bertha's face was pale and her eyes darkly luminous as she falteringly
answered. "I'd like to--but--Perhaps I can some time. I'm much obliged,"
and then she gave him her hand in parting.
Mrs. Congdon was subtly moved by something in the girl's face as she
said good-night, and to her invitation to come and see her cordially
responded: "I certainly shall do so."
* * * * *
Little Mrs. Haney rode away from her first dinner party in the silence
of one whose thoughts are too swift and too new to find speech. Her
brain, sensitive as that of a babe, had caught and ineffaceably retained
a million impressions which were to influence all her after life. The
most vivid and most powerful of these impressions rose from the glowing
beauty of young Fordyce, whose like she had never seen; but as
background to him was the lovely room, the shining table, the grace and
charm of the conversation, and, dominating all, the music--quite the
best she had ever heard. The evening--so simple, almost commonplace, to
her hostess--was of unspeakable significance to the uncultured girl.
She did not wish to talk, and when Haney spoke she made no reply to his
comment. "A fine bunch of people," he repeated. "They sure treated us
right. Crego's the fine man--we do well to make him our lawyer." As
Bertha again failed to respond he resumed, with a little chuckle: "But
Mrs. Crego is saying, 'I dunno--them Haneys is queer cattle.' And the
little sick lady, sure she was as interested in me talk as Patsy
McGonnigle. She drug out o' me some of me wildest scrapes. Poor little
girl, 'twill soon be all up with her.... It's a fine young fellow she
has. A Quaker by training, she says. My! my! What a prizefighter he'd
make if his mind ran that way! Think of a Quaker with a chest like
that--'tis something ferocious! He can sing, too, can't he? A fine
lad--as fine as iver I see. Think of shoulders like his all wasted on a
man of peace. I'm afraid the little lady will never put on the ring if
she waits till she gets well."
To this Bertha listened intently, but gave out no sign of interest. She
was eager to be alone, eager to review all that had happened--all that
had been said.
For the first time since her marriage she felt Haney's presence to be
just the least bit of a burden; and when they entered the house she
urged his immediate retirement, though he was disposed to sit in the
library and talk. "They were high-class," he said, again. "I never
supposed I could make easy camp with such people. They sure treated us
noble. They made us feel at home.... We must have some liquor like that.
I've always despised wine and those that took it; but, bedad! I see
there are two sides to that question. 'Tis not so thin as I thought it."
Bertha at last got him safely bestowed, and was free to seek her own
apartment, which she did at once. Her chamber, which adjoined her
husband's to the west (he liked the morning sun), was a big room, and
the young wife looked like a doll as she dropped into a broad tufted
chair which stood in a square bay-window, and with folded hands looked
out upon the ghostly shapes of the great peaks, snow-covered and
moonlit.
A thousand revelations of character as well as of manners lay in that
short evening's contact with cultivated and thoughtful people. It argued
much for her ancestry, for her own latent powers, that she responded
with such bewildering readiness to the suggestions which rose like
sparks of fire from that radiant hour.
She had been made to feel dimly, vaguely, but multitudinously, the
fibres and reaches of another world--the world of art, and that
indefinable thing which the books call culture; and finally, in that
splendid young Quaker, she was brought to know a man who could be
jocular without being coarse, and whose glance was as sincere as it was
flattering and alluring.
She did not think of him as husband to Alice Heath, who seemed so much
older in spirit as in body (more like an elder sister than a bride
elect), and his consideration of her was that of brother rather than the
devotion of a lover. How far he stood removed from Ed Winchell and the
young fellows of Sibley! "And yet I can understand him," she thought.
"He ain't funny, like Mr. Congdon. He don't say queer things, and he
don't make game of people. And he don't orate like Judge Crego. He isn't
laughing at us now, the way the others are. I bet they're havin' a good
time over our blunders."
She saw Marshall Haney in a new light also. For the first time he seemed
like an old man, sitting there, supine, garrulous, in the midst of those
self-contained people. "Gosh! how he did talk! He took too much wine, I
reckon, but that didn't make all the difference." In truth, his
imperiousness, his contempt, had been melted and charmed away by the
genial smiles of his auditors. Even Mrs. Crego had listened with a show
of interest. It was as if a lonely old man had at last found
companionship.
What did all this mean? "Are they interested in him only because he's
what they call a desperado? Did they ask us there to hear him tell
stories of his wild life?" Questions of this kind also troubled her.
The moon slid behind the mountain range while still the girl sat with
pale face and wide dark eyes thinking, thinking, the wings of her
expanding soul fluttering with vague unrest. Only once in a lifetime can
such an experience come to a human being. Her swift ride to Marshall
Haney's side that summer night--now so far away--was momentous, but its
import was simple compared with the experiences through which she had
just passed.
She rose at last, chilled and stiffened, and went to her bed with a
sense of foreboding rather than of new-found happiness.
* * * * *
Mart rose late next morning. "I had a bad night," he explained. "The
mixed liquors I tuck got into me wound, I guess. It woke me twice,
achin' and burnin'. You're lookin' tired yersilf, little girl. This high
life seems to be wearin' on the both of us."