THE EXTRAORDINARY HORACE BROOKS
Something made Aurora Lane uneasy. She turned now and extended her hand
to the tall man who walked at her side. "Good night, Mr. Brooks," said
she.
But old Hod Brooks only put his hands deeper in his pockets and slouched
on alongside. "I'll just go on along with you to the gate. It's hot
tonight, isn't it? I don't know when we've had such a spell."
She could not well dismiss him now, so indeed the three walked yet a
while together.
Don Lane still was silent, moody. There was little of the Jesuit in his
own frank soul. He knew nothing of dissembling, and had no art of
putting a good face upon a bad matter. All these complications which so
swiftly had come into his life seemed to him only a terrible and
overwhelming thing in the total. The morrow was coming for him--nay, it
already was at hand, and he knew what that must bring of additional
grief. Anne! Anne! He must tell her. He must leave her. Never in all his
care-free life had he been so wretched, so miserable, as he was now.
Moreover, for reasons he could not stifle he did not like the presence
of Brooks here, even though he and his mother must acknowledge the debt
under which he had laid them that day.
"I'll tell you, Mother," said he after a time, when he had turned off
the square into their own street. "Just excuse me for a few minutes,
won't you? It's so hot and stuffy that I don't feel that I can sleep.
I'll just take a little run down the street, if you don't mind."
"But why, Don?" she inquired.
"You see, I've always been used to keeping fit, and I don't like to
break my training--we always had to exercise in college, on the teams. I
don't feel good when I don't. I'm used to doing my half mile or so every
night just before I go to sleep."
"Huh!" said Old Hod Brooks, looking at the young man appraisingly. "So
that's how you keep in training, eh? Well, it seems to work all right!"
His sudden gusty laughter sounded loud in the night, but it lacked the
note of ease.
"Go on, go on," he added--"as you get older maybe you'll find it takes
all your gimp to take care of your mind and your money, and you'll let
your body just about take care of itself. But go ahead--I'll just walk
on down with your mother."
"Don't be long, Don," said Aurora Lane; and she meant it, for she felt
uneasy at thus being accompanied to her own gate, a thing unknown in her
history. She was glad that old Nels Jorgens, on ahead, had just turned
in at his own gate.
Don Lane trotted off slowly, with long elastic stride, up on his toes,
with his elbows tucked in and his chin high, filling his lungs as best
he might with the hot and lifeless air. The sound of his footfalls
passed down the street, and was lost as he turned at the further corner
of the square.
"Good night, now," said Aurora Lane once more, as she and her companion
approached her little gate.
But Hod Brooks did not turn away, although he made no attempt to enter.
Instead he reached out a large hand impulsively and arrested hers as it
would have pulled together the little crippled gate behind her. Still
she did close the gate--until the sudden impact of his own weight
snapped off its last remaining hinge. He picked it up carelessly and set
it within the fence, himself leaning against the post, filling the gap,
his hands back in his pockets.
"Aurora," said he, with a strange softness in his voice, "this seems to
me almost like Providence."
"What do you mean?" she said. "I must go----"
"Please, not yet," said he. "Just think--how else could it have been
possible for me to talk with you?"
"Without compromising yourself?" She smiled slowly and bitterly, but did
not see the hot blood rise to his face.
"That's not right!" said he. "Without compromising _you_--that's what I
meant. I only meant that there is no place where we well could meet. And
I wanted to say something to you, at last--what sometime has got to be
said between us."
"We both know everything now, so why talk?" said she. "It was fine of
you today in the trial. We owe so much--we'll pay when we can."
The dull red in his face deepened. "You may stop that, if you please,"
said he. "It's not right between us. The showdown has come. Why not
settle up, at last?"
She turned, not knowing what to do, unwilling to leave him standing
there.
"It's been years, Aurora. Now, listen--I'm going on up in the world
myself, at last. I want to take you with me. I didn't want to say
anything till the right time. It's been a long, hard pull for me, too,
here in this town. It's hard for men like me to talk."
"You mustn't talk," said she. "You mustn't say a word--you mustn't be
seen here even."
He looked at her slowly. "I'm here deliberately," said he. "Listen
now--I must tell you some things, Aurora. I've loved you from the first
day I saw you. Can't you credit me at least a little? You're
splendid--you're beautiful--and you're good."
She choked a bit, raised a hand in swift protest.
"You're still young, Aurora," said he, not paying attention to what she
said. "Of course I'm older, but there's a lot of time left yet for you
and me--a lot of living. You've had mighty little out of life, here by
yourself. Now I've stood it as long as I can. Since the whole truth
about the boy has broken out today and can't ever be covered up again,
it seemed to me I just had to tell you that you needed me to take care
of you--someone more than just yourself. Things may go harder for you
now. They've been hard enough already. You need help. Who more natural
to help you than myself, feeling as I have, as I do?"
"Oh, you _mustn't_ talk that way!" Her voice trembled. "You must go on
away. I'm not--good----"
"You're good enough for me--good as I am, surely--and I want to get into
this game with you now. You need me. That means we've got to be married.
Oh, the boy's fine, yes, but he'll be going away. You need a man--a
husband--someone you can depend on, Aurora. Isn't there anything welcome
in that thought for you? Aurora, I want to marry you--at once, right
away. I say that right now and here."
Aurora Lane looked this way and that, every way. Her gaze happened to go
down the long vista beneath the maples, to fall upon the face of the
town clock on the courthouse. The hour hand with a short jerk moved
forward and the deep note of the bell boomed out--it was one o'clock of
the night; and all was not well.
She turned as she felt the tense grasp of his great knotted hands still
upon her own.
"You say that--to me----" she managed to say at last. "Why, everybody
knows--all the town knows----" Her voice shook. "I suppose I'll have to
leave here now after what's happened. But _you'd_ have to leave if you
took up with such as me--even this late, it would ruin you. Don't you
think of your own prospects? Why, I couldn't marry you, no matter how
much I loved you."
"You don't love me at all?"
"How could I?"
"That's true," said he simply. "How could you?"
"I don't mean that," she corrected herself hastily.
"It's just what I said," he rejoined. "This seems providential to me. I
can't allow these people to murder you a dozen times a week the way they
will do now. You can't make this fight alone any more, Aurora--I can't
any longer bear to see you try it. It's all out now. It's going to be
harder for you after this."
She did not make any answer to him at all, but she heard his big voice
murmuring on.
"I reckon it's love, after all, Aurora--I don't know. I don't know much
about women. I just feel as though I had to take care of you--I feel as
though you ought to depend on me. Can't you believe that?"
"I ought not to believe that of any man," she broke out.
"Like enough, like enough," he nodded, "but you've known only one
man--that's your full horizon. Now, having had so hard a fight in
business, I have put marrying to one side. Let's not say that we're both
young--for we're not. But let's remember what I told you--there's a lot
of life left for you and me yet if you'll only say the word. Don't you
want to make anybody happy?"
"Oh, you mustn't say that to me!" said Aurora Lane. "But you would want
me to be honest, wouldn't you? You wouldn't want me to lie? Somehow,
I've never learned to lie very much."
"No," said he simply; "no, I reckon not. You never have."
"No matter what----"
"No matter what."
"Then tell me, how could I say I loved you now? For twenty years--all my
life--I have put that thought away from me. I'm old and cold now. My
heart's ashes, that part, can't you understand? And you're a man."
"Yes," he nodded, "I'm a man. That's so, Aurora. But now you're just
troubled. You've not had time to think. I've held my secret, too. I've
never spoken out to you before. I tell you, you're too good a woman to
be lost--that isn't right."
"You pity me!"
"Maybe. But I want to marry you, Aurora."
"What could I do--what could be done--where would you have any pay in
that?"
"Don't trouble about the pay. How much have the past twenty years paid
you?"
"Little enough," said she bitterly, "little enough. About all they've
given me--about all I've got left--is the boy. But I want to play fair."
"That's it," said he. "So do I. That's why I tell you you're too good
for me, when it comes to that, after all."
"Why, it would all have to come out--one way or the other. It all _has_
come out, as you say. We couldn't evade that now--it's too late. Here's
the proof--Dieudonne--and I can't deny him."
He nodded gravely. She went on:
"Everyone knows about the boy now--everybody knows he's--got no father.
_That's_ my boy. Too late now to explain--he's ruined all that by coming
here. And yet you ask me to marry you. If I did, one of two things
surely would be said, and either of them would make you wretched all
your life."
He turned to her and looked at her steadily.
"They might say I was the father?"
She nodded, flushing painfully. "They might guess. And a few might think
that after all these years----"
"Maybe," said he slowly. "But you see, after all, it's only a
theoretical hurt I'm taking if I stand between you and these damned
harpies here. They're going to torture you, Aurora, going to flay and
burn you alive. I'd like to do about anything I could for you, anything
a man can in such a case as ours. As for sacrifice--why, whatever you
think I think of you, I believe we can both call it sure that I want to
stand between you and the world. I want to have the _right_ to take care
of you. It's what I want to do--must do. I've waited too long. But it's
what I always have intended. You'd never let me. I never seemed to get
around to it before. But now----"
"Impossible!" she whispered, white, her great eyes somber. "There is no
way. Love of man has gone by for me. It knocked once. It has gone by."
"Wait now, let us go on with the argument just a little further, my
dear!" said he gently.
"We have argued too long already," she said faintly. "You must go.
Please go--please don't talk to me. You must not."
"I wish I could agree with you," said he, disturbed and frowning,
"because I don't want to make you any more unhappy. But listen, it just
seemed to me that this was providential--I had to come to you and tell
you what I have told you tonight. Why, widows remarry--time and again
widows marry."
"Yes, _widows_!" He could barely hear the sob which she stifled in her
throat.
"Well, then," said he, "how about you and me? I don't think it's a fair
argument, but I ought to point out to you that perhaps I've got a chance
in the world. They wanted me, for instance, to make the run for the
senatorship--against Judge Henderson. Today I agreed with him not to
accept the candidacy. In return he agreed to drop that case against Don.
Well, you've traded me out of the United States Senate, Aurora. But I
made that trade--for you and the boy."
She looked up at him in sudden astonishment. She could not evade the
feeling of shelter in his great presence as he stood there, speaking
calmly, absolutely in hand, a grotesque and yet a great soul--yes, a
great soul as it seemed to her, so used to littler souls. After all, she
never really had known this man. Sacrifice? Had he not given freely, as
a sacrifice, the greatest gift a man has--his hope for power and
preferment? And he spoke of it as though it were a little thing. Aurora
Lane was large enough to know a large act, belittled though it were by
the doer of the deed.
"You see," he began, "we're old enough perhaps to talk plainly, plainer
than young folks can--mostly I presume they don't talk at all--but I may
talk plainly?"
"Oh, yes," said she, sighing. "I suppose we've made that certain."
"Now, now, don't say that--nothing of the sort, my dear. Your past is
out of this question altogether. You're a _widow_, that's all. Your
unknown husband is dead--he is unknown, but he is dead. That's the
record, and accepted here. And isn't that our solution--the only one in
all the world possible for us?"
She did not answer at all.
"The boy and I--I reckon the two of us could keep most of the people in
this town or in this world attending to their own business, and not
bothering about ours. Don't you believe that, Aurora? We've made a
start--a sort of preliminary demonstration already."
But still she did not answer, and, agonized now, he went on:
"I'm a plain man, Aurora, pretty ignorant, I expect. I didn't come from
anywhere--there's no family much back of me--I have had really very
little schooling, and I've had to fight my own way. I can't play
bridge--I don't know one card from another. I don't dance--there's no
human being could ever teach a dance step to me. I've never been in
society, because I don't belong there. But, as I said, I've got some
standards of a man and some feelings of a man. I love you a lot more
than you can tell from what I've said, or what I've done. It'll be a
great deal more to you than you can believe now. I'll do a great deal
more for you than you can realize. I'll give you at last--later than I
ought to have done it--something you've never had--your _life_--your
_chance_ in the world--your chance at real love and real affection and
real loyalty. You've never had that, Aurora. I couldn't offer it, for I
had my own secret to keep, and my own fight to make. But love and
loyalty--they'd be sweet, wouldn't they?"
She bent her head down upon her hands, which lay folded at the top of
the pickets of the little fence.
"Sweet--sweet--yes, yes!" he heard her murmur.
"Well, then, why not end the argument?" he said. "Why, I've seen you
here, all these years. I know every hair of your head. I have come
really to love you, all of you, as a man ought to love his wife. I can't
resist it--it's an awful thing. I don't think I'll forget--it's too late
in life for me to begin over again, it's you or nothing for me. There's
never been any other woman for me--and that ought at least to speak for
me. There's been no other man for you. So why not end it? The world's
been cruel enough for you as it is. I'll not say it hasn't been cruel to
me, too. I've sat tight and eaten my heart. I've had to fight, too. But
don't I understand you, your fight, what it means to buck a game where
all the cards are stacked? Don't I know?"
"It has been cruel, yes," said she at length, finding herself able to
speak, "but it seems it has not been quite so cruel as it could be
until--until now."
"Why, what do you mean? Am I cruel? Why?"
"You said--you said something about my being a widow."
He nodded. "Yes. I pick you up now--it's as though I find you new--I
know you now at a later stage altogether in your life. You've grown. I
see you as new and fresh as though you were just risen from the sea....
And all the past is nothing to me."
"You must not talk," said she, "because it only is to make us both the
more unhappy. You are quixotic enough, or great enough--I don't know
which--I can't tell which it is--to say you'd take the shame on your own
shoulders in order to take it off of mine! You can't mean that! No! no!
One life ruined is enough--you've ruined yours enough now, today, by
what you've done for Don and me."
He seemed not to hear her.
"I've watched you all these years, and you've lived like a recluse, like
a widow. I can't reproach you. God! Which of us may first cast a stone?"
Aurora Lane turned to him now a brave face, the same brave face she had
turned to the world all these years.
"Oh," said she, "if only I had learned to lie! Maybe some women could
lie to you. And women get so tired--so awfully tired sometimes--I
couldn't blame them. I might marry you, yes--I believe I could. But I
would never lie to you--I won't lie to you now."
"What are you going to say to me, Aurie?"
"What I'm going to say to all the world! I've never been
married to anyone and can't be now. It would be more horrible to
me than--that other. It's too late. It--it means too much to
me--marriage--marriage--marriage! Don't--don't--you mustn't say some
things to a woman. Oh, if all this had happened twenty years ago, when I
was young, I might have been weak enough to listen to what you say. I
was weak and frightened then--I didn't know how I'd ever get on--all
life was a terror to me. But that was twenty years ago. I've made my
fight now, and I've learned that after a fashion at least I could get
on--I did--I have. I can go on through alone the rest of the way, and
it's right that I should. That's what I'm going to do!"
She saw the great hand clutch the more tightly on two picket tops. They
broke under the closing grip of his great hand.
"That's right hard," said he simply. "We can't be married now? But--tell
me, can't I help you?"
"Oh, no, no, don't--don't talk of that!" she said. She was weeping now.
"Don't try to help me," she sobbed bitterly. "You can't help me--nobody
can help me--there's no help in the world--not even God can help me!
You've been cruel--all the world has been nothing but cruel to me all my
life. I've nothing to hope--there's nothing that can help me, nothing.
I'm one of the lost, that's all. Until today, I'd hoped. I never will
hope again."
Now she felt the great hand closing once more on top of hers above the
broken pickets.
"Listen, Aurora," said he, "if it doesn't seem that you and I can be
married, there's nothing in the world which makes it wrong for me to
help you all I can--you mustn't think I didn't love you. You don't think
that, do you?"
"I don't know what I think!" said she, rubbing at the ceaseless tears,
so new to her. "All these matters have been out of my life--forever, as
I thought. But sometimes--I've been so lonesome, you know, and so
helpless--I'm tempted. It's hard for a woman to live all alone--it's
almost a thing impossible--she's so lonesome--sometimes I almost think I
could depend on you, even now."
"That's fine!" said he, choking up; "that's fine. I expect that's about
all I had coming to me after all. So I oughtn't to be sorry--I ought to
be very happy. That's about the finest thing I ever heard in all my
life."
"And about the sweetest words I ever heard in all my life were what you
said just now--after knowing all you do about me."
"But you won't tell me that you'll marry me now?" He bent and picked up
her hand in both his great ones. "I know you will not." He kissed her
hand reverently.
"Good night," said he gently. And presently she was sensible that his
shambling figure was passing away down the street under the checkered
shadows of the maples.
Aurora Lane stood yet for just a moment, how long she did not know.
There came to her ear the sound of running footsteps. Her boy came down
the street, passing Horace Brooks with a wave of his hand. He reached
her side now as she still stood at the gate. He was panting, perspiring
a trifle.
"Fine!" said he. "Let's go in. Maybe I can sleep--I'd like to sleep."
"What kept you so late?" asked Aurora Lane. She hurried in ahead of
him.