_They enslave their children's children who make
compromise with sin_.
--LOWELL
IT was mid-December before Lloyd Fenneben saw Lagonda Ledge again. In
the murderous attempt upon his life, he had been hurled, head-downward,
upon the hidden rock-ledge with such force that even his strong nervous
system could barely overcome the shock. Hours of unconsciousness were
followed by a raging brain fever, and paralysis, insanity, and death
strove together against him. His final complete recovery was slow, and
he was wise enough to let nature have ample time for rebuilding what
had been so cruelly wrenched out of line. It was this very patience
and willingness to take life calmly, when most men would have been in a
fever of anxiety about neglected business, that brought Lloyd Fenneben
back to Lagonda Ledge in December, a perfectly well man; and aside from
the holiday given in honor of the event, aside from the display of
flags and the big “Welcome” done in electric lights awaiting him at the
railroad station, where all the portable population of Lagonda Ledge and
most of the Walnut Valley, headed by the Sunrise contingent, en masse,
seemed to be waiting also--aside from the demonstration and general
hilarity and thanksgiving and rejoicing, there seemed no difference
between the Dean of the days that followed and the Dean of the years
before. His black hair was as long and heavy as ever. His black eyes had
lost nothing of their keenness. His smile was just the same old, genial
outbreak of good will, as he heard the wildly enthusiastic refrain:
Rah for Funnybone!
Rah for Funnybone!
Rah for Funnybone!
_Rah!_ RAH!! RAH!!!
It was twilight when the train pulled up to the station. The December
evening was clear and crisp as southern Kansas Decembers usually are.
The lights of the town were twinkling in the dusk. Out beyond the river
a gorgeous purple and scarlet after-sunset glow was filling the west
with that magnificence of coloring only the hand of Nature dares to
paint.
Several passengers left the train, but the company had eyes only for the
Pullman car where Fenneben was riding. Nobody, except Bond Saxon, and
a cab driver on the edge of the crowd, noticed a gray-haired woman
who alighted so quietly and slipped to the cab so quickly that she was
almost out to Pigeon Place before Fenneben had been able to clear the
platform.
Behind the Dean was his niece, who halted on the car steps while her
uncle went into the outstretched arms of Lagonda Ledge. At sight of her,
the hats went high in air, as she stood there smiling above the crowd.
It was Maytime when she went away. They had remembered her in dainty
Maytime gowns. They were not prepared for her in her handsome traveling
costume of golden brown, her brown beaver hat, and pretty furs. A
beautiful girl can be so charming in her winter feathers. She had
expected that Burgess would be first to meet her, and she was ready, she
thought, to greet him, becomingly. But as the porter helped her to the
platform, the crowd closed in, shutting him away momentarily, and a hand
caught hers, a big, strong hand whose clasp, so close and warm, seemed
to hold her hand by right of eternal possession. And Victor Burleigh's
brown eyes full of a joyous light were looking down at her. It was all
such a sweet, shadowy time that nobody crowding about them could see
clearly how Elinor, with shining face, nestled involuntarily close to
his arm for just one instant, and her low murmured words, “I am glad
you were first,” were lost to all but the big fellow before her, and
a bigger, vastly lazy fellow, Trench, just behind her. It was Trench's
bulk that had blocked the way for the professor a moment before. Then
she was swallowed in the jolly greetings of goodfellowship, and Vincent
Burgess carried her away to the carriage where her uncle waited.
“The thing is settled now,” the young folks thought. But Dennie Saxon
and Trench, who walked home together, knew that many things were
hopelessly unsettled. By the law of natural fitness, Dennie and Trench
should have fallen in love with each other. They were so alike in
goodness of heart. But such mating of like with like, is rare, and under
its ruling the world would grow so monotonously good, on the one hand,
and bad, on the other, that life would be uninteresting.
During Dr. Fenneben's absence, Professor Burgess was acting-dean. For a
man who, two years before, had never heard of a Jayhawker, who hoped
the barren prairies would furnish seclusion for profound research in his
library, and whose interest in the student body lay in its material to
furnish “types,” Dean Burgess, on the outside, certainly measured
up well toward the stature of the real Dean--broad-minded, beloved
“Funnybone.”
And as Vincent Burgess grew in breadth of view and human interest, his
popularity increased and his opportunities multiplied. Sunrise forgot
that it had ever regarded him as a walking Greek textbook in paper
binding. Next to Dr. Lloyd Fenneben, his place at Sunrise would be the
hardest to fill now; and withal, sometime in the near future, there was
waiting for him the prettiest girl that ever climbed the steps from the
lower campus to the Sunrise door. Burgess had never dreamed that life in
Kansas could be so full of pleasure for him.
And all the while, on the inside, another Burgess was growing up who
quarreled daily with this happy outer Burgess. This inner man it was who
held the secret of Bond Saxon's awful crime; the man who knew the life
story of the would-be assassin of Lloyd Fenneben, and who knew the
tragedy that had turned a fair-faced girl to a gray-haired woman, yet
young in years. He knew the tragedy, but the woman herself he had never
seen, save in the darkness and rain of that awful night when she had
held Lloyd Fenneben's head above the fast rising waters of the Walnut.
He had never even heard her voice, for he had sustained the limp body of
Dr. Fenneben while Saxon helped the woman from the river and as far
as to her own gate. But these were secret things outside of his own
conscience. Inside of his conscience the real battle was fought and won,
and lost, only to be won and lost over and over. So long as Elinor
Wream was away, he could stay execution on himself. The same train that
brought her home to Lagonda Ledge, brought a letter to Professor Vincent
Burgess, A.B. The letter heading bore as many of Dr. Joshua Wream's
titles as space would permit, but the cramped, old-fashioned handwriting
belonged to a man of more than fourscore years, and it was signed just
“J. R.”
Burgess read this letter many times that night after he returned from
dinner at the Fenneben home. And sometimes his fists were clinched and
sometimes his blue eyes were full of tears. Then he remembered
little Bug, who had declared once that “Don Fonnybone was dood for
twoubleness.”
“I can't take this to Fenneben,” he mused, as he read Joshua Wream's
letter for the tenth time. “Nor can I go to Saxon. He's never sure of
himself and when he's drunk, he reverses himself and turns against
his best friends. And who am I to turn to a man like Bond Saxon for my
confidences?”
“What about Elinor?” came a voice from somewhere. “The woman you would
make your wife should be the one to whose loving sympathy you could turn
at any of life's angles, else that were no real marriage.”
“Elinor, of all people in the world, the very last. She shall never
know, never!” So he answered the inward questioner.
Dimly then rose up before him the picture of Victor Burleigh on the
rainy May night when he stood beside little Bug Buler's bed--Victor
Burleigh, with his white, sorrowful face, and burning brown eyes,
telling in a voice like music the reason why he must renounce athletic
honors in Sunrise.
Burgess had been unconsciously exultant over the boy's confession. It
would put the confessor out of reach of any claim to Elinor's friendship
when the truth was known about his poverty and his professional playing.
And yet he had followed Bond Saxon's lead the more willingly that night
that he was hating himself for rejoicing with himself.
On this December night, with Elinor once more in Lagonda Ledge, Victor
Burleigh must come again to trouble him. What a price that boy must
have paid for his honesty! But he paid it, aye, he paid it! And then
the rains put out the game and nobody knew except Burleigh and himself.
Burgess almost resented the kindness of Fate to the heroic boy. But all
this solved no problems for Vincent Burgess, except the realization
that here was one fellow who had a soul of courage. Could he confide in
Burleigh? Not in a thousand years!
In utter loneliness, Vincent Burgess put out his light and stared at the
window. The street lamps glowed in lonely fashion, for it was very late,
and nobody was abroad. Up on the limestone ridge, the Sunrise beacon
shone bravely. Down in town beside the campus gate--he could just
catch a glimpse of one steady beam. It was the faithful old lamp in the
hallway of the Saxon House, and beyond that unwavering light was Dennie.
“Dennie! Why have I not thought of her? The only one in the world whom I
can fully trust. That ought to be a man's sweetheart, I suppose, but she
is not mine. She is just Dennie. Heaven bless her! I've sworn to care
for her. She must help me now.” And with the comforting thought, he fell
asleep beside the window.
The December sunset was superb in a glory of endless purple mists and
rose-tinted splendor of far-reaching skies. The evening drops down early
at this season and the lights were gleaming here and there in the town
where the shadows fall soonest before the day's work is finished up in
Sunrise.
Victor Burleigh, who had been called to Dr. Fenneben's study, found only
Elinor there, looking out at the radiant beauty of the sunset sky beyond
the homey shadows studded with the twinkling lights of Lagonda Ledge at
the foot of the slope. The young man hesitated a little before entering.
All day the school had been busy settling affairs for Professor Burgess
and “Norrie, the beloved.” Gossip has swift feet and from surmise to
fact is a short course. Twenty-four hours had quite completely “fixed
things” for Elinor Wream and Vincent Burgess, so far as Sunrise and
Lagonda Ledge were able to fix them. So Burleigh, whose strong face
carried no hint of grief, held back a minute now, before entering the
study.
“I beg your pardon, Elinor. Dr. Fenneben sent for me.”
Somehow the deep musical voice and her name pronounced as nobody else
ever could pronounce it, and the big manly form and brave face, all
seemed to complete the spell of the sunset hour. Elinor did not speak,
but with a smile made room for him beside her at the window, and the
two looked long at the deepening grandeur of the heavens and the misty
shadows of heliotrope and silver darkening softly to the twilight below
them.
“And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the
fourth day,” Victor said at last.
“Your voice grows richer with the passing years, Victor,” Elinor said
softly. “I wanted to hear it again the first time I heard you speak out
there one September day.”
“It is well to grow rich in something,” Victor said, half-earnestly,
half-carelessly.
Before Elinor could say more, they caught sight of Professor Burgess
and Dennie Saxon, leaving the front portico as they had done on the May
evening before the assault on Dr. Fenneben. Burgess and Dennie usually
left the building together this year.
“Is n't Dennie a darling? Elinor said calmly.
“I guess so,” he replied. “I don't just know what makes a girl a darling
to another girl. I only know”--he was on thin ice now--“and I don't even
know that very well.”
They turned to the landscape again. The whole building was growing
quiet. Footsteps were fading away down the halls. Doors clicked faintly
here and there. Somebody was singing softly in the basement laboratory,
and the sunset sky was exquisitely lovely above the quiet gray December
prairies.
“It is too beautiful to last,” Elinor said, turning to the young man
beside her. “The joy of it is too deep for us to hold.”
She did not mean to stay a moment longer, for all the scene could be
hers forever in memory--imperishable!--and Victor did not mean to detain
her. But her face as she turned from the window, the hallowed setting
of time and opportunity, and a heart-love hungering through hopeless,
slow-dragging months, all had their own way with him. He put out his
arms to her and she nestled within them, lifting a face to his own
transfigured with love's sweetness. And he bent and kissed her red lips,
holding her close in his arms. And in the shadowy twilight, with the
faintly roseate banners of the sunset's after-glow trailing through it,
for just one minute, heaven and earth came very near together for these
two. And then they remembered, and Elinor put her hand in Victor's, who
held it in his without a word.
Out in the hall, Trench with soft lazy step had just come to the study
door in time to see and turn away unseen, and slowly pass out of the big
front door, whistling low the while:
My sweetheart lives on the prairies wide
By the sandy Cimarron,
In a day to come she will be my bride,
By the sandy Cimarron.
Out by the big stone pillars of the portico, he looked toward the south
turret and saw Dr. Fenneben as Vic had seen Elinor on the evening of
the May storm. He did not call, but with a twist of the fingers as of
unlocking a door, he dodged back into the building and up to the chapel
end of the turret stairs to release the Dean.
Dr. Fenneben had started down to the study by the same old “road to
perdition” stairs and paused at the window as Dennie and Burgess were
passing out, unconscious of three pairs of eyes on them. Then the Dean
saw down through the half-open study door the two young people by the
window, and he knew he was not needed there. What that look in his black
eyes meant, as he turned to the half-way window of the turret, it would
have been hard to read. And the picture of a fair-faced girl came back
to his own hungry memory. He was trying to calculate the distance from
the turret window to the ground when Trench wig-wagged a rescue signal.
“You are a brick, Trench,” he said, as the upper stairway door swung
open to release him.
“You've the whole chimney,” Trench responded, as he swung himself away.
Dr. Fenneben met Elinor in the rotunda.
“Wait a minute, Norrie, and I'll walk home with you.”
In the study he met Burleigh, whose stern face was tender with a
pathetic sadness, but there was no embarrassment in his glance. And
Fenneben, being a man himself, knew what power for sacrifice lay back of
those beautiful eyes.
“I can't give him the message I meant to give now. The man said there
was no hurry. A veritable tramp he looked to be. I hope there is no harm
to the boy in it. Why should a girl like Norrie love the pocketbook, and
the things of the pocketbook, when a heart like Victor Burleigh's calls
to her? I know men. I never shall know women.” So he thought. Aloud he
said: “I was detained, Burleigh, and I'll have to see you again. I have
some matters to consider with you soon.”
And Burleigh wondered much what “some matters” might be.
When Professor Burgess left Dennie he said, lightly:
“Miss Dennie, I need a little help in my work. Would you let me call
this evening and talk it over with you? I don't believe anybody else
would get hold of it quite so well.”
Dennie had supposed this first evening after Elinor's return would
find her lover making use of it. Why should Dennie not feel a thrill of
pleasure that her services out-weighed everything else? Poor Dennie! She
was no flirt, but much association with Vincent Burgess had given her
insight to know that Norrie Wream would never understand him.
When Burgess returned to the Saxon House later in the evening, he met
Bond Saxon at the door.
“Say, Professor, the devil will be to pay again. That Mrs. Marian is
back. Got here on the same train Funnybone came on. And,” lowering his
voice, “he will be over there again,” pointing toward the west bluffs.
“He'll hound Funnybone to his doom yet. And she--she'll stand between
'em to the last. I told you one of the two human traits left in that
beast is his fool fondness for that woman who wouldn't let him set foot
on her ground if she knew it. It's a grim tragedy being played out here
with nobody knowing but you and me.”
“Saxon, I'm in no mood for all this tonight,” Burgess said, “but for
your daughter's sake keep away from the man's bottle now.”
“Yes, for Dennie's sake--” Bond looked imploringly at Burgess.
“Yes, yes, I'll do my duty as I promised. But why not do it yourself
toward her? Why not be a man and a father?”
“Me! A criminal! Do you know what that kind of slavery is?” Saxon
whispered.
“Almost,” Burgess answered, but the old man did not catch his meaning.
Dennie was waiting in the parlor, a cosy little room but without the
luxurious appointments of Norrie Wream's home. Yet tonight Dennie seemed
beautiful to Burgess, and this quiet little room, a haven of safety.
“Dennie,” he said, plunging into his purpose at once. “I come to you
because I need a friend and you are tempered steel.”
Tonight Dennie's gray eyes were dark and shining. The rippling waves of
yellow brown hair gave a sort of Madonna outline to her face, and there
was about her something indefinably pleasant.
“What can I do for you, Professor Burgess?” she asked.
“Listen to me, Dennie, and then advise me.”
Was this the acting-dean of Sunrise, a second Fenneben, already
declared? His face was full of pathos, yet even in his feverish grief
it seemed a better face to Dennie than the cold scholarly countenance of
two years ago.
“My troubles go back a long way. My father was given to greed. He sold
himself and my sister's happiness and mine for money. You think your
father is a slave, Dennie, because he has a craving for whisky. Less
than half a dozen times a year the demon inside gets him down.”
Dennie looked up with a sorrowful face.
“Yes, but think of what he might do. You don't know what dreadful things
he has done--”
“Yes, I do. He told me himself the very worst. I'll never betray him,
Dennie. His punishment is heavy enough.”
Burgess laid his hand on her dimpled hand in token of sincerity.
“But that's only rarely, little girl. My father every day in the year
gave himself to an appetite for money till he cared for nothing else.
My sister, who died believing that I also had turned against her, was
forced to marry a man she did not love because he had money. I never
knew the man she did love. It was a romance of her girlhood. I was away
from home the most of my boyhood years, and she never mentioned his name
after the affair was broken off. All I know is that she was deceived and
made to believe some cruel story against him. She and her husband came
West, where they died. My father never forgave them for going West, nor
permitted me to speak her name to him. I never knew why until yesterday.
My sister's husband had a brother out here with whom he meant to divide
some possessions he had inherited. That settled him with my father
forever. There was no DIVISION of property in his creed.”
Burgess paused. Dennie's interest and sympathy made her silent company a
comfort.
“I was heir to my father's estate, and heir also to some funds he held
in trust. I was a scholar with ambition for honors--a Master's Degree
and a high professional place in a great university. I trusted my whole
life plans to the man who knew my father best--Dr. Joshua Wream.”
Dennie looked up, questioningly.
“Yes, to Elinor's uncle, as unlike Dr. Fenneben as night and day.”
“Do not blame me, Dennie, if two men have helped to misshape my life.
My father believed that money is absolute. Dr. Wream holds scholarly
achievement as the greatest life work. It has been Dr. Fenneben's part
to show me the danger and the power in each.”
It was dimly dawning on Burgess that the presence of Dennie, good,
sensible Dennie, was a blessing outside of these things that could go
far toward making life successful. But he did not grasp it clearly yet.
“Dr. Wream and I made a compact before I came West. It seemed fair to me
then. By its terms I was assured, first, of my right to certain funds
my father held in trust. It was Wream who secured these rights for me.
Second, I was to succeed to his chair in Harvard if I proved worthy in
Sunrise. In return I promised to marry Elinor Wream and to provide for
her comfort and luxury with these trust funds my father and Wream had
somehow been manipulating.”
Oh, yes! Dennie was level-headed. And because she did not look up nor
cry out Vincent Burgess did not see nor guess anything. His life had
been a sheltered one. How could he measure Dennie's life-discipline in
self-control and loving bravery?
“Elinor was heavy on Wream's conscience,” Vincent went on, “because he
and her father, Dr. Nathan Wream, took the fortune to endow colleges and
university chairs that should have been hers from her mother's estate.
You see, Dennie, there was no wrong in the plan. Elinor would be
provided for by me. I would get up in my chosen profession. Nobody was
robbed or defrauded. Joshua Wream's last years would be peaceful with
his conscience at rest regarding Elinor's property. And, Dennie, who
would n't want to marry Elinor Wream?”
“Yes, who wouldn't?” Dennie looked up with a smile. And if there were
tears in her eyes Burgess knew they were born of Dennie's sweet spirit
of sympathy.
“What is wrong, then?” she asked. “Is Elinor unwilling?”
“Elinor and I are bound by promises to each other, although no word has
ever been spoken between us. It is impossible to make any change now. We
are very happy, of course.”
“Of course,” Dennie echoed.
“I had a letter from Dr. Wream last night. A pitiful letter, for he's
getting near the brink. Dennie--these funds I hold--I have never quite
understood, but I had felt sure there was no other claimant. There was
a clause in the strangely-worded bequest: 'for V. B. and his heirs.
Failing in that, to the nearest related V. B.' It was a thing for
lawyers, not Greek professors, to settle, and I came to be the nearest
related V. B., Vincent Burgess, for I find the money belonged to my
sister's husband, and I thought he left no heirs and I am the nearest
related V. B. by marriage, you see?”
“Well?” Dennie's mind was jumping to the end.
“My sister married a Victor Burleigh, who came to Kansas to find his
brother. Both men are dead now. The only one of the two families living
is this brother's son, young Victor Burleigh, junior in Sunrise College.
He knows nothing of his Uncle Victor, my brother-in-law--nor of money
that he might claim. He belongs to the soil out here. Nobody has any
claims on him, nor has he any ambition for a chair in Harvard, nor any
promise to marry and provide for a beautiful girl who looks upon him as
her future guardian.”
Vincent Burgess suddenly ceased speaking and looked at Dennie.
“I cannot break an old man's heart. He implores me not to reveal all
this, but I had to tell somebody, and you are the best friend a man
could ever have, Dennie Saxon, so I come to you,” he added presently.
“When did this Dr. Wream find out about Vic?” Dennie asked.
“A month ago. Some strange-looking tramp of a fellow brought him proofs
that are incontestable,” Burgess replied.
“And it is for an old man's peace you would keep this secret?” Dennie
questioned.
“For him and for Elinor--and for myself. Don't hate me, Dennie. Elinor
looks upon me as her future husband. I have promised to provide for
her with the comforts denied her by her father, and I have lived in the
ambition of holding that Harvard chair--Oh, it is all a hopeless tangle.
I could never go to Victor Burleigh now. He would not believe that I had
been ignorant of his claim all this time. He was never wrapped up in the
pursuit of a career--Oh, Dennie, Dennie, what shall I do?”
He rose to his feet and Dennie stood up before him. He gently rested his
hands on her shoulders and looked down at her.
“What shall you do?” Dennie repeated, slowly. “Whisky, Money,
Ambition--the appetite that destroys! Vincent Burgess, if you want to
win a Master's Degree, win to the Mastery of Manhood first. The sins of
the fathers, yours and mine, we cannot undo. But you can be a man.”
She had put her dimpled hands on his arms as they stood there, and
the brave courage of her upturned face called back again the rainy May
night, and the face of Victor Burleigh beside Bug Buler's cot, and his
low voice as he said:
“I cannot play in tomorrow's game and be a man.”