The guests went early. It was a relief to have them go. Not that they
differed from other guests to whom Collingham Lodge was accustomed to
open its doors, or that the dinner was less fastidiously good than Junia
was in the habit of giving. Dinner and guests had both been up to form;
and yet it was a relief when the last car glided from beneath the
portico.
"Why do you suppose it is?"
Junia had asked this question so often of late that Collingham had
ceased to try to answer it. Instead, he lit a cigar and strolled to the
open French window. He, too, found it a relief to relax in the company
of his family, though less puzzled than Junia at the state of mind.
"Oh, come out!" Edith called from the terrace. "It's heavenly."
It was a soft, warm, velvety night, starlit and voluptuous. The air
astir was just enough to carry the scents of roses, honeysuckle,
mignonette, and new-mown hay. Except for the dartings of small living
things and the occasional peep of a half-awake bird, there was no sound
but that of the plash of the fountains on the terraces. Edith went in
for a light wrap for her mother; Collingham, his cigar in hand, dropped
into the teakwood chair.
"It isn't our dinners only," Junia complained, when, with the wrap about
her shoulders, she had settled herself in the wicker armchair she
preferred; "it's all dinners. It's just as if people didn't enjoy them
any more."
"Well, they don't." Edith half loungingly swung herself in a Gloucester
hammock. "What we've got to learn, mother dear, is that entertaining, as
we called it, was a pre-war habit which we've outlived in spirit, though
we haven't quite come to the point in fact."
"There's something in that," Collingham agreed.
"And yet there's got to be hospitality," Junia reasoned. "You can't just
live and die to yourself."
Edith swung lazily.
"Hospitality, yes; but isn't there a difference between that and
entertaining?"
"If so, what is it?"
"I'm not sure that I can say. Isn't the one a permanent necessity, and
the other merely a custom that can go out of date?"
"Between your custom that can go out of date and your permanent
necessity, I don't see that there's much distinction."
"Well, there is, mother dear. It's like this: Entertaining is giving
people something they don't particularly want and which you expect them
to repay; while hospitality is opening your house to people in need,
whether they can repay you or not."
"Oh, if we're going to open our houses to people in need--"
"Well, what?"
"I'm sure I don't know what; nor you, either."
"And that's just it. We're halting between two states of mind. Ever
since the war began, mere entertaining bores us; and we're terrified at
the idea of genuine hospitality; so there we are. We still give dinners
and go to them; but when we do we feel it's something fatuous, which
can't help making us dull."
Out of the silence that ensued Collingham said, moodily:
"It's all very fine to talk of opening your house to people in need; but
it's not as easy as it looks."
"Is anything ever as easy as it looks, dad? Don't we shirk the social
problems that are upsetting the world by declaring them impossible to
solve, when a material difficulty only puts us on our mettle?"
He turned this over. All that day he had been calculating his own
possible responsibility in Teddy Follett's going wrong, and was thinking
of it now. In the end he said:
"All the same you've got to follow the regular trend. If you were in
business you'd know. You can't do things differently from other people.
You may be as sorry as you like not to be able to help; but if you
can't, you can't--and there's an end of it."
"Mr. Ayling in his new book, _Social Problems and the Individual_, says
there's a distinction to be drawn between _can't_ and _can't_--there's
the can't that comes from lack of ability, and the can't that springs
from the accepted standard. He says--"
"I don't believe your father is at all interested in that, Edith dear."
"Oh yes; let her go on. I'm not afraid of what Ayling thinks."
But before Edith could resume the attention of all three was called by
the tinkle of the telephone bell in the library, which could be
approached from the terrace through the drawing-room. With a muttered,
"Who's ringing up at this time of night?" Collingham dragged himself in
to answer it. The women remained silent, each listening to see if the
call was for her.
"Yes?... This is Mr. Collingham.... Who?... Oh, it's you, Mr. Brunt?...
Yes?... What did you say?... Killed? Who's killed?... Not Flynn the
detective, who comes in and out of the bank?... Indeed! Dear me! Dear
me! Where was it?... Who did it?... Not that boy?... Oh, my God!... What
happened?... Tell me quickly.... Over beyond Jersey City! Yes? Yes?...
And they've got him?... In the Brig? That's the Ellenbrook jail, isn't
it?... Jackman, too, did you say?... Wounded, but not killed....
Badly?... Oh, the poor fellow!... In the hospital?... That's right....
Has anyone communicated with his family?... Good! Good!... And Flynn's
wife?... Oh, the poor woman!... And the boy's family?... You don't know
anything? Then no one has informed his mother?... Not that you know
of.... I see.... He's to be brought into court to-morrow morning....
Poor little devil!... Oh, I know he doesn't deserve pity, but--but I
can't help it, Brunt. His father was with us so long and--and one thing
and another!... No; I'll appear in court myself and see what I can do
for him.... Good night, then. I'll see you in the morning."
"What boy can that be?" Junia whispered, as her husband hung the
receiver in its place.
"I'm sure I don't know--unless--unless it's the Follett boy."
"Oh, I hope not. It would make such awful complications."
They waited for Collingham to come and tell them his plainly thrilling
news, but he remained in the library.
"It _would_ make complications," Edith ventured, in a low voice, "if it
proved to be young Follett--with Bob in love with his sister."
Junia spoke not so much from impulse as from inspiration.
"He's more than in love with her. He's married to her."
"Mother!"
"Yes; he was married to her a few days before he sailed. I've known it
all along."
Edith was breathless.
"Did he tell you?"
"No; she did."
"She? The Follett girl? Why, mother!"
Junia rose. She knew that if her suspicions were correct she would have
things to do before she slept.
"Go to bed now, dear; and I'll come to your room and give you the whole
story. In the meantime I may have to tell your father."
"You mean to say that he doesn't know?"
"No; not yet. I've been rather hoping that before I told him Bob
would--would see his way out of the mess."
"He'll never do that, never in this world--not according to what he's
said to me."
"Oh, well, he didn't know everything then that he'll have to know now.
But go and say good night to your father; and I'll come up by the time
you're in bed."
"Mother, you're amazing!" Edith spoke more in awe than in admiration;
but she obeyed orders by going to her father.
She found him still sitting in the chair by the telephone, bowed
forward, his elbows on his knees, and his forehead in his hands. When he
lifted his haggard eyes toward her she stood still.
"Daddy, what in the world has happened? Who is it that has killed some
one? We couldn't help hearing that much."
He raised himself. "Come here."
Going forward, she knelt down beside him, taking his hand and kissing
it.
"You poor daddy! You're bothered, aren't you?"
"It's--it's young Follett. He's been stealing money from the bank, and
now he's shot one of the detectives who heard he was hiding in a cabin
out on the New Jersey marshes. They'd sent out a description of him to
the suburban stations. And only to-day I told his sister that I'd call
the thing off and give him another chance."
"She came to see you?"
"She came to see me."
"Then you did what you could, didn't you?"
"I did what I could--then." In spite of the emphasis on the final word,
he slapped his knee with new conviction. "I've done what I could all
through. It's no use saying I haven't, because I have. There's just so
much you can do, and you can't do any more. You can't make a business a
home for indigent old gentlemen--now, can you?"
He sprang to his feet, leaving her kneeling by the chair.
"No, I don't suppose you can," she assented, rising slowly. "But I do
wish you'd talk to Mr. Ayling sometime, daddy. He seems to see all these
things from new points of view--"
He was pacing about the room very much like Max in moments of agitation.
"Oh, new points of view! There's only one point of view, I tell you, and
that's the one on what we've made the country prosperous."
She smiled wistfully.
"Prosperous for some."
"Well, that's better than prosperous for nobody, isn't it?"
She said good night to him then, for the reason that she herself was so
stirred that she needed seclusion in which to think these strange things
over. That Bob should have married Jennie Follett was a shock in itself;
but that through his wife he should now be involved in this frightful
tragedy was something that her mind found it hard to take in. It was the
first time that she had ever come so close to the more terrible
happenings in life.
Meanwhile, Junia, overhearing what was said, reconstructed her plan of
campaign. In common with great generals, she possessed the faculty of
rapid revision, as events took place differently from the way she had
expected. By the time she heard Edith go upstairs she had foreseen the
line of action which the new situation forced on them.
Collingham was still lashing about the library when she appeared on the
threshold. Her calmness arrested him. In a measure it soothed him. It
was the kind of juncture in which she always knew what to do, and he had
confidence in her judgment. When she said, "Sit down, Bradley; I've
something to say," he obeyed her quietly, relighting his cigar. As she,
too, sat down, Max or Dauphin would have noted in her the aura of
authority which a master wears when about to lecture a schoolboy.
"I've something startling to tell you, Bradley; but I want to say
beforehand that you mustn't get worked up, because I see a way out."
Taking his cigar from his lips, he looked at her sidewise. His
expression said, "What's it going to be now?"
"What I've heard you telling Edith about this young Follett killing a
detective concerns us more closely than you may think, because Bob is
married to his sister."
He laid his cigar on an ash tray, swung round to the table between them,
clasped his fingers, and leaned on his outstretched elbows. His tone was
quiet, even casual.
"When did he do that?"
"Just before he sailed."
"Then I'm through with him."
"Oh no, you're not, Bradley! He's your son, whether he's married anyone
or not."
"I can't help his being my son; but I can help having anything more to
do with him."
"Listen, Bradley. This whole thing is going to be in the papers in the
course of two or three days; and you must come through it with honors.
It's perfectly simple to do it, and win everyone's respect and sympathy.
In addition to that you can get Bob's devoted affection; and you know
how much that means to us all."
To Collingham it meant so much that he listened to her attentively, with
eager eyes. In Bob's marriage, with its attendant circumstances, they
had obviously received a shock. All Marillo Park, as well as the public
in general, would know it to be a shock and would be watching to see how
they took it. In that case, the best thing was the sporting thing. They
must stand right up to the facts and accept them. Everyone knew that the
younger generation was peculiar. It was the war, Junia supposed, and yet
she didn't know. In any case, it was not the Collinghams alone who were
so afflicted, but dotted all over Marillo were families whose young ones
were acting strangely. There were the Rumseys, whose twin sons had
refused an uncle's legacy amounting to something like three millions,
because they held views opposed to the owning of private property. There
were the Addingtons, whose son and heir had married a girl twice
imprisoned as a Red and was believed to have gone Red in her company.
There were the Bendlingers, whose daughter had eloped with a chauffeur,
divorced him, and then gone back and married him again. These were
Marillo incidents, and in no case had the parents found any course more
original than the antiquated one of discarding and disinheritance. And
yet you couldn't wash your hands of your flesh and blood like that. They
were your flesh and blood whatever they did; and it was idiotic to act
as if you could cut the tie between yourself and them. He could see for
himself that Rumseys, Addingtons, and Bendlingers had lost rather than
gained in general esteem by their melodramatic poses.
Now, the thing for the Collinghams was to accept the situation with a
great big generous heart. They were to open their arms to Bob, and back
him loyally in the combination of difficulties he had to swing. But he
himself must swing them. Junia laid emphasis on that. By direct action
they couldn't intervene. They could only make it possible for him to act
directly on his own responsibility. He had married a wife whose family
was in trouble. They, the Collinghams, would not share that trouble, but
they would help him to share it, since he had brought on himself the
necessity for doing so.
To accomplish this, Junia suggested sending to Bob a cablegram covering
the following five points. The Follett boy was in jail charged with
murdering a detective; Bob should publish at once his marriage to this
boy's sister; he should return to New York by the first convenient
steamer; his father was placing ten thousand dollars to his account, and
when that was used would place more; he was also ready, if instructed by
Bob, to engage the best counsel in New Jersey to defend the boy.
"That will take care of everything till he gets here," Junia concluded,
"and in the meantime, we can't do better, it seems to me, than go up, as
we always do at this time of year, to our camp in the Adirondacks. This
house can be kept open for Bob when he arrives, and Gull can stay with
one of the motors to run him in and out of town."
"And what are we to do about the girl?"
"Nothing. That isn't for us to take up. We must leave it to Bob. If he
ever brings her to us as his wife--But, then, he never may."
"What makes you think so?"
Her superb eyes covered him with their fine, audacious, womanly regard.
"I'd tell you, Bradley, if--if I didn't think there are things that had
better not go into words, even between you and me. Whatever Bob
discovers will be his own affair. You and I had best know as little as
possible. We can back Bob up, and that's all we can do. Everything else
he will have to work out for himself. By the time he's done that he'll
be a grown-up man. It's possible he's needed something of the sort to
develop him."
So Collingham telephoned his cablegram to Bob, and went to bed
comforted. Next morning, on arriving at the bank, he found Junia's
counsels supported by the best opinion among his co-workers. That is, he
changed his mind as to going to the court in Ellenbrook for the first
hearing of the Follett boy, or otherwise expressing himself toward the
Follett family. He had given Bob the means of doing whatever needed to
be done, and Bob had the cable at his disposition. To go to the court,
or to express sympathy in any way, would, according to Bickley, be
dangerous to discipline. Feeling in the bank was extremely hostile to
young Follett, and it was better that it should remain so. The bank
employee's cast of mind, so Bickley said, was, not revolutionary or
rebellious against acknowledged rights. By sheer force of habit, it was
schooled to reverence for life and property. The principle of ownership
being holier to it than any tenet of religion, the Follett boy could not
be looked upon otherwise than as an enemy of mankind; and this was as it
should be.
----
While Collingham thus weighed the counsels offered him at the bank,
Gussie Follett was blindly making her way homeward from Corinne's with a
paper so folded in her hand as not to display its headlines. She had
gone to her work with comparative cheerfulness, since, on the previous
day, Jennie had been assured by no less authority than Mr. Collingham
himself that Teddy should not be sent to jail. So long as he was not
sent to jail, they would be free from public comment, and, free from
public comment, they could "manage somehow." Managing somehow being an
art in which they had gained authority, they were not afraid of that,
even though it involved parting with the one great asset against
calamity, the house.
Gussie's first intimation of bad news came when, on entering the shop,
she found the four or five other girls huddled round Corinne. Her
appearance made them start as if she was a ghost. Her own heart sank at
that, though she hailed this shudder with a laugh.
"Say, girls, is this the big reel in 'The Specter Bride'?"
Corinne, whose real name was Mamie Callaghan, emerged from a miniature
forest of upright metal rods crowned with hats at various roguish
angles. A dark, wavy-nosed woman of cajoling Irish witchery, she could
hardly keep the prank from her voice even at such a time as this.
"So, Gussie, you don't know! Well, some one's got to break it to you,
and I guess it'll have to be me."
But it was broken already, even before Corinne had brought forward the
paper she was hiding behind her back.
"Teddy!" Gussie cried out. "There's something about him in that thing.
Let me see it! Let me see it!"
Corinne let her see it, and the work was done. Gussie couldn't read
beyond the headlines with their "Robbery" and "Murder" in Italic
capitals, but she grasped enough. The snapshot of Teddy taken in the
road, just as he had been dragged, a mass of slime, out of the morass,
made her reel backward as if about to fall; but when Eily O'Brien sprang
to her support she waved her away gently. She was not going to faint.
Her physical strength wouldn't leave her, whatever else was gone.
"I'm--I'm going home," was all she said, crushing the paper against her
breast.
"Oh, Gus, lemme go with you!" Eily had begged; but this kindness, too,
Gussie put away from her.
She could go alone, and alone she went, with one consuming thought as
she sped along.
"Oh, momma! Poor momma! This'll about finish her."
And yet when she entered the living-room her mother was sitting, calm
and serene, while Mr. Brunt told the tale of the New Jersey marshes.
Jennie, white, tearless, terrified, crept up to Gussie, and the two
clung together as their mother said, in her steady voice.
"So I understand that only one of them is dead--the Irish one."
Mr. Brunt assented.
"Yes, Flynn, the Irish one."
"I'm not surprised. I told him when he was here the other day that what
he called 'law and order' would bring him to grief, as they bring most
of us, though I didn't expect it to be so soon. And my son, you say, is
in jail."
"At Ellenbrook."
"They'll try him, I suppose."
"I'm afraid so."
"And then they'll send him to the chair." Mr. Brunt didn't answer. "Oh,
you needn't be afraid to speak of it. I know they will. I'm not sorry.
Teddy will be sorry, of course--till it's over. But I'd rather he'd
suffer a little now and be done with it than go through the hell of
years his father and I have had. If there was going to be any chance for
him, it would be different; but there's no chance, not the way the world
is organized now."
The girls crept forward together.
"Momma darling--"
But Lizzie resumed, calmly:
"Where there's nothing but government by the strong for the strong,
people like ourselves must go under. You'll go under, too, Mr. Brunt.
You belong to the doomed class. The workingman will soon be getting
share and share alike with the capitalist; and the white-collar crowd
will be kicked about by both. If we had the pluck to fight as the
workingman has fought, we might save something even now; but we haven't,
and so there's no hope for us. Law and order have us by the throat, and
we must suffer till they strangle us. Well, my boy will soon be out of
it--thank God!--and all I ask is to follow him."
When Mr. Brunt got himself to the door, Jennie went with him, as she had
done with Flynn and Jackman two days earlier. She did this in the dazed
condition of a woman who performs some little act of courtesy during
shipwreck, while waiting for the vessel to go down.
"You must excuse my mother, Mr. Brunt. Ever since my father died her
mind's been unsettled, and we don't know what to make of her."
But Mr. Brunt's demeanor did not encourage conversation. To do him
justice, the mission on which Collingham had sent him had been repugnant
for other reasons than the breaking of bad news. His mind being of the
cast Bickley had analyzed that morning, Teddy's theft filled him with
more horror than his killing of a man. To come so near to crime against
the ownership of bank notes inspired him with a physical loathing which
even Jennie's loveliness couldn't mitigate. It was as if she herself was
tainted by some horrible infection, making it a relief to him to get
away from her.
But turning to re-enter the house, she felt again that access of new
strength which had come to her repeatedly during the past few days. It
was as if resources of her being never taxed before were now offering
themselves for use. What she had to do was in the forefront of her
thought rather than what some one else had done. What some one else had
done was already in the past. That was made for her and couldn't be
helped; whereas her own duties imperatively summoned her to look ahead.
"Teddy will need a suitcase of clean things," was the direct expression
of these thoughts before she had recrossed the threshold.
Having said this aloud to Gussie, Gussie's mind could also tackle the
minor concrete details to the exclusion of the bigger considerations
involved in Teddy's plight. That the honest, loving, skylarking boy whom
they had grown up with could be a thief and a murderer was something the
intelligence rejected as it rejected dreams. They could, therefore, take
the new straw suitcase which had once been a family present to Gussie,
and which she had never used, pack it with Teddy's other suit and the
necessary linen, as if he were really at Paterson or Philadelphia.
"How shall we get it to him?" Gussie asked, when the work was done.
"I'll take it," Jennie answered, "if you'll stay and look after momma."
"Momma won't need much looking after--the way she is."
"Well, that's one comfort anyhow. With this to go through with I'm glad
her mind's not what it used to be."
So, stunned and dry eyed, they caught on to the new conditions by doing
little perfunctory things, consoling and helping each other.