WHEN THE SECRET CAME OUT
Father was in the library when Peter got home. One did not open the
door and walk straight into this sacred room. One knocked, and if
father happened to be engaged in any pursuit which he did not wish the
family eye to see, he had time to smuggle it away and take up a
newspaper, or even a book, before calling out "Come in."
To-day, not being well, he was allowing himself the luxury of a
jig-saw puzzle, but as he considered the amusement frivolous for a man
of his position, at the sound of his son's voice he hustled the board
containing the half-finished picture into a drawer of his roll-top
desk. In order to be doing something, he caught up a paper. It was
_Town Tales_, and his eye, searching instinctively for the name of
Rolls, saw that of the Marchese di Rivoli coupled with it and a
slighting allusion. A wave of physical weakness surged over the
withered man as he asked himself if he had done wrong in sanctioning
his daughter's engagement to the Italian.
"What do you want?" he greeted Petro testily.
He was invariably testy when indigestion had him in its claw, and his
tone gave warning that this was a bad moment Still Petro was bursting
with his subject. He could not bear to postpone the fight. Instead of
putting it off, he resolved to be exceedingly careful in his tactics.
"I want to talk with you, Father, if you don't mind," he began
pleasantly. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything important?"
"I am supposed to be left to myself in the mornings," said Peter
senior, martyrized. "Though I don't go to the store, I must read
Croft's reports and keep in touch with things."
"It's about the store I'd like to talk." Peter was thankful for this
opening. He perched hesitatingly on the arm of an adipose easy chair,
not having been specifically invited to sit.
"Why, what have you got to say about the Hands?" Defiance underlay
tone and look.
"It was in this very room I promised you I'd keep my hands off the
Hands," Peter quoted. "But I want you to let me take the promise
back."
"I'll do nothing of the sort!" shrilled Peter senior. "What do you
mean?"
"I need to work. I've tried other things, but my thoughts always come
back to the Hands. I'm proud of your success you know. I want to--to
batten on it. And I want to carry it on. I have ideas of my own."
"I bet you have, and damned poor ideas, too," snapped the old man.
"I'm not going to have them tried in my place while I'm alive."
"Let me tell you what some of them are, won't you, before you condemn
them?" his son pleaded, refusing to be ruffled.
"No. I won't have my time wasted on any such childishness," growled
Peter senior. "You ought to know better than to trouble me with every
silly, trifling idea you get into your head."
"To me this is not trifling," Peter argued. "It's so serious that if
you refuse to take me into your business--I don't care how humble a
position you start me--I shall begin to make my own way in the world.
I can't go on as I am, living on you, with an allowance that comes out
of the Hands, unless you give me some hope that I can soon work up to
having a voice in the management."
"I suppose what you are really hinting at is a bigger allowance under
a different name," sneered old Peter. "Now you're turning
socialist--oh, you don't suppose I'm blind when I come to your name
and your quixotic schemes in the newspapers! You don't like the
red-hot chaps raving about 'unearned increment,' or whatever they call
it."
"No, it isn't that," Peter said simply. "I don't much care what people
say, so long as I can help things along a bit; though, of course, I'd
rather it would be with my money than yours, no matter how generous
you are about giving and asking no questions. I don't ask for more, or
want it. But I do want to feel that--forgive me, Father!--I do want to
feel that on the money I handle there's no sweat wrung out of men's
bodies or tears from women's eyes."
Peter senior had sat only half turned from his desk, as if suggesting
to Peter junior that the sooner he was allowed to get back to work,
the better. But at these last words, unexpected as a blow, he swung
violently round in his revolving chair to glare at the young man.
"Well, I'm damned!" he ejaculated.
Peter sincerely hoped not, but felt that silence was safer than
putting his hopes into words.
"This comes of turning socialist! You insult your father who supports
you in luxury---"
"I don't mean to insult you, Father, and I don't want to be supported
in luxury. I want to work for every cent I have. I want to work hard."
"I never thought," Peter senior reflected aloud, abruptly changing his
tone, "to hear a son of mine spout this sort of cheap folderol, and I
never thought that any one of my blood would be weak enough to come
crawling and begging to break a solemn promise."
"It means strength, not weakness, to break some promises--the kind
that never ought to have been made," Peter junior defended himself.
"I'd break it without crawling or begging if I thought you'd prefer,
except that it would be no use. Unless I had your permission, I
couldn't get taken into the Hands."
"Well, you don't get it. See?" retorted the head of the Hands as
rudely as he could ever have spoken in old days to his humblest
subordinate.
"Then, Father, if that's your last word on the subject," said Petro,
rising, "this means for you and me, where business is concerned, the
parting of the ways."
The old man's sallow face was slowly, darkly suffused with red.
"You're trying to bully me," he grunted. "But I'm not taking any
bluff."
"You misjudge me." Petro still kept his temper. "I'd be a disgusting
cad to try on such a game with you, and I don't think I am that. I'm
more thankful than I can tell you for all you've done for me. You've
had a hard life yourself, and you've secured me an easy one. You never
had time to see the world, but you let me see it because I longed
to--when I saw you had no use for me in the business. You let me give
money away and, thanks to your generosity, one or two schemes I had at
heart are in working order already. There's enough saved out of my
allowance for the last few years to see them through, if I never take
another cent from you. And I never will, from this day on, Father,
while you run the Hands on present lines."
"You're a blank idiot!" snarled the old man; but a strained, almost
frightened look was stretched in queer lines on his yellow face. He
was thinking of Ena and of the newspapers. He could hear the dogs
yapping round his feet.
"Young Peter Rolls breaks away from home. Earns his living with his
own hands, not father's Hands. What he says about his principles"--or
some such rot as that would certainly appear in big, black headlines
just when Ena and her magnificent _marchese_ were searching the
columns for gush over the forthcoming marriage. It would spoil the
girl's pleasure in her wedding.
Old Peter was furious with young Peter, but began angrily to realize
that the matter was indeed serious. He desired to be violent, but fear
of Ena dashed cold water on the fire of his rage. Against his will and
against his nature he began to temporize, meaning later to revenge his
present humiliation upon his son.
"Who the devil has been upsetting you with lies about the Hands?" he
spluttered.
"I'm afraid we must take for granted that what has 'upset' me isn't
lies." Peter let his sadness show in face and voice. "I don't wonder
you're surprised and perhaps angry at my coming to you and suddenly
throwing out some sort of accusations, when year after year I've been
receiving money from the Hands as meek as a lamb without a word or
question. I don't defend myself for lack of interest in the past or
for too much now. Maybe I'm to blame both ways. But please remember,
Father, you said that unless I distrusted you, I was to stand aside.
After that I was so anxious to prove I trusted you all right, that I
hurried to promise before I'd stopped to think. Since then I've been
made to think--furiously to think--and---"
"I was brought up to believe there was _no_ excuse for breaking a
promise," Peter senior cut him short severely. There was Petro's
chance to score, and--right or wrong--he took it.
"Then things have changed since the days when you were being brought
up," he said, with one of those straight, clear looks old Peter had
always disliked as between son and father. "Because, you know you
promised Ena you would give up going to the store except for important
business meetings once or twice a year. And you haven't given it up.
You go there nearly every night."
Peter senior physically quailed. His great secret was found out! No
use to bluster. Somehow young Peter had got hold of the long-hidden
truth. He was, in a way, at the fellow's mercy. If Petro chose to tell
Ena this thing she would fancy that every one except the family knew
how old Peter's grubbing habits had never been shaken off; that with
him once a shopkeeper, always a shopkeeper, and that behind her back
people must be laughing at the difference between her aristocratic
airs and her father's commonness.
The old man's stricken face shocked Peter. He was as much ashamed of
himself as if he had kicked his father.
"I oughtn't to have told you, I know," he stammered. "Anyhow, not like
this. I'm sorry."
Peter senior gathered himself together and feebly bluffed.
"You needn't be sorry," he blustered in a thin voice at the top of his
throat. "What do I care whether _you_ know or not? There's no disgrace
in looking after my own business, I guess! To please Ena, I've made a
sort of secret of it, that's all. I never 'promised.' I only let her
and other folks it didn't concern suppose I lived in idleness, like
the lords they admire so much. No harm in that! As for you, you're
welcome to know what I do with my time when I go to New York. But it's
none of your business, all the same, and you'd better keep still about
it, or you'll regret your meddling. Who told you? That's what I want
to get at. Who stuffed you up to the neck with all that damned
nonsense about 'sweat and tears?' I bet it's the same man who tried to
blackmail me with my own son about my going to the Hands nights."
"It wasn't a man who told me," said Peter, "it was a woman--or,
rather, a girl. It was _me_ she was blaming, not you. She thought I
was responsible for the wrongs she and other employees suffer from.
She didn't know it was a secret, your visiting the place. She simply
mentioned it as a fact---"
"And you, a son of mine, stood quietly listening to abuse of your
father and the house that's made his fortune--his fortune and
yours--from a pert young clerk in his store!"
At last Peter senior could speak with the voice of injured virtue. He
could reach Peter junior with the well-deserved lash of reproach. But
no! The lash striking out, touched air.
"Father, I listened because I love the girl," Peter answered "Wait,
please! Let me explain. I fell in love with her on the _Monarchic_.
Then something happened and I lost sight of her. Yesterday I found her
at the Hands. I wanted to talk to her about love, but she made me
listen to her instead. She said sharp things about the store that cut
like knives. Don't think I'm accusing you if the Hands _is_ a
sweatshop. You trust Croft, and he's abused his trust. That must be
it. For God's sake, give me a chance to help you put things straight."
For a moment--a long moment--Peter senior did not speak, and Peter
junior would have given much to know where his thoughts had gone. They
were away somewhere--with the Hands or with the girl who had made
Petro listen.
"Will you do it, Father? Will you give me a chance?" his son repeated.
Old Peter started. "Old Peter" seemed the only name that fitted him
just then.
"One of my children is going to marry a marquis and the other wants to
marry a clerk behind my counters," he almost whimpered.
Then Petro knew, without telling, which direction his father's
thoughts had taken.
"Don't be afraid that she isn't a lady," the young man humoured the
old man's prejudices. "She's English and beautiful and clever and
brave. She saved a woman from being burned to death to-day at the
Hands. She didn't tell me that story, but I heard it. God made her to
be a princess. Misfortune put her behind a counter in our store. Oh,
no! _not_ misfortune. Though she's had a hard time at the Hands, and
shows it in her face, I believe she'd say herself that she's glad of
the experience. And if through her those that have suffered wrong from
us can be--"
"Don't talk to me any more about all this just now, my son," Peter
senior suddenly implored rather than commanded "You've given me a
shock--several shocks. I--I'm not fit for 'em to-day, I guess. I told
you I wasn't well. I'm feeling bad. I'm feeling mighty bad."
His looks confirmed his words. In the last few moments since the angry
flush had passed, the old man's face had faded to a sicklier yellow
than Petro had ever seen upon it--except one day, long ago, when Peter
Rolls, Sr., had tried to be a yachtsman in order to please Ena--and
the weather had been unkind. The young man was stabbed by remorse.
Reason told him that now was the moment to press his point home. But
compassion bade him withdraw it from the wound. It was true that his
father was not well and had warned him of the fact at the beginning of
their conversation. Petro had gone too far.
"I'm sorry, Father," he apologized. "I meant to stir you up, but I
didn't mean to give you a shock. Shall I ring? Is there anything you
want?"
"Only to be alone," replied the other. "I'll lie down here on the
sofa. By and by, if I don't feel better, I'll go to my room maybe and
make it dark and sleep this headache off. I don't remember when I've
been so bad. But don't say anything to your mother."
"You mean about your going to the Hands? She knows about the girl."
"No, I mean about my head. I don't care whether or no your mother
hears that I go to the Hands. It's Ena and outside folks I care for,
and them only for Ena's sake. She's so proud! And when she gets home
from France--"
"Not a word to her, I promise. Nor to any one outside. But do you
know, I believe mother would be glad to hear that you sometimes go to
the store? She'd think it was like old times. And she loves the old
times."
"Tell your mother anything you like. She's got a still tongue in her
head." Peter senior gasped out his words with the desperate air of a
man at the end of his tether. "Only go now--go, and let my head rest.
You and I can discuss all these things later. That'll be best for us
both."
Peter junior was silenced, though he thought he knew his father too
well to draw great encouragement from an offer of future discussion.
The old man assuredly did feel ill, and it would have been brutal to
force him into further argument. The only thing was to go now and
attack him again before the sensitive surface of his feelings had had
time thoroughly to harden.
Young Peter and his mother lunched alone together at the stately
English hour of two which Ena had decreed for the household. Old Peter
had ordered a cup of hot milk and had sent word that, his indigestion
being rather worse than usual, he intended to spend the afternoon
lying down. This had often happened before, and mother, though
distressed, was not alarmed.
She would not have admitted it in words to herself, but she was happy
in her _tête-à-tête_ with Petro. He had his place moved near hers.
They dared to dismiss the dignified servants and help themselves to
what they wanted. Or, rather, Petro jumped up and helped her, whether
she wanted things or not. They talked about Miss Child, and Petro
related his adventure at the Hands, which he had not, until the
luncheon hour, been able to describe in detail.
He told his mother again, several times over, how wonderful Win was,
and mother was not bored. She listened with a rapt smile, especially
to the part about the fire in the hospital room and the girl's quick
presence of mind, Win having refused to confess how she had hurt her
hands, Petro had used the influence of his name to find out tactfully
from another source, all that had happened. And he made quite a good
story out of it for his mother. The latter promised gladly to go and
see Miss Child and to wear the pearl-gray wrap, which she thought very
pretty, reflecting marvellous credit on the taste of the chooser.
Petro did not touch upon Miss Child's indictment of the Hands. It
seemed unnecessary to distress mother just when she was interested and
even delighted (not at all shocked or startled) at having father's
secret broken to her.
"It's more natural," she said, "that he should take an interest in the
Hands. More like he used to be. I often wondered---"
Another sentence which she did not need to finish!
For a while Petro's whole soul was so steeped in the joy of mother's
sympathy, and in plans for the future, that he forgot the faint
uneasiness which had stirred within him at father's message about the
milk. Something had seemed to whisper: "It's only an excuse." And his
asking not to be disturbed all the afternoon, "can it mean that he's
got a special reason for wanting to be let alone hour after hour?"
But Petro and mother had been deep in conversation before the whisper
came. In the very midst of it she had asked a beautifully
understanding question about Win, and in answering Petro forgot
everything else for a time.
They talked intimately in the big, unfriendly, imitation Elizabethan
dining-room which for once they had to themselves And then they
continued their talk still more intimately in the "den." It was only
the grandfather clock striking four that reminded Petro of his
uneasiness and of the whisper.
Why it did remind him he could hardly have explained, except that the
clock had a very curious individuality for him. It had belonged to his
great grandmother and had come down through her to his mother. Even as
a little boy he had felt that it was _more_ than a clock: it was an
old friend who had ticked through the years, keeping time with the
heart-beats of those for whom it told the passing moments of life and
death. Often he had imagined that with its ticking it gave good
advice, if only one could understand. Now, when it struck four, it
seemed to Petro that it did so in a dry, peremptory manner intended to
be arresting, to remind him of something important that he was in
danger of forgetting.
This pause in his thoughts left room for the whisper to come again.
It came, adding to its first suggestion: "Don't you know that while
you and mother were lingering so happily over your lunch, father stole
away and went off to make mischief between you and the girl?"
Petro sprang up. He was ashamed to harbour such a thought of
treachery, but it was there. He could easily learn whether father had
gone to New York by inquiring if one of the motors had been taken out.
But it was hardly worth while to ask questions. Peter _knew_ that his
father had gone, and why.