The next day Douglas Briggs received a large number of telegrams; but
only one contained a message that interested him: “Coming down with
wife and two girls to get you to take that law case.” He passed the
yellow slip to his wife. “Well, that looks promising, doesn’t it?” he
said.
The following morning the family arrived. “It seems awful, coming away
without Carrie Cora,” said Mrs. Burrell. “I declare I didn’t hardly
have the courage to set out. I said to Father--” Here the old lady
glanced quickly at her daughter and then at her husband and Douglas
Briggs. She hesitated. Then she ran over to where Helen was sitting and
whispered in her ear.
“Oh!” Helen exclaimed, laughing and flushing. “Isn’t that splendid?”
“Well, we’re all feelin’ kind of happy,” said Burrell, and the girls
turned quickly to the window, while their mother held a whispered
conversation with her hostess. Finally, she said aloud: “An’ now I want
to have a good talk with you alone. I don’t want pa or the girls or
even you, Mr. Briggs, to hear one word.”
“All right,” said Briggs, cheerfully, and he pretended to dash for the
door.
“Well, ain’t he wonderful?” exclaimed Mrs. Burrell. “I knew he’d be
just like that. He’s always the same, ain’t he?”
“Well, you didn’t think that such a little thing as an election was
going to put me out, did you?” Briggs asked.
“The children are upstairs,” Helen explained, “in the library.”
“I’ll take them up,” said Briggs quickly, “and then Burrell and I will
go where we can have a talk and a little--” He looked mockingly at Mrs.
Burrell. “Oh, I forgot.”
“Go ahead!” the old woman cried with a wave of the hand. “I feel so
happy that I can’t oppose anybody anything. I kind of think I’ve done
too much opposin’ in my life.”
As soon as the door had closed behind the others, Mrs. Burrell embraced
Helen wildly, the tears filling her eyes. “I declare I did feel sorry
for your husband’s failin’ in re-election. I did want him to succeed
so. Father says I’m altogether too ambitious for other people. He says
I’m the one that made him run for Congress. Well, he was mighty glad
not to be up again. But ain’t it wonderful about Carrie Cora? When I
think of the way I treated that girl I almost feel as if I’d die of
shame. An’ it’s you that kept me from makin’ a fool of myself and from
spoilin’ her chances of bein’ happy. An’ if she ain’t the happiest
thing! An’ Rufus! Well since they got married, he ain’t hardly let her
out of his sight except when he’s away to work. Father’s thinkin’ of
settin’ him up in business of his own. I guess he’ll be a rich man some
day, from what father says. That only shows you never can tell. But
he gives all the credit to Carrie Cora. He says if he didn’t have her
he wouldn’t take the trouble to go on workin’. He says queer things
sometimes. He’s kind of notional, I guess.” Mrs. Burrell hesitated,
drawing a deep breath. “But that ain’t what I come to talk to you
about, though the two girls say I’m runnin’ on about Carrie Cora all
the time. They pretend to be jealous; but they’re just as fond of her
as they can be. And as for pa! Why, he spends most of his evenin’s
down there. They’ve got a lovely home. I wish you could see their
parlor carpet. But I guess I’ve told you about it. Well, pa spends most
of his evenin’s with them, smokin’ an’ talkin’. I tell him they must
be awful sick of havin’ him. Well”--Mrs. Burrell gasped, and a fine
perspiration broke out on her cheeks--“where am I? I do get mixed up so
lately. Oh, yes. The girls. Well, now that Carrie Cora’s all settled,
the girls are just crazy to get away again. They were dreadfully
disappointed in their first Winter in Washington; and they are crazy
to go back there with you. Now, what do you think?” Mrs. Burrell
exclaimed, her face flushing violently.
“With me?” Helen said, in astonishment.
Mrs. Burrell nodded. “Now, I wouldn’t ’ave heard of it if pa--well, pa
knows everything--well, if pa hadn’t told me Mr. Briggs--well, that
he was in some trouble about money. There, I suppose you’ll think I’m
awful!”
“Oh, no,” Helen protested, feeling her own face flush.
“Pa just adores Mr. Briggs, an’ he’d like nothin’ better than to help
him out. Well, we talked it over--you see,” Mrs. Burrell went on,
twisting in her seat, “when the two girls went to the Misses Parlins’
school here, we paid a thousand dollars a piece for ’em. An’ then the
extras amounted to a lot more, drivin’, and the theatre, and all that.
They used to go to the theatre every week. It must have been comical to
see ’em walkin’ down the aisle, two by two. Emmeline used to write to
us about it. She hated it. Well, I guess pa spent most five thousand
dollars on the girls that year they were here in New York. But we
didn’t mind, as long as they was happy. But the trouble was they wasn’t
happy. They didn’t have hardly a minute to themselves. They didn’t feel
free. That’s it. Now, if they was with you, it would be different.
They’d meet all the lovely people you know. That is, if you’re goin’ to
go back to Washington?” Mrs. Burrell asked with swift acuteness.
“Yes, I shall go back,” Helen replied, flushing.
“And you’ll be in that lovely home again?” Mrs. Burrell asked, giving
Helen a sharp look.
“No. That has been leased already,” Helen replied, without flinching.
“We shall take another house--a smaller one.”
Mrs. Burrell looked embarrassed. “When pa heard the news”--Mrs. Burrell
impressively lowered her voice--“about the election, I mean, he just
jumped up an’ down. You know he thinks Mr. Briggs ought to be the
greatest lawyer in the country at this minute. He hopes he’ll keep out
of politics after he finishes this term in Congress.”
Helen sighed. “But it’s hard, beginning all over again,” she said
politely.
“Well, pa says,” Mrs. Burrell went on with a knowing look, “that if he
takes his patent-cases he’ll have enough to keep him busy for a whole
year, possibly two years. Ain’t that splendid? An’ it seemed kind of
like Providence, the whole thing, for us. If you only would take the
girls,” Mrs. Burrell pleaded.
“And what will _you_ do?” Helen asked with a smile.
“Well, I’ll stay home, just where I belong, as father’s always sayin’.
I guess I can be more comfortable there than anywhere else. We’ve got
a new furnace, an’ we’ve had the sittin’-room fixed over, and it does
seem a shame to shut up that big lovely house again. Why, how the sun
does stream into our sittin’-room windows! They’re the old-fashioned
kind, you know; they run way down to the floor. Father’ll have to
be down in Washington part of the time, of course, an’ he can be
comfortable at the hotel, especially if the girls are within reach. But
I’m determined to stay near Carrie Cora.”
Helen Briggs was so startled by Mrs. Burrell’s proposition that the
thought of it made her abstracted. As the old lady rattled on about her
own affairs, she noticed Helen’s abstraction. Suddenly she stopped,
and, folding her hands in her lap, she exclaimed: “I suppose you think
I’m awful!”
Helen smiled and shook her head. “Why should I think you are awful,
Mrs. Burrell?”
“Oh, forcin’ my children on you,” the old lady replied, with a
helplessness that made Helen speak out frankly.
“It may be that we shall be glad to take the girls. It may be
Providential for us. We need money now more than we’ve ever needed it.”
“Well, we’ve got plenty of _that_!” Mrs. Burrell exclaimed with a
nervous laugh. “I tell father----”
“And if Douglas is willing,” Helen Briggs went on, “if he’s willing
that I should take the responsibility----”
At that moment Douglas Briggs returned with the old gentleman, whose
face was shining with happiness.
“Well, mother, I feel as if a big load was taken off my mind.”
“Oh, Mr. Briggs,” the old lady broke out, “I knew a talk with you would
make my husband feel right. He’s been groanin’ all Summer because he
couldn’t get at you. He ain’t no hand at writin’ letters, an’ I jest
wouldn’t let him go down to Washington while the weather was so hot. It
was bad enough down to Auburn, though, as I tell everybody at home, no
matter how hot it is, there’s always a cool spot in our house. You see,
I keep the house closed all day long jest so’s the heat can’t get in.”
Mrs. Burrell began to laugh. “Father often takes his paper an’ goes
down cellar. He says it’s as good as goin’ into an ice-house. But I’m
awful afraid he’ll catch his death of cold, an’ I know it’s bad for his
rheumatism.”
By this time Burrell had sunk into one of the big chairs and was
waiting patiently for his wife to cease.
“Well, ma,” he finally interrupted, “suppose you let me get a word in.
Mr. Briggs is goin’ to take the case, an’ he’s goin’ to look after all
my business here in New York. He says he ain’t competent to do it, an’
he says I ain’t got no right to put so much trust in him. He says he
ain’t nothin’ but a tricky politician. I s’pose the truth is, he feels
kind of too stuck up to get down to every-day business.”
They all laughed, and Mrs. Burrell exclaimed: “Well, stuck up is about
the last thing I’d ever think of you, Mr. Briggs. Now if you’d ’a’
said that about some of those other politicians we used to see down to
Washington, Alpheus!”
Mrs. Burrell looked from her husband to her hostess, and then at
Douglas Briggs. “Well, if you two men have finished your business, I
s’pose we’ve got to go.” She turned appealingly to Helen, as if hoping
to be urged to stay.
“This time you’ll have to come to dinner,” said Helen.
“Oh, that’s all arranged,” said Briggs easily. “They’re coming
to-night.” As Mrs. Burrell was about to protest, he held up his hands.
“Now, don’t say a word. Everything’s settled!”
Mrs. Burrell looked at Helen with a comic expression of despair. “Well,
I think it’s a shame!” she said, her face shining with pleasure.
“Now I’ll go and get those girls of yours,” said Briggs, walking
into the hall. “I left them romping with the children. I thought the
children would tear them to pieces.”
When the Burrells had left, Helen walked into the library with her
husband. Her face looked puzzled.
“Did Mr. Burrell talk with you about the girls?” she asked.
Briggs sank heavily into a chair. “Yes, he told me all about it. He
seemed a good deal ashamed. Poor old man! And yet I could see that he
was making them an excuse for offering me more money.”
“He’s been offering you money, then?” Helen asked, her face growing
slightly paler.
“Oh, yes. He wants to pay me absurdly for taking that law-case and
looking after his affairs here. There’s really a good deal to be
done; but he won’t be satisfied unless I agree to fleece him,” Briggs
concluded with a laugh.
For several moments they sat in silence. Then Briggs broke out: “He’s
been fooled so often, he says I’m the only man in the world he can
trust. I felt like a hypocrite, Helen. Honestly, I thought of asking
him to go to you and to get you to tell him all about me. I didn’t have
the nerve to tell him the truth myself. It would have been easier,” he
added whimsically, “to put that on you.”
“I shouldn’t have found it very hard, Douglas,” she said with a smile.
“You wouldn’t?”
She shook her head. “And I’m afraid you’re growing morbid about the
past, dear. It’s over, and why think about it?”
“I have to think about it now and then,” he said grimly. He pressed
his hand against his forehead. “Of course, I know what you mean. I
ought to think about the future--and I do--I think of it--well, most of
the time.” He rose nervously and began to walk up and down the room.
“Somehow those people make me realize what we’re up against.”
“It would help us out if we were to have the girls with us in
Washington,” said Helen conservatively.
An expression of annoyance and disgust appeared in his face. “But why
should we have our home invaded like that? Why should you have to--?”
He turned away angrily.
“I shouldn’t mind, dear. It really would make things easier for me.”
“Easier?”
Helen bowed her head. “We could have more servants. And I should--I
should worry less about the expense.”
“Oh, but Helen, our privacy--our privacy--” he pleaded.
“I know. But we shall appreciate it all the more when”--she smiled
faintly--“when we’ve earned it.”
He sighed heavily. “Well, we haven’t had much privacy in the last
few years, have we? It’s almost as if we’d been living in the public
square,” he added bitterly.
They agreed not to discuss the matter again for a few hours. “If you
like you can take a week or so to think it over,” said Briggs, and from
his tone his wife knew that he wished her to agree.
“It seems too good a chance to lose,” she said. “And the girls are nice
girls, too,” she went on, to encourage him.
He made a wry face, and walked over and kissed her. “Let us not decide
for a few days anyway.”
Nevertheless, as he went down town that day Douglas Briggs felt more
encouraged than he had been for many months.
At any rate, Burrell would put him in the way of having a little money;
during the past few weeks he had been so straitened that he hardly
knew where to turn. He considered himself reduced to an extremity when
he began seriously to think of appealing to his wife. He was glad
to be able to assure himself it was not pride that made the thought
of appealing to her distressing; it was the fear that she should be
worried by discovering he was so harassed; like a woman, the solution
would seem to her far more serious than it really was. Even now, he
told himself that he must be careful in talking over the taking into
the family of the two girls; he must not let her realize what an
immense help the money would be to them.
That night when he returned home, he found Helen already dressed for
dinner. He noticed that she looked unusually happy.
“Douglas,” she said.
“Well?”
“Why didn’t you tell me how pressed you were for money?”
He looked at her with astonishment in his face. “What?” he exclaimed,
and in the exclamation he was conscious of the continuation of his
old habit of deceit. He tried to atone for it in his consciousness by
saying: “Well, dear, you are a wonder. What did I say this morning?”
“It wasn’t what you said. It was your being willing to consider the
proposition at all. Now, of course, we must take the girls. I’ve
thought it all over, and I’ve even decided which rooms to give them.”
He walked toward her and kissed her. “It will only be for one Winter,
dear,” he said, assuming, in spite of the humility he felt, his usual
attitude of superiority. “By that time I’ll be established in practice
again and we’ll have all the money we want.”
She drew away from him, and he knew that in some subtle way he had
pained her. He could not clearly divine that she felt there was
something remotely wrong, almost criminal, in his assuming money could
be so easily earned. But it must have been some vague sense of her
feeling that prompted him to add: “I’ll have to work like the devil,
dear. But it will be worth fighting for.” He sighed heavily. “And then
when we get the money,” he went on whimsically, “we’ll be in a position
to laugh at the people we’re afraid of now. We’ll go and live plainly
in the country as soon as we can afford to pretend that we’re poor.”
She shook her head. “You wouldn’t be happy, Douglas,” she said simply,
and he felt a pang. It was as if her look had penetrated his inner
consciousness. “We must go on as we’ve begun.”
He knew that what she meant was wholly in unison with his own thought;
but, for an instant, he felt the sinister interpretation; it was almost
like a judgment on him. But he quickly recognized his injustice, and he
walked over to her and placed both hands on her shoulders. “Do you love
me, Helen?” he asked, looking into her eyes.
“Yes, Douglas,” she replied, and he detected the note of pain in her
voice. She leaned toward him. “I love you always, Douglas, always.”
He held her closely in his arms. “My poor little wife,” he said, but he
hardly knew why he should have felt pathos in the situation.
She drew away from him and he saw the tears in her eyes.
“I’m a hard man to live with in some ways, Helen,” he said with a
sincerity that astonished him. It made her respond at once.
“Oh, no, Douglas!” she exclaimed, in a clear voice, that told him she
had recovered from her little emotional attack and had become her
wholesome self again. With his habit of generalizing he instantly
reflected that it must be a terrible thing for a man to live with an
emotional woman.
That night it was arranged that the Burrell girls, instead of going
home with their father and mother, should go to Mrs. Briggs for the
Winter. Burrell insisted upon putting the matter on the most rigid
business basis, and offered Helen Briggs a recompense in money that she
considered wholly out of proportion to what was just. Briggs maintained
in the discussion an air of jocular remoteness and, in spite of Helen’s
objection, Burrell established his own conditions. When they had
finally left the house, Briggs tried to give the matter a comic aspect
by telling his wife that he knew the old lady expected her to get
husbands for the two girls. “I suppose we’ll have the house filled with
young scamps of fortune-hunters,” he said. “You’ll have a fine time
chaperoning the poor girls.”
Helen knew that he was trying to hide the chagrin he felt. “I really
sha’n’t mind, Douglas,” and she was sorry she could not tell him in
words how happy it made her to be able to help him. But she had to be
careful now not to hurt the pride that she could see quivering beneath
his air of humorous indifference.
Two days later the girls came to the house to stay until their friends
should go to Washington. Briggs wrote to an agent, and a month later
he was established with his family in a house that would have seemed
ideally comfortable but for the taste of luxury his own house in
Washington had given him. Briggs saw that his fears regarding the
Burrell girls had been unnecessary. Toward Helen they maintained an
air of worshipful devotion that greatly amused him, and they seemed
to enjoy being with the children, too. He saw that, in spite of their
acquired worldly air, they were really simple country girls, easily
abashed and genuinely simple and kind. He grew interested in them and
he began to wonder, as he often did in the case of unattached girls,
if he could not help them to find husbands. It was a pleasure to him
to come home and to hear from Helen about her outings or her calls
with the girls during the day. He realized with astonishment that till
now Helen had led a rather restricted life, and that he had taken an
unconsciously scornful interest in the things she did. At dinner he
really enjoyed hearing the girls talk about the people they had met
during the day, about the art-exhibits and the teas they had been at,
and about the books they had read and the plays they had seen or the
operas they had heard. The comments of his wife regarding the books and
the plays and the operas surprised him, and made him realize that she
lived in a world from which he was shut out. He had been accusing her
world of narrowness, but in reality the narrowness existed chiefly in
his own mind. At moments he felt a kind of jealousy of her; at other
times he was ashamed of the superior attitude he had taken toward
her, and he wondered if she had recognized it. The thought of the
possibility that she had known of it all along gave a sudden pause to
his consciousness like a symptom of sickness.
Briggs took an impersonal interest in his new humility, as he did in
everything that related to the workings of his own mind. As far as
he could follow them, he assured himself that he had always wished
to understand his own nature just as it was, without any self-praise
or palliation; and yet he had begun to make a complete revision of
his opinion of himself. He wondered how far the change could be due
to the change that he felt in the attitude toward him of other men.
Hitherto, among men he had always been treated with consideration; now
he knew himself to be regarded as a man who, if he had not failed, had
not quite succeeded, and, if he had not been smirched in character,
was still marked with the suspicion of taint. Most of all he dreaded
betraying in his manner his knowledge of this change. He had seen so
many men betray the consciousness of their own weakness. Especially he
tried to avoid giving the least suggestion of bravado. He reflected
on the fickleness of good opinion; he had basked in the sunshine of
good opinion all his life; when it was withdrawn he felt chilled and
depressed. It was when he met some of the men who had treated him with
special deference and who now addressed him with easy equality or
with indifference, or, as occasionally happened, with cold formality,
that he felt most deeply his humiliation. But at these times he felt
a swift reaction that found expression in a stubborn assertion of
courage. After all, he reflected grimly, it paid to be on the level.
The important thing was not to be contemptuous to slights, but to be so
established in the sense of being right, that slights could not wound.
He saw now that his previous attitude toward life had been false and
unstable; it had never been established on rock-bottom.
In his humiliation, it was a comfort to know that there were two people
in the world who knew him just as he was. Those others who despised
him, believed he was worse than he could possibly have been. His wife
and William Farley believed in him and counted on him. To Mr. Farley,
whom he saw every day, he confided nearly all his affairs. Once he had
prided himself on standing alone, trusting no one; now it helped him
to place his perplexities before that quiet and shrewd intelligence.
Once he urged Farley to study law and go into partnership with him,
and he laughed when the journalist held up his hand in protest. He
envied Farley’s unswerving devotion to ideals of service that were so
like his own in his best moods, and so unlike most of the realities
that he achieved. It was Mr. Farley’s advice that made him decide,
after his return to New York, to keep out of active politics for a
couple of years. He needed time for readjustment, he said jocosely to
himself. In two years he would be ready to make a fresh start. They
would be hard years, for already he missed the excitement and the
sense of being associated in the large interests that politics had
given him. Meanwhile, he kept assuring himself that he was young; a
man’s best work in life was done after his fortieth year. Already, as
he had observed with pleasure and hope, some of the newspapers were
lamenting his withdrawal from politics, and were referring to some of
his past services, from which he had expected no return. Here, too, he
found material for his philosophy. There were men in political life who
did practically nothing for which they could claim honorable credit,
and who were constantly engaged in schemes either for defrauding the
government or for using their opportunities for private gain. So far as
he could see they suffered neither from remorse or lack of self-respect
or from the resentment of their constituents. But he was not one of
them. It was clear to him now that he must keep straight or take his
medicine, and he assured himself that he had already had medicine
enough.