BEN BECOMES ADVISER TO MRS. HANEY
Bertha was astir early the next morning, and quite ready to join the
Fordyces as soon as breakfast was over; but they did not come. She
waited and watched the whole forenoon, and when at twelve o'clock they
had neither called nor sent word, her day suddenly sank into
nothingness, like a collapsed balloon, and she faced her tasks with a
weakness of will not native to her.
Haney and Williams were both down street discussing some business matter
with Crego, and this left her hours the more empty and unsatisfactory.
As the dinner-hour drew near she drove to fetch her husband, hoping for
a glimpse of the Fordyces on the way, but even this comfort was denied
her, and she ached with dull pain which she could not analyze.
As Haney settled himself in the carriage, he said: "Well, little woman,
did ye have a good ride?"
"I didn't go," she responded, with curt emphasis.
"Ye did not--Why not?"
"I had too much to do." This was a prevarication which she instantly
repented. "Besides, they didn't turn up."
"I'm sorry. I was hoping you'd had a good try at the new horse. Ye must
mount him for me to see this afternoon." Later he said: "I'm feeling
better each day now; soon I'll be able to take that trip East. Do you
get ready at your ease."
The thought of this trip, hitherto so wonderful in its possibilities,
afforded her no pleasure; it scarcely interested her. And when another
day went by with no further call or word from Ben Fordyce, she began to
lose faith in her new-found friends and in herself.
"They had enough of me," she said, bitterly. "I'm not their style." And
in this lay her first acknowledgment of money's inefficiency: it cannot
buy the friends you really care for.
On the third day Fordyce called her up on the 'phone to say that Alice
had been ill. "Our ride that day was a little too much for her," he
explained, "but she will be all right again soon. I think we can go
again to-morrow."
This explanation brought sunshine back into the Haney castle, and its
mistress went about the halls singing softly. In the afternoon, as she
and Mart were starting on their "constitutional" she proposed that they
call to see how Alice was. This Haney was glad to do. "I liked the
little woman," said he; "she's sharp as a tack. And, besides, she
listened to me gabble," he added.
Miss Heath was stopping in the home of a friend--a rather handsome
house, in the midst of thick shrubbery; and they found her wrapped in a
blanket and sitting on the porch in a steamer-chair, with Ben reading to
her. They were both instant and cordial in their demands that the
Captain alight and come in, and Ben went down the walk to get him, while
Alice, with envious, wistful eyes answered the glowing girl: "Oh no, I
don't think the ride did me any harm. I have these little back-sets now
and then. I'm glad you came."
"How thin her hands are," thought Bertha. And she saw, too, that the
delicate face was wrinkled and withered.
Reading compassion in the girl's glance, Alice continued, brightly:
"I'll be up to-morrow. I'm like a cork--nothing permanently depresses
me. I'm suffering just now from an error of thought!"
Bertha only smiled, and the gleam of her teeth, white and even as rows
of corn, produced in her face the effect of innocent humor like that of
a child. Then she said: "I've bought a new horse."
"Have you, indeed?"
"Yes, and I've been expecting you to ride up to the line fence and call
me out--I wanted to show him to you. He's a cracker-jack, all right."
"We'll come over in a day or two. I never stay _down_ more than three
days."
Haney, lumbering round the corner of the house, called out, mellowly:
"Here you are! Now don't move a hair." He bent and offered a broad white
hand. "How are ye the day?"
"Better, thank you. Ben, put a chair beside me; I want to talk to
Captain Haney. He was interrupted the other night in the very middle of
one of his best stories, and I'm going to insist on his finishing it."
Haney faced Bertha with a look of humorous amazement on his face. "Think
o' that, now! She remembers one of my best."
"Indeed I do, Captain, and I can tell you just where you left off. You
had just sighted the camp of the robbers."
Haney clicked with his tongue, as if listening to a child. "There now! I
must have been taking more grape-juice than was good for me to start on
that story, for it's all about meself and the great man I thought I was
in those days."
"I love to hear about people who can ride a hundred miles in a night,
and live on roots and berries, and capture men who bristle with
revolvers. Please go on. Ben, you needn't listen if you don't want to.
You can show Mrs. Haney the automobile or the garden."
Ben laughed. "I like to hear Captain Haney talk quite as well as
anybody, but I'll be glad to show Mrs. Haney any of your neighbors'
things she cares to see."
Alice turned to Bertha. "I suppose the Captain's tales are all old songs
in your ears?"
"No, they're mostly all new to me. The Captain never tells stories to
me."
Haney winked. "She knows me too well. She wouldn't believe them."
"Go on, please," said Alice. And so Haney took up the thread, though he
protested. "'Tis a tale for candle-light," he explained.
Ben was studying Bertha with renewed admiration. "Where did she get that
exquisite profile?" he thought.
The story was again interrupted by a group of callers, among them Mrs.
Crego, and though Alice loyally stood by the Haneys and introduced them
boldly, Mrs. Crego's cold nod and something that went out from the eyes
of her companions made Bertha suffer, and she went away with a feeling
of antagonism in her heart. Did these people consider her beneath their
respect?
Haney remarked as they rode away: "If black eyes could freeze, sure we'd
be shiverin' this minute. Did ye see Mrs. Crego pucker up when she
sighted us?"
"I did, and it settled her for me," replied Bertha.
The intimacy thus established between the Haneys and the Congdon circle
furnished the gossip of the "upper ten" with vital material for
discussion. Mrs. Crego most decidedly disapproved of their calling, and
advised Alice Heath against any further connection with the gambler's
wife.
"What good can it possibly lead to? It's only curiosity on your part,
and it isn't right to disturb the girl's ideals--if she has any."
To this Alice made no reply, but Ben stoutly defended the young wife.
"She would have been as good as any of us with the same education. The
poor little thing has had to work since her childhood, and that has cut
off all training. As for Haney, he isn't a bad man. I suppose he argues
that as some one must keep a gambling-house, it is best to have a good
man do it."
The sense of being to a degree freed from the ordinary restraints of
social life made Alice very tolerant. But, as it chanced, they did not
go out the next day; indeed, it was several days before they again rode
up to the Haney gate. They found Bertha dressed and ready for them (as
she had been each morning), and when she came out to them her heart was
glowing and her face alight.
"We've come to see the new horse!" called Ben.
Haney was at the gate with a smile of satisfaction on his face when the
horse was brought round. "There is a steed worth the riding!" he
boasted. "I told Bertie to get the best. I would not have her riding a
'skate' like that one the other morning. She'll keep ye company this
day."
Ben exclaimed, with admiration: "I see you know horse-kind, Captain!"
"I do," responded Haney. "And now be off, and remember you take dinner
with us to-day."
As they moved away he took his customary seat on the porch to wait for
their return--patient in outward seeming, but lonely and a little
resentful within.
Bertha suggested a ride up the Bear Cañon, but Ben was quick to say:
"That is too far, I fear, for Alice."
Bertha's glance at Alice revealed again, but in clearer lines, the
sickness and weariness and the hopelessness of the elder woman's face,
and Ben's consideration and watchful care of her took something out of
the ride. The rapture, the careless gayety, of their first gallop was
gone.
An impatience rose in the girl's soul. With the cruelty of youth she
unconsciously accused the other, resenting the interference with her own
plans and pleasures. She felt cheated because Ben permitted himself no
racing, no circuits with her--and yet outwardly and in reality she was
deeply sympathetic. She pitied while she accused and resented.
Their ride was short and unsatisfying. But as her guests remained for
luncheon--Bertha was learning to call it that--the outing ended in a
rare delight; for while "the two invalids" sat on the piazza, Bertha
showed Ben her garden and stables, and the greenhouses she was building,
and this hour was one of almost perfect peace.
Ben, once outside Alice's depressing presence, grew gay and
single-minded in his enjoyment of his hostess and her surroundings.
"It must seem like Aladdin and his wonderful lamp to you," he said, as
they stood watching the workmen putting in the glass to the greenhouses.
"All you have to do is rub it, and miracles happen."
"That's just what it does," she answered, with gravity. "I give myself a
knock in the head every time I write out a check, just to see if I am
awake; but I can see I'll get used to it in time. That's the funny
thing: a feller can get used to anything. The trouble with me is I don't
know what to do nor how to do it. I ought to be learning things: I ought
to go to school, but I can't. You see, I had to buckle down to work
before I finished the high-school, and I don't know a thing except
running a hotel. I wish you'd give me a few pointers."
"I'll do what I can, but I am afraid my advice wouldn't be very
pertinent. What can I help you on?"
"Well, I don't know. Alice"--she spoke the word with a little
hesitation--"said something to me the other day about charity, and all
that. Well, now, I'm helping mother's church--a little--and I'm helping
up at Sibley, but I don't know what else to do. I suppose I ought to do
some good with the money that's rolling in on us. I've got my house
pretty well stocked and fitted up, and I'm about stumped. I can't sit
down, and just eat and sleep, ride and drive, can I?"
"There are women who do that and nothing else."
"Well, I can't. I've always had something to do. I like to play as well
as the next one, but I don't believe I could spend my time here just
sitting around."
"It's no small matter to run such a house as this."
"Well, there's something in that; but the point is, what's it all for?
We're alone in it most of the time, and it don't seem right. Another
thing, most of our old friends fight shy of us now. I invite 'em in, and
they come, but they don't stay--they don't seem comfortable. They are
all wall-eyed to see the place once, but they don't say 'hello' as they
used to. And the people next door here--well, they don't neighbor at
all. You and the Congdons are the only people, except a few of mother's
church folks, who even call. Now, what's the matter?"
He was now quite as serious as she. "I suppose your own folks feel that
your wealth is a barrier."
"Why should they? I treat 'em just the same as ever. I'm not the kind to
go back on my friends because I'm Marshall Haney's wife. If I'd earned
this money I might put on airs; but I haven't--I've just married into
it."
"How did you come to do it?" he asked, quickly--almost accusingly.
Her tone again faltered, and her eyes fell. "Well, it was like this:
Mother was sick and getting old, and I was kind o' tired and
discouraged, and the Captain was mighty nice and kind to us; and then
I--And so when the word came that he was hurt--and wanted me--I went."
Here she looked up at him. "And I did right, don't you think so?"
He was twisting a twig in his fingers. "Oh yes, certainly. You've been a
great comfort to him. You saved his life probably, and he really is a
fine man in spite of--" He broke off.
She took up his phrase. "In spite of his business. I know, that was
mother's main objection to him. But, you see, he cleaned all out of that
before I married him. He hasn't touched a card since."
He was almost apologetic. "I've been brought up to despise gamblers--I'm
a Quaker, you know, by family. But I like Captain Haney, and I can see
that from his point of view a 'straight game,' as he calls it, is not a
crime."
"Yes, that's one good thing in his favor--he never let a crooked deal
pass in his place. But, after all, I can't forget that he was a gambler,
and other people can't, and his record is dead against us here." Her
face was dark as she resumed. "I'm a gambler's wife. Ain't that so?
Didn't you hear of me in that way? Weren't you warned against us?"
His honest eyes quailed a little. "It is true your husband is called a
gambler rather than a miner."
"Well, he was. That's right, but he isn't now. I'm not complaining about
the part that can't be helped, but I want to do something to show we are
in line to-day, and so does the Captain. We want to make our money
count, and if you can tell us what to do we'll be mightily obliged."
The young Quaker was more profoundly enthralled by this unexpected
confession of the girl than by any other word she could have uttered.
His own knowledge of life was neither wide nor deep, and his sense of
responsibility not especially keen; and yet he experienced a thrill of
pleasure and a certain lift of spirit as he stood looking down at
her--the attitude of confidential spiritual adviser began at the moment
to yield a sweet satisfaction as well as an agreeable realization of
power. How much Haney's mines were pouring forth he did not know, but
their wealth was said to be enormous. Every day added to the
potentiality of this gray-eyed girl who stood so trustfully, so like a
pupil, before him.
He spoke with emotion. "I'll do what I can to advise you and help you,
and so will Alice. Allen Crego is a good man--he has your legal
business, I believe?"
"Yes, I think he's square, and I like him. But I can't go to Mrs. Crego;
she despises us--that's one good reason." She smiled faintly. "But it
ain't legal advice I want--it's something else. I don't know what it is.
Our minister isn't the man, either. I guess I want somebody that knows
life, and that ain't either a lawyer or a minister. I want some one to
take our affairs in hand. I need all kinds of advice. Won't you give it
to me?"
He smiled. "I'd like to help, but I am only a lawyer--and a very young
one at that."
"I don't think of you as a lawyer; you're more than that to us."
"What am I, then?"
The color danced along her cheek as she uttered a phrase so current in
the West that it has a certain humorous sound: "You're a gentleman and a
scholar."
"Thank you. But I fear you mean by that that I take life very easily."
She grew serious again. "No, I don't. Anybody can see you're honest. I
trust you more than I do Judge Crego, and so does the Captain. You can
tell us things we want to know. We both know a little about business,
but we don't know much about other things. That's where we both fall
down."
This frank expression of regard brought about a moment of emotional
tension, and Ben hesitated before replying. At last he said: "I hope I
shall always deserve your confidence. I wish I had the wisdom you credit
me with. I wonder what I can tell you?"
"Tell me what you would do if you were in my place."
Quick as a sunbeam his smile flashed out. "Be your own good, joyous
self. Whatever you do, don't lose what you are now--the quality which
attracted Alice and me to you. Don't try to be like other rich people."
The sight of the Captain and Alice walking slowly towards them cut short
the further admission of his own careless inexperience, and they all
took seats beneath a big pear-tree which shaded a semicircular wire
settee.
Haney had been confessing a little of his loneliness. "I will not
believe that me work in the world is done. 'Tis true, I took very little
care of me good days; but I was happy in me business, such as it was. Me
little wife there saves me from the blue divils when she's about, but
when I'm alone, sure it's deep in the dumps I go. Sometimes me mind
misgives me, to think of her tied to an old stump of a tree like me! But
maybe she's right--maybe I'm to recover me powers and be of use."
To this Alice could only reply, as comfortingly as she could: "You've
given her a good deal, Captain."
"So I have, but I mean to give more. As soon as I'm able to travel we're
going down the hill to see the world. Sometimes when we sit on our porch
and talk of it, it seems as if I could see the whole of the States
spread out before us--Chicago, Washington, New York, and all to choose
from. I can't get over the surprise of having the stream of money keep
comin'. I used to work hard--you may not believe that, but 'twas so. I
used to have long days and nights of watching. 'Twas work of a kind,
though you may not admire the kind. And now I have nothing to do but sit
and twist me two thumbs--and one of them bog-spavined, at that."
To this Alice had made no reply, for they were within earshot of Ben and
Bertha. Haney called out: "Sure, it must be near dinner-time, Bertie!--I
mean luncheon, ma'am--I'm lately instructed."
They all laughed in tune to his humor, and Bertha replied: "No more
twelve-o'clock dinners for us, Captain."
Haney groaned. "This fashionable life will be the death of me. Sure, I
eat and talk by rule a'ready. Where it will end I dunno."
Happily the bell soon relieved the strain, but the talk at the table
continued to be very personal--it could not be prevented, for each of
these four people was at a turning-point in his or her life. Haney,
feeling the slow tide of returning vigor in his limbs, was in trouble
thinking of what he was to do. Bertha, just beginning to tremble beneath
the mysterious stir of an all-demanding love, was uneasy, feverish, and
self-conscious. Alice, sensing the approach of weakness and decay, yet
struggling against it, was inwardly in despair. While Ben, hitherto
careless, facing life with unwrinkled brow, was appreciating, for the
first time, the positive responsibilities of manhood. Bertha's expressed
wish to employ his best judgment exalted him while it troubled him.
For a time the burden of the conversation was his. Haney was in a
reflective mood, and Bertha busied with the table service, which she was
trying to raise to the level of her honored guests, was distracted.
Alice, tired and a little dispirited, added nothing to the youthful
spirit of the meal.
At last, just when the conversation seemed about to flag out, Haney,
lifting his head, began in a new tone: "Mr. Fordyce, my little girl and
I have decided we want you to take Crego's place as our lawyer. I hope
you'll be able to do it."
Alice looked up in surprise. "But you don't mean to take it from Mr.
Crego?"
Haney's face grew hard. "I am under no obligation to Crego, and I prefer
to have as me lawyer a man who can neighbor with me, and whose wife is
not above nodding when me own wife passes by."
Alice hastened to defend the Cregos. "You mustn't be unjust to Mrs.
Crego."
"I'm not," said Haney, "nor to Crego either. I've paid for his time, and
paid well--as I'm willing to pay for yours." He turned to Ben. "I need
advice, and I want to feel free to go for it."
Ben replied: "I'd like to accept your business, Captain, but you see it
would not be professional for me to profit at the expense of my friend,
and, besides, I haven't really settled here yet."
Haney looked disappointed. "I thought ye had. Well, I am going to cut
loose from Crego anyhow, and I shall tell him why."
Bertha cried out: "No, don't do that."
He acquiesced. "Very well, then I won't tell him why; but I'm going to
quit him! So if you don't care to take on me business, I'll give it to
Jim Beringer. It pays a good bit of money, and will pay more. I'll make
it profitable to ye."
Alice looked at Ben. "Of course, if he is going to leave Mr. Crego
anyway--"
"But that would mean making our permanent home here, and setting up an
office."
"Well, why not? I can't live in the East any more; that we have tested.
I am willing to decide now. It would give you a start here, and,
besides, I think you can be of use to the Captain."
Ben still hesitated. "It seems rather treacherous to Crego some way. But
if you have definitely decided against him--"
"We have," said Bertha. "We talked it all over yesterday. We want you."
Haney's face was very grave now. "There is one thing more, Mr. Fordyce.
Mart Haney's reputation must be taken into account. It won't do you anny
good to be associated with him. I don't know that it will do you anny
harm, but I'm dom sure it will do you no good to be associated with me."
Alice interposed, quickly. "A lawyer can't choose his clients--at least,
a _young_ lawyer can't."
Haney ignored the implications of her speech. "I'm not tryin' to cover
up me tracks," said he. "I was a gambler for thirty years. Me whole life
has been a game of chance. There are many who think gambling one of the
high crimes an' misdemeanors, but I think a square game between men is
defensible. I am a gambler by nature. Why shouldn't I be? I grew up a
fat squab of a boy rollin' about on the pavin'-stones of Troy. 'Twas all
luck, bedad, whether I lived or died. I lived, it fell out, and when I
had learned to read I read wild-West stories. Of course, that led me to
go West and jine the Indians, and by stealin' rides and beggin' me bread
I reached Dodge City. 'Twas all chance that I didn't die on the way. Me
mother, poor soul, was worried and I knew it, and finally I put me fist
to it and wrote her a letter to say I was all right. She wrote beggin'
me to return, which I did a couple of years later; but Troy was too slow
for me then, and again I pulled out. I was always takin' risks. Danger
was me delight. I had no trade, but I had faith in me luck. I won--I
almost always won. And so I came to be a gambler along with bein'
sheriff and city marshal, and the like o' that, in one mountain town or
another, but I always played fair. A man who plays a square game is a
gambler. The man who deals underhand is a crook. I'm no crook. I love
the game. To know that the cards are stacked against the other player
takes all the fun out of the deck for me. I want the other felly to have
an equal chance with me--else 'tis no game, but a hold-up. No man ever
rightfully accused me of dealing against him. Yes, 'tis true, me world
is a world of risk." He looked at Alice. "Sure, the Look-Out up
above--if there is such--is there to see that we all have a show for our
ace. If anything interferes with that the game is a crooked one."
Alice began to perceive something big and admirable in this man's
spirit. She was not of his faith--quite the contrary. She was a
fatalist. Nothing happened in her world. But she was imaginative enough
to understand his point of view.
Haney went on. "I know all the tricks. I lairned them, not to use in the
game, but to keep them _out_ of the game. I had too much faith in me
luck to ever weaken."
"Did you never lose?" asked Ben.
"Many the time, indeed, but only for a short streak. Take this mine, for
instance. A man comes into me house full of confidence in himself,
plays, and goes broke. The fury of the game bein' in him, he says: 'I'll
put me prospect hole against five hundred dollars.' 'Roll the wheel,'
says I, and I won his hole in the ground. 'Twas me luck. That prospect
turned out a mine. 'Twas his luck to lose. He was a full-grown man; he
knew the game and went into it with his eyes open. Truth was, he
considered the mine a 'dead horse,' and was hopin' to take a fall out o'
me. Me little girl here is disturbed about the way the mine came to us,
but she needn't be. 'Twas all in the game. I'm sayin' 'twas in the game
that another crazy fool should blow me to pieces--I don't complain. I
take me chances. Now"--here he faced Ben, and his grave tone
lightened--"as I understand it, you're not a rich man?"
Ben flushed a little. "No, I haven't earned much so far; but it's up to
me to get busy."
"And ye expect to marry soon?"
This question sent a thrill to the heart of each of the three young
people listening--a thrill of fear, of doubt. And Ben said, slowly,
perceiving Haney's fatherly good-will: "Yes, we expect to set up
housekeeping, as the old-fashioned people say, as soon as Alice is a
little stronger."
"Very well, then," Haney went on like one who has made his point,
"here's _your_ chance. Your fee with me will pay your coal bills anyway.
We're likely to take a good dale of your time, but you'll lose nothing
by that."
Bertha, with big yearning eyes fixed upon Ben's face, waited in a quiver
of hope as he replied: "Of course, Captain Haney, I can't subscribe to
your defense of gambling, and if you were still a gambler, in the strict
sense of the word, I couldn't accept this position, for it is something
more than legal. But as you have given up all connection with cards and
liquor selling, I see no reason why I should not accept your
offer--provided I can be of service in the manner you expect." He looked
across the table at Bertha, and reading there the same entreaty which
she had expressed in the garden, he added, firmly and definitely: "Yes,
I will accept, and be very much obliged to you."
Haney extended his hand, and they silently clasped palms in the compact.
They parted in a glow of mutual confidence and liking, and Alice's voice
quivered as she thanked their host. "I think it very fine of you,
Captain Haney. This may be the means of establishing Mr. Fordyce in
business here."
His eyes twinkled in reply. "I will do all I can to help him, for he
takes me eye."
Ben's last glance and the pressure of his hand left in Bertha's brain a
glow which remained with her all the rest of the day, and she carolled
like a robin as she trod her swift way about the house.
The next morning, as they sat at breakfast, Mart briskly said: "Well,
little woman, I've decided, now that I have a man I can trust with me
business, to make the trip East. As soon as he has the mines in hand
we'll start. Can you be ready to go Monday week?"
"Sure thing," she answered, quickly. But even as she spoke a nameless
pang that was neither joy nor exultation shot through her heart. For the
first time she realized that she had lost her keen desire to explore the
glittering plain which lay below her feet. A fairer world, a perfectly
satisfying world, was opening before her in the high country which was
her home.