THE DUST DAYS
July held Granite in a hot, dry grip that parched the leaves and grass
into a grayish green and with every vagrant breeze set the dust devils
a-dancing.
Almost everybody was out of town,--with the exception of some
nine-tenths of the city’s total population. These unfortunate
town-bound mortals sweltered and sweated in office, store and cottage,
or sweltered and died in the network of mean streets beyond the
railroad tracks. Daily from the slums crept slow lines of carriages,
headed too often by a hideous white vehicle which in grisly panoply was
carrying some silent child on its first trip to the country; there to
have the day of blesséd release from noise and overcrowding marked--if
the parents could scrape together enough insurance money--with a white
stone. In gutter and alleyway of the tenement district swarmed the
gaunt little survivors. In doorways or in shaded corners of roofs or in
overcrowded bars panted their elders.
The residence streets one by one had gone blind and lay empty, fraught
with a strange lifelessness. Ultra-exclusive Pompton Avenue, its houses
converted into still mausoleums, baked under the merciless sun. Its
lawns ran rank. From the wide thoroughfare itself arose endless whirls
of dust and the smell of boiling asphalt. A few homes still wore the
awnings and veranda lattices of June; proclaiming the presence of
tenants who could not yet shake from their feet--or from any other part
of their grimed anatomies--the dust of the city.
Caleb Conover, in his suffocating private office, toiled on untiring.
On his chilled steeled nerves and toughened body, the heat hurled
itself in vain. Coatless, collarless, without waistcoat, his shirt neck
wide open, his suspenders hanging, he ploughed his daily route through
mountains of work; his worn out office force plodding wearily in his
impetuous wake. And in these days of dust and scorching sun, Caleb
was indeed making hay, after his own fashion. To him was due the fact
that more Pompton Avenue residences were open this summer than ever
before. Men who in social life were wont to look on him as a pariah,
were none the less jumping as he pulled the commercial strings and were
dancing to his music. For Caleb, his slow lines at length laid out, was
making a general advance upon the financial defenses behind which for
years the staid business men of the county had dozed in short-sighted
security.
The first news of the attack came with the announcement of his merger
of two railroads--the Broomell-Shelp and the Upstate--with the C. G.
& X.; which virtually gave the last named road a monopoly of state
traffic. Stocks had been hammered down, share-holders stampeded
by calamity-rumors, and holdings bought in at panic rates by the
Fighter. Then had come reorganization and--presto! the C. G. & X. had
benevolently assimilated its two chief rivals. Men who had considered
their railroad stock as safe an investment as government bonds now
stayed in town for lack of funds to go away for the summer; or else
in order to seek eager alliance with the Fighter’s swift-swelling
interests. Pompton Avenue was hard hit.
Nor was this the sum of Caleb’s warm weather activities. There were
other deals less widely blazoned, yet quite as remunerative; deals
that plunged so far beneath the surface of practical politics as to
emerge black with the mire of the bottom. But it was gold-bearing mud,
and Caleb knew the secret of assaying it. These submerged ventures
brought at odd hours to the stuffy private office a succession of
slum-dwellers; even as the mergers brought, at other hours, the Pompton
Avenue element. Long were the conferences and deeply was the Underworld
stirred thereby. Thus, in the maze of hovels “across the tracks,” as
well as along the hill boulevards, did Caleb Conover cause unwonted
activity of a sort, during the stifling days of dust.
Caine, remaining in town, more to glean in the path of Conover’s sickle
than to look after the interests of his own newspaper, was moved to
admiring envy. The Steeloid deal which a few months earlier had meant
so much for both himself and Conover, was now but a side issue with
the latter; a mere detail whose ultimate fate could not materially
affect his fast multiplying wealth. The campaign which for years had
been Caleb’s objective, was carried through now with a rush and daring
that led onlookers, who knew not how long-devised was each seemingly
wild move, to catch their breath and wonder when the crash would come.
But the crash did not come. It would not come. Conover could have told
them that, had he in these hot weeks of ceaseless rush possessed the
leisure and will to explain his lightning moves.
Blacarda, too,--emerging from retirement with scarred face, a useless
left arm and a heart black with mingled dread, deathless hatred and an
obsessed craving for revenge,--Blacarda noted his foe’s sudden triumph
and yearned to the depths of his semi-Semitic soul to turn in some way
the Fighter’s flank. But, for the moment, he was helpless. He could
but set into motion such few schemes of his own as seemed feasible;
and begin a course of underground counterplanning, whose progress was
by no means rapid enough to ease the hate that mastered him. Meantime,
he kept out of the Fighter’s way. For, even yet, his wrecked nerves
thrilled treacherously at fear of physical nearness to the brute who
had broken him.
To Caine’s casual warning anent Blacarda, Caleb gave no heed whatever.
He had conquered the man once. Should the need arise, he could do
so again. In the meantime he had no time to waste in following his
victim’s crawling movements.
Great was Caleb Conover. He was fighting. He had always been fighting.
Just now, battle was as the breath of his nostrils. For he was waging
a winning fight; warring and winning on a scale to which he had never
before been able to attain. And the militant bulldog part of him was
strangely elate.
But, when the hot night came, and the day’s warfare was over, there
would ever come upon Conover an odd sense of emptiness, of lonely
depression. More than once, absent-mindedly, he caught himself planning
to banish the feeling by picking up his hat and hurrying across to
Desirée’s home. Then, with a slight shock, he would remember that
Desirée was in the Adirondacks and that he was--alone.
He had always known the absent girl was necessary to his happiness;
that without her he was a loveless, unlovable financial machine. But
now he realized with a sick ache at his heart how utterly he had grown
to depend upon her actual presence--on the constant knowledge that she
was near. When this, his first clumsy effort at self-analysis, had
been worked out, Caleb laughed at himself for a fool. But there was as
little merriment in the laugh as with most mortals who seek to evoke
self-amusement from the same cause.
It was in one of these desolate moods, after a twelve-hour day’s
ceaseless work, that it occurred to Conover one evening to call on
Letty Standish. He had not for a moment abandoned his idea of making
her his wife. But that would come in due time; and meanwhile he had
been busy with matters that could not be so readily postponed. True,
he had at last paid the deferred dinner call. But Miss Standish, the
butler had said, was not at home. Twice he had repeated the visit, and
both times had been met by the same message. This did not strike him as
at all peculiar. In summer, people were apt to be out of doors. Perhaps
to-night he might find her at home. At all events, the walk would
lighten his loneliness.
Painfully donning his highest collar, gayest tie and new cream-colored
crash suit, the Fighter turned his face toward Pompton Avenue. As he
neared the Standish house, the murmur of voices, occasional bursts
of low laughter and the idle twanging of a guitar reached his ears.
Several people were grouped on the piazza. So interested were they in a
story one of their number was telling that Caleb stood on the topmost
step before his approach was noticed.
Letty, following eagerly each tone of the narrator’s voice, in search
of the psychological moment for laughing, looked up to see Conover
towering over her, bulking huge against the dying dusk. Her involuntary
little cry brought the story to a premature close.
It was Caine, who, sitting back among the shadows, rose as usual to the
situation.
“Hello, old chap!” he said, cordially, as he came forward, “You loomed
up before us like a six-by-four ghost. Letty,--”
Miss Standish had recovered herself sufficiently to welcome the late
arrival with a deprecatory effort at cordiality and to introduce him
to three or four young people of the neighborhood who dropped in for an
informal summer’s evening chat.
“Glad to see you again, Miss Standish!” exclaimed Caleb, heartily,
after nodding acknowledgement to the somewhat cold recognition of the
other callers. “I’ve been around two or three times. But you’re always
out when I call. My bad luck. But I’m goin’ to keep on callin’ just the
same. It’s lonesome in town this summer. Lonesomer, seems to me, than
it ever was before. So I’m goin’ to stroll ’round here kind of often if
you’ll let me.”
He had taken the place on the steps momentarily vacated by a youth who
had been sitting by Letty and who had risen when the girl introduced
Conover. Letty, while she tried to murmur something gracious in reply
to his remark, found herself looking at his shadowy form in abject
terror. Even through the gloaming his light, alert eyes seemed to seize
and hold her will. The hands she clasped nervously in her lap grew cold
and damp. Her nose quivered a distress warning that the cruel darkness
rendered of no avail.
“Been up to the Arareek lately?” he went on.
“No. Yes--I--not _very_ lately,” she stammered.
“Neither’ve I,” he answered. “Too hot for the walk. When it gets cooler
I’m goin’ to try and get there ev’ry week. I ought to go out more. I’m
beginning to see that. My s’ciety manners are gettin’ rusty. Fact is,
I’ve had to hustle so hard all my life I’ve never took time to have
any fun. But things are shapin’ themselves now like I was goin’ to have
a chance to look around me at last. Then I hope I’ll see more of _you_,
Miss Standish,--a good deal more,” he continued, lowering his voice to
a rumble that excluded the rest from the _tête-à-tête_.
“I--I shall be very glad,” faltered the poor girl.
“So’ll I,” he agreed. “I’m not such a stoopid, nose-to-the-grindstone
feller as you may think, Miss Standish. I’ve been busy; that’s all.
Now that the cash is runnin’ in, I’m goin’ to enjoy it; an’ try to do
more in s’ciety than I’ve been able to, so far. A single man don’t get
much show to rise in the social back yard; not without he has tricks.
An’ I haven’t any,--thank the Lord! But even if I can’t get a lot of
popularity for myself, why--maybe I can annex some of it in my wife’s
name.”
“Your wife?” she interposed, a hope breaking through the pall of misery
that was settling over her, “I didn’t know you were--”
“Married? I ain’t. But I hope to be before I’m so very much older.
Ev’ry man ought to marry. ’Specially a man with my money an’ p’sition.
I’m able to support a wife, better’n any other feller you know. Don’t
you think I’d ought to get one?”
The girl’s dry tongue refused its office. Conover went on in the same
loathed undertone of confidence:
“I’ve ’bout made up my mind on that point, Miss Standish. An’ when
I an’ the young lady I have in mind gets to be a little better
acquainted, I hope she’ll agree with me.”
“Suppose,” gasped Letty, for once fighting back the tears, “suppose the
girl you picked out happened to be in love with someone else? Or even,”
gasping again, at her own boldness, “even engaged to someone else.”
“I don’t think that’d worry me so very much,” he said slowly, bending
nearer to his shrinking hostess, “I’m in the habit of takin’ what I
want. An’ I never yet found anyone who could keep me from doin’ it.
That sounds like a brag. But it ain’t; as I hope I’ll be able to show
you some day.”
The girl rose, shaking, to her feet. The advent of a new guest alone
saved her from fleeing panic-stricken to her room. But as a step
sounded on the walk below, she paused irresolute.
“Good evening!” said the late comer, limping slightly as he mounted the
steps.
At his voice a murmur of surprise rippled from the others. Letty went
forward to welcome him.
“Why, Mr. Blacarda!” she exclaimed, “I didn’t even know you were out of
the hospital. I’m so glad to see you again. You came to talk to Father,
of course. I can’t venture to hope we young people drew you here. I’ll
have him sent for,” touching the doorbell, “He’s in his study.”
As a servant departed in search of Reuben Standish, she went on;
striving by words to drown her dull terror:
“You know everyone here, I think. Except perhaps--have you ever met Mr.
Conover?”
Blacarda halted midway in a step forward, and stood uncertain, gaping.
Caleb, however, was charmingly at his ease.
“Hello, Blacarda!” he said effusively, “Hear you’ve been laid up. Too
bad! What was it that knocked you out?”
“Nothing that deserves mention from any honest man,” retorted Blacarda,
his voice trembling with rage and an irresistible fear.
“As bad as that?” cried Conover, with pleasant badinage, “Be careful to
keep out of its way in the future, then, son. These things that don’t
‘deserve mention’ are sometimes apt to be dangerous. ’Specially when
you get a second attack of ’em. Hey?”
The words, blatantly meaningless to all save Caine and the man Caleb
addressed, deprived Blacarda of speech. The injured guest had an insane
impulse to run away. The coarse joviality of his conqueror seemed more
fraught with menace than an open threat would have been. The situation
was saved by the arrival of Reuben Standish. The banker after a word
of recognition to Blacarda, greeted Caleb with a warmth that sent ice
to Letty’s heart. Not knowing that her father, like Caine, was also
gleaning in the Conover field (and with a profit that bade fair to
rehabilitate the crumbling Standish fortune), the girl read in his
cordiality only the news that another had fallen under the master sway
of the Fighter’s will.
In the confusion of several guests’ simultaneous departure Letty found
a chance to slip away to her own room. Nor did she reappear until the
sound of a loud “Goodnight!” and the crunch of heavy feet upon the walk
told her that Conover had at last gone. On the veranda she found Caine
waiting in hope of another glimpse of her.
“What was the matter?” he asked, solicitously, “Why did you run away
from us all? Conover waited a long time, hoping you’d come back. At
last I told him you had a sick headache. Then--”
“It happened to be true,” she answered brokenly. “Oh, Amzi, I’m so
_miserable_! _Why_ did that man come here? I’ve left word I’m never at
home to him.”
“Be nice to him for my sake, won’t you, darling?” pleaded Caine, “I
can’t explain. But I--need him very much just now. I can’t afford, for
business reasons, to have him offended.”
“But if you only knew--!” she cried; then stopped.
“Knew what? Tell me,” he begged, “Is anything troubling you?”
The formless fear she sought to voice died on her lips.
“No,” she said. “Nothing at all. But I’m very tired. Goodnight.”
And with this lachrymose evasion he was forced to content himself. But
before going to bed, Letty, as a last hope, sought out her father.
“I wish,” she entreated, nerving herself to the effort, “I _wish_ you
would forbid Mr. Conover the house. I--I hate him. I’m _afraid_ of him.
Oh, Father, _please_ don’t let him come here any more!”
Standish looked up from his evening paper with a frown of cold
displeasure.
“I do wish, Letty,” he said with the dry little cough that nowadays
accompanied his every sentence, “that you would learn self control.
You are not a baby any longer. These childish prejudices of yours are
absurd. Mr. Conover is--very useful to me--and to the bank,--just
at present. Out of deference to me, you will please treat him with
courtesy whenever he chances to call!”
But Letty, weeping uncontrollably, had run from the room. She felt
herself helplessly enmeshed in a net whose cords her best-loved were
drawing tighter and tighter about her.