GARRISON FINDS HIMSELF.
Sue never rightly remembered how the two months passed; the two months
succeeding that hideous night when in paralyzed silence she watched
Garrison away. The greatest sorrow is stagnant, not active. The heart
becomes like a frozen morass. Sometimes memory slips through the crust,
only to sink in the grim “slough of despond.”
Waterbury's death had unnerved her, coming as it did at a time when
tragedy had opened the pores of her heart. He had been conscious for
a few minutes before the messenger of a new life summoned him into the
great beyond. He used the few minutes well. If we all lived with the
thought that the next hour would be our last, the world would be peopled
with angels--and hypocrites.
Waterbury asked permission of his host, Colonel Desha, to see Sue alone.
It was willingly granted. The girl, white-faced, came and sat by the bed
in the room of many shadows; the room where death was tapping, tapping
on the door. She had said nothing to her father regarding the events
preceding the runaway and Waterbury's accident.
Waterbury eyed her long and gravely. The heat of his great passion had
melted the baser metal of his nature. What original alloy of gold
he possessed had but emerged refined. His fingers, formerly pudgy,
well-fed, had suddenly become skeletons of themselves. They were picking
at the coverlet.
“I lied about--about Garrison,” he whispered, forcing life to his mouth,
his eyes never leaving the girl's. “I lied. He was square--” Breath
would not come. “For-forgive,” he cried, suddenly in a smother of sweat.
“Forgive--”
“Gladly, willingly,” whispered the girl. She was crying inwardly.
His eyes flamed for an instant, and then died away. By sheer will-power
he succeeded in stretching a hand across the coverlet, palm upward.
“Put--put it--there,” he whispered. “Will you?”
She understood. It was the sporting world's token of forgiveness; of
friendship. She laid her hand in his, gripping with a firm clasp.
“Thank you,” he whispered. Again his eyes flamed; again died away. The
end was very near. Perhaps the approaching freedom of the spirit lent
him power to read the girl's thoughts. For as he looked into her
eyes, his own saw that she knew what lay in his. He breathed heavily,
painfully.
“Could--could you?” he whispered. “If--if you only could.” There was a
great longing, a mighty wistfulness in his voice. Death was trying to
place its hand over his mouth. With a mighty effort Waterbury slipped
past it. “If you only could,” he reiterated. “It--it means so little to
you, Miss Desha--so much, so much to--me!”
And again the girl understood. Without a word she bent over and kissed
him. He smiled. And so died Waterbury.
Afterward, the girl remembered Waterbury's confession. So Garrison was
honest! Somehow, she had always believed he was. His eyes, the windows
of his soul, were not fouled. She had read weakness there, but never
dishonesty. Yes, somehow she had always believed him honest. But he
was married. That was different. The concrete, not the abstract, was
paramount. All else was swamped by the fact that he was married. She
could not believe that he had forgotten his marriage with his true
identity. She could not believe that. Her heart was against her. Love to
her was everything. She could not understand how one could ever forget.
One might forget the world, but not that, not that.
True to her code of judging not, she did not attempt to estimate
Garrison. She could not bear to use the probe. There are some things too
sacred to be dissected; so near the heart that their proximity renders
an experiment prohibitive. She believed that Garrison loved her. She
believed that above all. Surely he had given something in exchange for
all that he owned of her. If in unguarded moments her conscience assumed
the woolsack, mercy, not justice, swayed it.
She realized the mighty temptation Garrison had been forced against by
circumstances. And if he had fallen, might not she herself? Had it not
taken all her courage to renounce--to give the girl up North the right
of way? Now she understood the prayer, “Lead us not into temptation.”
Yes, it had been weakness with Garrison, not dishonor. He had been
fighting against it all the time. She remembered that morning in the
tennis-court--her first intimacy with him. And he had spoken of the girl
up North. She remembered him saying: “But doesn't the Bible say to leave
all and cleave unto your wife?”
That had been a confession, though she knew it not. And she had ignored
it, taking it as badinage, and he had been too weak to brand it truth.
Strangely enough, she did not judge him for posing as Major Calvert's
nephew. Strangely enough, that seemed trivial in comparison with the
other. It was so natural for him to be the rightful heir that she could
not realize that he was an impostor, nor apportion the fact its true
significance. Her brain was unfit to grapple. Only her heart lived;
lived with the passive life of stagnation. It was choked with weeds on
the surface. She tried to patch together the broken parts of her life.
Tried and failed. She could not. She seemed to be existing without an
excuse; aimlessly, soullessly.
After many horrible days, hideous nights, she realized that she still
loved Garrison. Loved with a love that threatened to absorb even her
physical existence. It seemed as if the very breath of her lungs had
been diverted to her heart, where it became tissue-searing flame.
And at Calvert House life had resolved itself into silence. The major
and his wife were striving to live in the future; striving to live
against Garrison's return. They were ignorant of the true cause of his
leaving. For Sue, the keeper of the secret, had not divulged it. She had
been left with a difficult proposition to face, and she could not face
it. She temporized. She knew that sooner or later the truth would have
to come out. She put it off. She could not tell, not now, not now. Each
day only rendered it the more difficult. She could not tell.
She had only to look at the old major; to look at his wife, to see that
the blow would blast them. She had had youth to help her, and even she
had been blasted. What chance had they? And so she said that Garrison
and she had quarreled seriously and that in sudden anger, pique, he had
left. Oh, yes, she knew he would return. She was quite sure of it. It
was all so silly and over nothing, and she had no idea he would take it
that way. And she was so sorry, so sorry.
It had all been her fault. He had not been to blame. It was she, only
she. In a thoughtless moment she had said something about his being
dependent on his uncle, and he had fired up, affirming that he would
show her that he was a man, and could earn his own salt. Yes, it had
been entirely her own fault, and no one hated herself as she did. He had
gone to prove his manhood, and she knew how stubborn he was. He would
not return until he wished.
Sue lied bravely, convincingly, whole-heartedly. Everything she did was
done thoroughly. She would not think of the future. But she could not
tell that Garrison was an impostor; a father of children. She could not
tell. So she lied, and lied so well that the old major, bewildered,
was forced to believe her. He was forced to acquiesce. He could not
interfere. He could do nothing. It was better that his nephew should
prove his manhood; return some time and love the girl, than that he
should hate her for eternity.
Each day he hoped to see Garrison back, but each day passed without that
consummation. The strain was beginning to tell on him. His heart was
bound up in the boy. If he did not return soon he would advertise,
institute a search. He well knew the folly of youth. He was
broad-minded, great-hearted enough not to censure the girl by word or
act. He saw how she was suffering; growing paler daily. But why didn't
Garrison write? All the anger, all the quarrels in the world could not
account for his leaving like that; account for his silence.
The major commenced to doubt. And his wife's words: “It's not like Sue
to permit William to go like that. Nor like her to ever have said such a
thing even unthinkingly. There's more than that on the girl's mind.
She is wasting away”--but served to strengthen the doubt. Still, he was
impotent. He could not understand. If his nephew did not wish to return,
all the advertising in creation could not drag him back.
Yes, his wife was right. There was more on the girl's mind than that.
And it was not like Sue to act as she affirmed she had. Still, he could
not bring himself to doubt her. He was in a quandary. It had begun to
tell on him, on his wife; even as it had already told on the girl.
And old Colonel Desha was likewise breasting a sea of trouble.
Waterbury's death had brought financial matters to a focus. Honor
imperatively demanded that the mortgage be settled with the dead man's
heirs. It was only due to Sue's desperate financiering that the interest
had been met up to the present. That it would be paid next month
depended solely on the chance of The Rogue winning the Carter Handicap.
Things had come to as bad a pass as that.
The colonel frantically bent every effort toward getting the
thoroughbred into condition. How he hated himself now for posting his
all on the winter books! Now that the great trial was so near, his deep
convictions of triumph did not look so wonderful.
There were good horses entered against The Rogue. Major Calvert's Dixie,
for instance, and Speedaway, the wonderful goer owned by that man Drake.
Then there were half a dozen others--all from well-known stables. There
could be no doubt that “class” would be present in abundance at the
Carter. And only he had so much at stake. He had entered The Rogue in
the first flush consequent on his winning the last Carter. But he must
win this. He must. Getting him into condition entailed expense. It must
be met. All his hopes, his fears, were staked on The Rogue. Money
never was so paramount; the need of it so great. Fiercely he hugged his
poverty to his breast, keeping it from his friend the major.
Then, too, he was greatly worried over Sue. She was not looking well.
He was worried over Garrison's continued absence. He was worried over
everything. It was besetting him from all sides. Worry was causing him
to take the lime-light from himself. He awoke to the fact that Sue was
in very poor health. If she died--He never could finish.
Taken all in all, it was a very bad time for the two oldest families
in Cottonton. Every member was suffering silently, stoically; each in
a different way. One striving to conceal from the other. And it all
centered about Garrison.
And then, one day when things were at their worst, when Garrison,
unconscious of the general misery he had engendered, had completed
Speedaway's training for the Carter, when he himself was ready for the
fight of his life, a stranger stepped off the Cottonton express and made
his way to the Desha homestead. He knew the colonel. He was a big, quiet
man--Jimmie Drake.
A week later and Drake had returned North. He had not said anything
to Garrison regarding what had called him away, but the latter vaguely
sensed that it was another attempt on the indefatigable turfman's part
to ferret out the eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark. And when Drake, on his
return, called Garrison into the club-house, Garrison went white-faced.
He had just sent Speedaway over the seven furlongs in record time, and
his heart was big with hope.
Drake never wasted ammunition in preliminary skirmishing. He told the
joke first and the story afterward.
“I've been South. Seen Colonel Desha and Major Calvert,” he said
tersely.
Garrison was silent, looking at him. He tried to read fate in his
inscrutable eyes; news of some description; tried, and failed. He turned
away his head. “Tell me,” he said simply. Drake eyed him and slowly came
forward and held out his large bloodshot hand.
“Billy Garrison--'Bud'--'Kid'--William C. Dagget,” he said, nodding his
head.
Garrison rose with difficulty, the sweat on his face.
“William C. Dagget? Me? Me? Me?” he whispered, his head thrown forward,
his eyes narrowed, starting at Drake. “Just God, Jimmie! Don't play with
me----” He sat down abruptly covering his quivering face with his hands.
Drake laid a hand on the heaving shoulders. “There, there, kid,” he
murmured gruffly, as if to a child, “don't go and blow up over it. Yes,
you're Dagget. The luckiest kid in the States, and--and the damnedest.
You've raised a muss-pile down South in Cottonton. Dagget or no Dagget,
I'm talking straight. You've been selfish, kid. You've only been
thinking of yourself; your regeneration; your past, your present, your
future. You--you--you. You never thought of the folks you left down
home; left to suffocate with the stink you raised. You cleared out
scot-free, and, say, kid, you let a girl lie for you; lie for you. You
did that. A girl, by heck! who wouldn't lie for the Almighty Himself.
A girl who--who----” Drake searched frantically for a fitting simile,
gasped, mopped his face with a lurid silk handkerchief, and flumped into
a chair. “Well, say, kid, it's just plain hell. That's what it is.”
“Lied for me?” said Garrison very quietly.
“That's the word. But I'll start from the time the fur commenced to fly.
In the first place, there's no doubt about your identity. I was right.
I've proved that. I couldn't find Snark--I guess the devil must have
called him back home. So I took things on my own hook and went to
Cottonton, where I moseyed round considerable. I know Colonel Desha, and
I learned a good deal in a quiet way when I was there. I learned from
Major Calvert that his half-sister's--your mother's--name was Loring.
That cinched it for me. But I said nothing. They were in an awful stew
over your absence, but I never let on, at first, that I had you bunked.
“I learned, among other things, that Miss Desha had taken upon herself
the blame of your leaving; saying that she had said something you had
taken exception to; that you had gone to prove your manhood, kid. Your
manhood, kid--mind that. She's a thoroughbred, that girl. Now, I
would have backed her lie to the finish if something hadn't gone and
happened.” Drake paused significantly. “That something was that the
major received a letter--from your father, kid.”
“My father?” whispered Garrison.
“Um-m-m, the very party. Written from 'Frisco--on his death-bed. One
of those old-timey, stage-climax death-bed confessions. As old as the
mortgage on the farm business. As I remarked before some right-meaning
chap says somewhere something about saying nothing but good of the dead.
I'm not slinging mud. I guess there was a whole lot missing in your
father, kid, but he tried to square himself at the finish, the same as
we all do, I guess.
“He wrote to the major, saying he had never told his son--you, kid--of
his real name nor of his mother's family. He confessed to changing his
name from Dagget to Garrison for the very reasons I said. Remember?
He ended by saying he had wronged you; that he knew you would be the
major's heir, and that if you were to be found it would be under the
name of Garrison. That is, if you were still living. He didn't know
anything about you.
“There was a whole lot of repentance and general misery in the letter.
I don't like to think of it overmuch. But it knocked Cottonton flatter
than stale beer. Honest. I never saw such a time. I'm no good at telling
a yarn, kid. It was something fierce. There was nothing but knots and
knots; all diked up and tangles by the mile. And so I had to step in and
straighten things out. And--and so, kid, I told the major everything;
every scrap of your history, as far as I knew it. All you had told to
me. I had to. Now, don't tell me I kicked in. Say I did right, kid. I
meant to.”
“Yes, yes,” murmured Garrison blankly. “And--and the major? What--did he
say, Jimmie?”
Drake frowned thoughtfully.
“Say? Well, kid, I only wish I had an uncle like that. I only wish there
were more folks like those Cottonton folks. I do. Say? Why, Lord, kid,
it was one grand hallelujah! Forgive? Say,” he finished, thoughtfully
eyeing the white-faced, newly christened Garrison, “what have you ever
done to be loved like that? They were crazy for you. Not a word was said
about your imposition. Not a word. It was all: 'When will he be back?'
'Where is he?' 'Telegraph!' All one great slambang of joy. And me? Well,
I could have had that town for my own. And your aunt? She cried, cried
when she heard all you had been through. Oh, I made a great press-agent,
kid. And the old major--Oh, fuss! I can't tell a yarn nohow,” grumbled
Drake, stamping about at great length and vigorously using the lurid
silk handkerchief.
William C. Dagget was silent--the silence of great, overwhelming joy. He
was shivering. “And--and Miss Desha?” he whispered at length.
“Yes--Miss Desha,” echoed Drake, planting wide his feet and
contemplating the other's bent head. “Yes, Miss Desha. And why in
blazes did you tell her you were married, eh?” he asked grimly. “Oh,
you thought you were? Oh, yes. And you didn't deny it when you found it
wasn't so? Oh, yes, of course. And it didn't matter whether she ate her
heart out or not? Of course not. Oh, yes, you wanted to be clean, first,
and all that. And she might die in the meantime. You didn't think she
still cared for you? Now, see here, kid, that's a lie and you know it.
It's a lie. When a girl like Miss Desha goes so far as to--Oh, fuss! I
can't tell a yarn. But, see here, kid, I haven't your blood. I own that.
But if I ever put myself before a girl who cared for me the way Miss
Desha cares for you, and I professed to love her as you professed to
love Miss Desha, than may I rot--rot, hide, hair, and bones! Now, cuss
me out, if you like.”
Garrison looked up grimly.
“You're right, Jimmie. I should have stood my ground and taken my dose.
I should have written her when I discovered the truth. But--I couldn't.
I couldn't. Listen, Jimmie, it was not selfishness, not cowardice.
Can't you see? Can't you see? I cared too much. I was so unworthy, so
miserable. How could I ever think she would stoop to my level? She was
so high; I so horribly low. It was my own unworthiness choking me. It
was not selfishness, Jimmie, not selfishness. It was despair; despair
and misery. Don't you understand?”
“Oh, fuss!” said Drake again, using the lurid silk handkerchief. Then he
laid his hand on the other's shoulder. “I understand,” he said simply.
There was silence. Finally Drake wiped his face and cleared his throat.
“And now, with your permission, we'll get down to tacks, Mr. William C.
Dagget--”
“Don't call me that, Jimmie. I'm not that--yet. I'm Billy Garrison until
I've won the Carter Handicap--proven myself clean.”
“Right, kid. And that's what I wished to speak about. In the first
place, Major Calvert knows where you are. Colonel and Miss Desha do not.
In fact, kid,” added Drake, rubbing his chin, “the major and I have a
little plot hatched up between us. Your identity, if possible is not to
be made known to the colonel and his daughter until the finish of the
Carter. Understand?”
“No,” said Garrison flatly. “Why?”
“Because, kid, you're not going to ride Speedaway. You're not going to
ride for my stable. You're going to ride Colonel Desha's Rogue--ride as
you never rode before. Ride and win. That's why.”
Garrison only stared as Drake ran on. “See here, kid, this race means
everything to the colonel--everything in the world. Every cent he has
is at stake; his honor, his life, his daughter's happiness. He's proud,
cussed proud, and he's kept it mum. And the girl--Miss Desha has bucked
poverty like a thoroughbred. I got to know the facts, picking them up
here and there, and the major knows, too. We've got to work in the dark,
for the colonel would die first if he knew the truth, before he would
accept help even indirectly. The Rogue must win; must. But what
chance has he against the major's Dixie, my Speedaway, and the Morgan
entry--Swallow? And so the major has scratched his mount, giving out
that Dixie has developed eczema.
“Now, the colonel is searching high and low for a jockey capable of
handling The Rogue. It'll take a good man. I recommended you. He doesn't
know your identity, for the major and I have kept it from him. He only
thinks you are _the_ Garrison who has come back. I have fixed it up with
him that you are to ride his mount, and The Rogue will arrive to-morrow.
“The colonel is a wreck mentally and physically; living on nerve. I've
agreed to put the finishing touches on The Rogue, and he, knowing my
ability and facilities, has permitted me. It's all in my hands--pretty
near. Now, Red McGloin is up on the Morgan entry--Swallow. He used to be
a stable-boy for Waterbury. I guess you've heard of him. He's developed
into a first-class boy. But I want to see you lick the hide off him. The
fight will lie between you and him. I know the rest of the field--”
“But Speedaway?” cried Garrison, jumping to his feet. “Jimmie--you! It's
too great a sacrifice; too great, too great. I know how you've longed
to win the Carter; what it means to you; how you have slaved to earn
it. Jimmie--Jimmie--don't tempt me. You can't mean you've scratched
Speedaway!”
“Just that, kid,” said Drake grimly. “The first scratch in my life--and
the last. Speedaway? Well, she and I will win again some other time.
Some time, kid, when we ain't playing against a man's life and a girl's
happiness. I'll scratch for those odds. It's for you, kid--you and the
girl. Remember, you're carrying her colors, her life.
“You'll have a good fight--but fight as you never fought before; as you
never hope to fight again. Cottonton will watch you, kid. Don't shame
them; don't shame me. Show 'em what you're made of. Show Red that
a former stable-boy, no matter what class he is now, can't have the
licking of a former master. Show 'em a has-been can come back. Show 'em
what Garrison stands for. Show 'em your finish, kid--I'll ask no more.
And you'll carry Jimmie Drake's heart--Oh, fuss! I can't tell a yarn,
nohow.”
In silence Garrison gripped Drake's hand. And if ever a mighty
resolution was welded in a human heart--a resolution born of love,
everything; one that nothing could deny--it was born that moment in
Garrison's. Born as the tears stood in his eyes, and, man as he was, he
could not keep up; nor did he shame his manhood by denying them. “Kid,
kid,” said Drake.