ALICE HEATH HAS A VISION
This change of legal adviser, while very important to Ben Fordyce and
the Haneys, did not seem to trouble Allen Crego very much. As a matter
of fact, he was about to run for Congress, and had all the business he
could attend to anyway. He liked the young Quaker, and responded "All
right" in the frank Western fashion, sending the Haneys away quite as
solidly friendly as before. To Ben he was most cordial. "I'm glad you're
going to settle here, and I'm specially glad you've got a retainer; for
the field is overcrowded, and it may take a long time for you to get a
place. We old fellows who came down along with the pioneers have an
immense advantage. I wish you every success." And he meant it.
Only when he got home to Mrs. Crego did he come to realize what a
horrible injury he had permitted "a young and inexperienced Eastern boy"
to do himself. "This connection will ostracize them both," his wife
said.
He answered a little wearily. "Oh, now, my dear, I think you take your
social Medes and Persians too seriously. We lawyers can't afford to
inquire into the private affairs of our clients too closely--especially
if they are derived from the pioneer West. Ben Fordyce doesn't become
responsible for Haney's past; it is a business and not a social
arrangement."
"That's like a man," she responded; "they never see anything till it
bumps their noses. They've both called on the Haneys and gone riding
with them--or with the girl. They've even eaten luncheon there!"
"How dreadful! Mrs. Crego, you shock me!"
"If any evil comes of this--and there will be sorrow in it--you'll be
morally responsible. In the old days it didn't matter, but now nobody
who is anybody in this town can associate with people like the Haneys
and not be hurt by it."
The judge ceased to smile. "Now, let this end the discussion. Fordyce
has sense enough to take care of himself. He's just the man for
Haney--he has time, good nature, and splendid connections. I am glad to
be rid of the business, and I am delighted to think this young fellow
has pleased Haney--"
"It isn't Haney. Don't you see? It's that girl. She has urged it--I'm
perfectly sure."
"Stop right there!" he commanded, sharply. "I don't want to hear a word
of your insinuations. I'm tired of them. I'm ashamed of you." And he
took up his paper and walked away from her.
She was defeated at the moment, but hurried to the Congdons with her
news. Lee looked quite serious enough. "I don't believe I like that
either. What do you think, Frank?"
"All depends on Ben. If he makes it a business deal and keeps it so all
right; if he don't, it may go against him in the town, as Helen says."
"Don't you think you'd better go see him and have a talk?"
"Nixie!" he answered, in swift negation. "Little Willie don't want to
tackle that delicate job. I'm subtle, but not so subtle as that. Alice
Heath knows all we know and more, and you can bet they've talked the
whole thing over."
"But they may not realize the position of the Haneys."
"They may not; but I suspect they think they can carry any connection
they choose to make, and I mostly think they can--ten generations of
Quaker ancestry--"
"But the people there don't know their ancestry."
"Well, go talk to them. I abdicate. Besides, I like the Haneys."
Mrs. Crego now laid her joker on the table. "Here's the point. That girl
is _taken_ with Ben--it's all her plan."
Congdon started. "Sh! Don't say that out loud, Nell. That little wife is
true as steel."
"I don't care. My prophetic soul--"
Lee put in. "Prophetic pollywogs! Why, Helen, the girl is as simple and
straightforward as a boy of twelve."
"She seems that way, but I could see she was wonderfully attracted by
Ben and his singing that night here."
"That may be; so was I. Anyhow, I agree with Frank: it would be cruel to
say such a thing--even if it were so, which I don't for an instant
believe. At the same time, I admit the connection will make talk and may
create a prejudice. Maybe we'd better see Ben." She looked at her
husband.
He waved a protesting finger before his face. "Not on your life! Ben and
I are friends. I like him immensely--too much to think of running such a
frightful risk of offending him. If you interfere you do so at your own
peril."
Lee finally acquiesced in his judgment, and Mrs. Crego went home more
deeply troubled than her acquaintance with Alice Heath would seem to
warrant. "Helen's an estimable person," said Frank Congdon, "and on the
whole I like her; but I wish she didn't take quite so much evil for
granted."
So as no one warned Ben Fordyce, he went gayly forward and hired a
couple of nice rooms in a sightly block, and hung out a gilded sign. "I
am a citizen of Colorado now," he said to the Captain and Bertha the
first time they called at his office.
Alice was there, and they were deep in discussion of the merits of a
pile of new rugs which were to match the wall-paper. Ben stoutly stood
for the "ox-blood" and she for the "old gold." Ben explained. "The
entire extravagance of this office is due to her." He pointed an
accusing finger at Alice, who nodded shamelessly. "I was all for
second-hand stuff, both for economy's sake and to show I'd been in
practice a long time."
"You'd need a battered second-hand set of whiskers to match," she
replied, and they all laughed at the notion. "No, Captain, being sure
Ben couldn't deceive anybody as to his age and experience, I argued for
signs of prosperity. New-born success has its weight, you know."
"Sure it has."
"People like silken rugs and mahogany furniture, even in the West."
"They do," Haney agreed.
Bertha, standing silently by, was vaguely resenting Alice's presence.
This feeling was not defined, but it was strong enough to darken her
face and take the sparkle out of her eyes. She would have liked to do
this work of fitting up his rooms; and he, on his part, saw that she was
in sombre mood, and sought opportunity to come to where she stood. "I'm
being congratulated on all sides for becoming a citizen of Colorado.
It's quite like being initiated into some new club. In an Eastern town
they'd let me jolly well alone. I'm going to like it immensely, I know,
and it's really due to you."
She found words difficult at the moment. His face and voice dazzled her
like an open door towards sunshine, and after a moment's pause she
looked round the room, saying: "It's going to be fine."
"I want it comfy, so that you and the Captain will feel like coming down
often. We have a great deal to talk over before I shall really have a
full understanding of your affairs. I'm going to bone into my books
hard," he added, boyishly. "To tell the truth, I've taken life pretty
easy. You see, my father left me a regular income, big enough to support
me while I was studying law, but not enough to marry on." She couldn't
have told why, but this subject troubled her and confused her. She
turned away again as he continued: "Alice has a little, not much, in her
own right, and so it is really up to me to settle down and get to work.
Please don't think you are taking the time of a rich and busy man like
Crego. I am very grateful to you. It will enable us to plan a home here
in the West."
Again that keen pang went through her heart, and he, looking towards
Alice, so worn and drooping, was touched with dismay, almost fear.
She was talking to the Captain, but was furtively watching Bertie and
Ben. "How erect and radiant and happy they are," she thought, and a
doubt of the girl came into her mind. "She is so untrained and so
young!" And in this mental exclamation she put her first fear that Ben
might find his position as legal adviser complicated by the admiration
of the Captain's wife.
Something weirdly intuitive had come to Alice Heath in these later
years. As her health declined and her flesh purified, she had come to
possess uncanny powers of vision, and at times seemed to read the very
innermost thoughts of those about her. The loss of her beauty, which had
been exquisite as that of a rose, had made her morbid--which she knew
and struggled against. She forecast the future, and this is disquieting
to any one. "Here at this moment," she often said to herself, "my world
is flooded with sunshine--a static world in appearance. But how will it
be ten years from now? The clock ticks, the sun passes, the universal
sway of death extends." With the same acuteness with which she read
other minds she read her own; but knowing that such imaginings were
unnatural and distressing, she fought against them; yet they came in
spite of herself. And the picture of Bertha standing there beside Ben
filled her with a prophetic vision of what the girl-wife was to become:
"She will grow in grace and in dignity, in understanding. She's of good
stock. She's like a man in her power to raise herself above lowly
conditions. Why are there not female Lincolns? There are, and she is one
of them. Nearly all our great men were born and reared under conditions
ruder than those which surrounded this girl. Why can't she rise? She
will rise--and then--"
She did not pursue the clew further, for the Captain was speaking. "And
you, miss, can be of just as great service to me wife. She's alone with
me here in this town, and I'm a heavy load for her to carry. I am so.
Now that her house is in order the days are long. The people she'd like
to know don't drop in, and I suspect it's because she's Mart Haney's
wife."
She resumed her sprightly manner. "Oh no; I'm afraid if she were a poor
girl she'd find these same people still more indifferent."
"True, miss. But would they act the same if she were Mart Haney's
widow?"
She flashed a deep-piercing, wondering glance at him. "Ah, that would be
different. And yet," she hastened to say, "that would not make her
acceptable to the really best people."
"What would, miss?" he asked, simply. "I'm a rough man, and I've led a
rough life. I begin to see things now that I never saw before. What
would give Bertha standing among the people you speak of?"
"Education, character. By character I mean she must be a personality."
"That she is!" He was emphatic in this.
"She certainly is a fascinating girl, and she promises to be a still
more interesting woman."
"I'm not a wooden-head, miss. As a gambler, it was me business to read
men's faces. I see more than my little girl gives me credit for. I think
I know why Mrs. Crego can't see us as we pass by, and I was wise to them
friends of yours the other day when they curled their tails and showed
their teeth at sight of us. It's because Bertie is the wife of a
gambler. Isn't that so, now?"
She rose with a start, for Bertha was coming towards them. "Hush! don't
talk about it any more--at present." And at this moment there passed
before her eyes a vision of this big man, crushed and writhing on a
mountain-side, among deep green ferns. It lasted but an instant, like
the memory of an event in childhood; a spot transient as a
shadow--disconnected, without precursor or sequence; like a cloud over
the wheat it gloomed a moment and was gone, and she gave herself up to
the influence of the sunny room and Ben's joyous plans.
This vision came back to her when she was alone in her own room an hour
later, and stayed with her persistently. What did it mean? Did it
presage an accident to him, or had it arisen from a vague knowledge of
the cause of his wounding?
This singular and distressing rule governed her dreams of the future.
They were all of sorrow, death, physical calamities; never, or very
rarely, of health and happiness; therefore, she seldom spoke of them.
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," her father was wont to
say, and she had come to the same conclusion. Besides her faith in her
predictive dreams was by no means fixed. She had reached but one
comforting conclusion, and that was negative. If no vision came to
reveal the future of any friend, she rested secure in the belief that he
or she at least was to be free of disaster. It was a sweet and
comforting fact to remember that no vision of Ben's future had ever
entered her consciousness. She did not even dream of him. And this was
still more wonderful, for she had always understood that those we love
are ever in our thoughts in slumber.
For some reason the day had been most wearing, and to dress for dinner
was an effort. But she made herself as lovely as she could for Ben's
sake--and for the sake of the Congdons with whom they were to dine. "We
are to be alone," Lee had 'phoned, "for I want to talk with you like a
Dutch aunt."
Alice knew as well as if Lee had spoken it what was coming. They were
going to protest against Ben's intimacy with the Haneys. And as soon as
they were in their carriage she warned Ben. "You want to be on your
guard to-night. The Congdons are going to advise you against accepting
this retainer from Captain Haney."
He was too happy to do more than jokingly reply: "Too late! Bribe is in
hand, and money mostly spent. What I want to ask you is more important.
When are we to start our 'love in a cottage' idyl? It really looks
possible now. Isn't it beautiful to think we can really keep house out
here and pay our way?"
"Oh, Ben!"--there was a wail in her voice--"I don't seem to gain as I
should! I'm completely tired out to-night."
He was all concern instantly, and putting his arm about her, tenderly
exclaimed: "Dear heart, it was my fault. You shouldn't have gone down at
all."
"But don't you see how revealing it is? If I can't go down to your
office to superintend the arrangement of a few rugs and chairs, how can
I keep a house--your house--in order? No, dear boy, we mustn't think of
it--not now; perhaps by spring, but certainly not now."
He was both saddened and perplexed, and yet his disappointment was not
so keen as it had been when she had put off their wedding-day the first
time, and when she turned a white, despairing face up to him, saying
wildly: "Oh, Benny, why don't you give me up and marry some nice young
girl?" He only took her in his arms and shut her lips with a kiss.
"No more such talk," he said; "you're tired and a little morbid. Lee's
lecture will do you good. I hope she gets after you for letting yourself
down into these detestable moods."
Signs of their troubled ride were on their faces as they entered the
Congdon sitting-room (which also served as hall), and Lee put her arm
about her guest with compassion uppermost in her heart. "You don't look
a bit well to-night. What have you been doing?"
"Nothing. That's the worst of it. If I'd been scrubbing floors or
cleaning silver I'd feel that I had a right to be tired, but I've only
been down to Ben's new office overseeing the laying of three rugs. I
didn't lift a hand, and now look at me!"
When they were in the privacy of Lee's dressing-room the hostess studied
her guest critically. "You've something on your mind," she announced.
"I always have something on my mind."
"I know you do, and if you're ever going to get well you must get it off
your mind. Do I know what it is?"
"If you don't, you ought to. Since this retainer from Captain Haney, Ben
is urging an immediate marriage."
Lee Congdon was an unconquerable realist and truth-teller, and she could
not at the moment utter any other than a divergent word. "We got you
here to-night to talk over that Haney business. We don't entirely like
it; at least, I don't. Frank has no responsibility, never had. Haney is
not a bad man, and she isn't a bit low or common; but folks think she
is. And it's going to hurt you both, I'm afraid, to have anything to do
socially with them."
"Oh, socially!" Alice cried, in disgust. "I thought we were coming to
the big and boundless West, where such things don't count."
"You have, and you haven't. The Springs is a little of the West, a
little of England, and a good deal of the East. It's a foolish town in
some ways, and I warn you lots of nice people will find it inconvenient
to call on you for fear of meeting Mrs. Haney."
"Oh, rats!"
"Absurd, isn't it? I'm glad you put on that dress. You don't look tired
now; your cheeks are blazing."
"With wrath--not health."
"At me?"
"Oh no. At these people who assume to dictate whom we shall know."
"They don't do that, dear; they only think you're paying too much for
Ben's new office. But come down to dinner; we'll fight this out later."
Congdon was outspoken in his admiration. "By the Lord, the climate is
getting in its work! Why, Alice, you're radiant. You're ten years
younger to-night!"
"That's because I'm angry."
"What about?"
"Your townspeople. Lee has made me feel as if I were the club-bar topic
to-night."
Congdon became solemn--grim as a brazen image. "Mrs. Congdon, you've
been making some of your tactful remarks."
"I have not. I've been talking straight from the shoulder, as I advise
you to do."
He capitulated. "After the turkey. Come on, Ben, we're in for a lecture
by the Professor-Doctor Lee Congdon."
Under the influence of his humor they took seats about the pretty,
candle-lit table as gay a group as the city held--apparently; for Alice
was of that temperament which responds quickly and buoyantly to humor,
and Frank Congdon never took anything quite seriously--except his
portrait-painting. He could do a cake-walk with any one, but he would
not discuss art with the unsympathetic. He always had a new story to
tell of his amazing experience. Something was always happening to him.
Other men come and go up and down the whole earth without an adventure,
but no sooner does Frank Congdon slip out of the door than the
fates--generally the humorous ones--pounce upon him. Drunken women claim
him for a son. Sheriffs arrest him in the mountains and transport him
long distances, only to find him the wrong man. Confused Swedish mothers
give him babies to hold in the cars, and rush out just in time to get
left. And these tales lose nothing in his recount of them.
In the present instance he took up half the dinner-hour with a
description of his latest mishap. A neighbor's cook had suddenly gone
mad, and had charged him with putting a spell over her. "Somebody calls
me up on the 'phone this morning: 'Is this Frank Congdon?'... 'Yes.' ...
'Hello, Frank, this is Henry. What you been doing to my cook?' ... 'What
does she say I have?' ... 'Says you've hypnotized her--put a spell over
her.' ... 'I pass.' ... 'Fact; she's crazy as a bed-bug, and we can't do a
thing with her--and she was _such_ a good girl. How could you,
Frank?' ... 'I never saw the creature in my life.' ... 'Well, you'll see
her now. You're to come right over and remove this spell, or we won't
have any breakfast.'" Here Congdon looked solemnly round at his guests.
"Now wouldn't that convulse a body? I didn't know her name; on my word,
I couldn't remember how she looked. But my curiosity was roused, and
over I toddled. It was all true. Karen was in the kitchen, armed with
the jig-saw bread-knife and calling for me. Henry was all for my
appearing suddenly at the door à la Svengali, and with a majestic wave
of the hand lift the cloud from her brain. 'Not on your tintype,' says
I; 'I guess this is a case for the police. If I put this spell on that
hell-cat it must have been by "absent treatment" during sleep, and it's
me to my studio again.' ... 'No you don't,' said Henry. 'You stay till
this incubus is cleared away. It ain't reasonable to suppose that an
ignorant maid like this is going to charge a complete stranger with a
crime of this kind unless--'
"'That's what I say. It isn't reasonable, I refuse to believe it.' Just
then something seemed to break loose in the back part of the house.
Wash-boilers seemed to be falling on the kitchen range, and wild yells
made Mrs. Henry turn pale.
"'That's your work, monster!' shrieked Henry.
"'Is it?' I said. 'My opinion is she's broke into your wine-cellar. It's
you to the police.'
"'Go calm her. Come, it's a fine chance to experiment.'
"'So it is--with a cannon. Do you mean to tell me seriously that she
thinks I've hypnotized her?'
"Then he got down to business, and assured me that he was telling the
truth. This interested me, and I thought I'd chance opening the
door--particularly as everything was quiet inside."
His company was very tense now, so vividly had he set the whole scene
before them. "I opened the door, and found her standing at the far side
of the room, her hair in ropes and her eyes wild. She was 'bug-house'
all right. 'Karen,' I said, in my most hypnotic voice, 'I lift the
spell. You are free. Go back to work.'"
"What happened?" asked Alice, breathless with excitement.
His face was grave and his voice sad. "Not a thing! My Svengali pass
didn't work. I was as the idle wind to her. Therefore, I withdrew and
'phoned the police."
"What an extraordinary thing," said Ben.
Mrs. Congdon brightly answered: "It would be for any one else, but I'm
so used to that now I don't mind. Whenever the telephone bell rings I
expect to hear that Frank is sued for breach of promise, or arrested for
burglary, or some little thing like that. If he were only a novelist
he'd make our everlasting fortune. But I know why he started this
story--he wants to head off my talk with you about the Haneys, and I
don't intend to let him do it. Have you taken on Haney's legal
business?"
"Yes."
"For good and all?"
"Yes. He's advanced me part of my fee, and I've spent it for desks,
rugs, and office rent. I think I may say the offer is accepted."
"I'm sorry," she said, simply.
Her husband objected. "I don't see why. Haney is a man of large means,
his mines are paying hugely, and he needs some one to look after the
investment side of his income, and to keep tab on the output of the
mines, and to be ready to settle any legal points that may come up.
Ben's just the boy to do this."
Lee was firm. "That's one side of it. But these young people should not
start in wrong. Haney's past is said to be criminal, and Mrs. Haney is
called low--"
Congdon hotly interrupted. "Who says so? It's a lie!"
"That's the talk over town. It was all right for Crego to transact their
business, for he is an old and well-known lawyer here; but it's
different with Ben, who is just starting."
Ben laughed. "Yes, it is different. Crego didn't need the job, and I
do."
"How bad do you need it?" she asked.
"Well, it makes it possible for us to marry at once and settle here." He
looked at Alice with a renewal of the admiration he had felt for her in
the days of their dancing feet. She shrank from his gaze, and Mrs.
Congdon perceived it.
"You're not so poor as all that," she stated rather than asked.
"I don't suppose we're likely to need bread of a sort, but I don't feel
able to buy or rent and keep house--or I didn't till Haney made this
offer."
"How did he come to make it?"
His fair skin flushed at her question, for he couldn't quite bring
himself to tell the whole truth. He knew the decision came from Bertha,
and at the moment, and for the first time, he saw how it might be
misconstrued. He evaded her. "Modesty forbids, but I suppose it must
come out. It is all due to my open-faced Waterbury countenance. He
thinks I am at once able and honest."
"There you have it, Lee. Haney knows a good thing when he sees it."
Mrs. Congdon, putting the rest of her lecture aside for future use,
said: "Well, if it's all settled, then I've no more to say. Probably I'm
too fussy about what the town thinks, anyway."
"Precisely my contention, Mrs. Congdon," replied her husband.
She was audaciously frank and truth-seeking, but she could not say to
any one but her husband that Little Mrs. Haney, expanding into a
dangerously attractive woman, was already in love with Ben Fordyce.
"There are limits to advice, after all," she said to Frank, when they
were alone.
"I'm glad you recognize the limit in this case," he replied, "but I
don't intend to worry. Ben is all right, and the girl has got to have
her tragedy sooner or later. If it isn't Ben, it will be somebody else.
A wonder it wasn't with me."
"Oh, I don't know." She laughed. "I feel very secure about you."
"Am I such a bad shape?" he asked, with comical inflection.