IN WHICH WE SEE A FAT LITTLE RASCAL ON THE RACK
A year and a month and a day, an exceedingly hot day, after Judge Thomas
Van Dorn had fallen upon the stair leading to his office and had cut
that gash in his forehead which left the white thread of a scar upon his
high, broad brow, Judge Van Dorn sat in chambers in his office in the
court house, hearing an unimportant matter. Because the day was hot, the
Judge wore a gray silk coat, without a vest, and because the matter was
unimportant, no newspaper reporters were called in. The matter in hand
was highly informal. The Judge, tilted back in his easy chair, toyed
with his silken mustache, while counsel for defendant, standing by the
desk before which the Judge's chair was swinging, handled the papers
representing the defendant's answer, to the plaintiff's pleadings. The
plaintiff herself, dressed in rather higher sleeves than would have been
thought possible to put upon a human form and make them stand erect,
with a rather larger hat than one would have said might be carried by a
single human neck without bowing it; the plaintiff above mentioned was
rattling the court's paper knife.
Plaintiff's counsel, a callow youth from the law offices of Joseph
Calvin, to be exact, Joseph Calvin, Jr., sat meekly on the edge of a
small chair in the corner and being a chip of the old block, had little
to say. The court and said hereinbefore described plaintiff talked
freely between whiles as the counsel for said defendant, Henry Fenn, ran
over his papers, looking for particular phrases, statements or exhibits
which he desired to present to the court.
It appeared from the desultory reading of the papers by the attorney for
the said defendant, Henry Fenn, that he had no desire to impose upon the
plaintiff, as above described, any hardships in the matter and that the
agreement reached by counsel as to the disposition of the joint property
should be carried out as indicated in the answer submitted to the
court--see folio No. 3. Though counsel for defendant smilingly told the
court that if the counsel were Henry Fenn, he should not give up
property worth at least five thousand dollars in consideration of the
cause of action being made cruelty and inhuman treatment rather than
drunkenness, but, as counsel explained and as the court agreed when a
man gets to going by the booze route he hasn't much sense--referring, of
course, to said defendant, Henry Fenn, not present in person.
When counsel for the said defendant had finished, and had put all his
papers upon the desk in front of the court, the court reached into his
desk, and handed the counsel for defendant a cigar, which with proper
apologies to the hereinabove and before described plaintiff, counsel
lighted, and said:
"That's certainly a good one."
But as the court was writing upon the back of one of the papers, the
court did not respond for a moment, but finally said absently,
"Yes,--glad you think so; George Brotherton imports them for me."
And went on writing. Still writing the court said without looking up, "I
don't know of anything else."
And the counsel for defendant said he didn't either and putting on his
hat, smiling at the plaintiff aforesaid, counsel for said defendant
Henry Fenn departed, and after a minute the court ceased writing, folded
and blotted the back of the paper, handed it to young Joe Calvin,
sitting meekly on the edge of the chair, saying: "Here Joey, take this
to the clerk and file it," and Joey got up from the edge of the chair
and vanished, closing the door behind him.
"Well?" said the plaintiff.
"Well?" echoed the court.
"Well," reiterated the plaintiff, gazing into the eyes of the court with
somewhat more eagerness than the law requires under statute therefore
made and provided.
"So it's all over," she continued, and added: "My part."
She rose--this plaintiff hereinbefore mentioned, came to the desk, stood
over him a moment, and said softly, much more softly than the code
prescribes, "Tom--I hope yours won't be any harder."
Whereupon the court, then and there being as herein above set forth, did
with premeditation, and much show of emotion look up into the eyes of
said plaintiff, said eyes being tear-dimmed and extraordinarily
beautiful as to their coloring to-wit: brown, as to their expression
to-wit: sad and full of love, and furthermore the court did with
deliberation and after for a moment while he held the heavy bejeweled
hand of said plaintiff above mentioned, and did press said hand to his
lips and then did draw the said plaintiff closer and whisper:
"God--God, Margaret, so do I hope so--so do I."
And perhaps the court for a second thought of a little blue-eyed,
fair-haired girl and a gentle woman who lived for him alone in all the
world, and perhaps not; for this being a legal paper may set down only
such matters as are of evidence. But it is witnessed and may be
certified to that the court did drop his eyes for a second or two, that
the white thread of a scar upon the forehead of the court did redden for
a moment while he held the heavy bejewelled hand of plaintiff,
hereinbefore mentioned, and that he did draw a deep breath, and did look
out of the window, set high up in the court house, and that he did see
the elm trees covering a home which, despite all his perfidy and neglect
was full of love for him--love that needed no high sleeves nor great
plumy hats, nor twinkling silver bangles, nor jangling gold chatelaines,
to make it beautiful. But let us make it of record and set it down here,
in this instrument that the court rose, looked into the great brown eyes
and the fair face, and seeing the rich, shameless mouth and blazing
color upon the features, did then and there fall down in his heart and
worship that mask, and did take the hand that he held in both of his and
standing before the woman did cry in a deep voice, full of agony:
"For God's sake, Margaret, let me come to you now--soon." And she--the
plaintiff in this action gazed at the man who had been the court, but
who now was man, and replied:
"Only when you may honestly--legally, Tom--it's best for both of us."
They walked to the door. The court pressed a button as she left,
smiling, and when a man appeared with a note book the court said: "I
have something to dictate," and the next day young Joseph Calvin handed
the following news item to the _Harvey Times_ and to the _South
Harvey Derrick_.
"A divorce was granted to-day by Judge Thomas Van Dorn of the district
court in chambers to Mrs. Margaret Mueller Fenn, from Henry Fenn. Charges
of cruel and inhuman treatment filed by the attorneys for Mrs. Fenn were
not met by Mr. Fenn and the court granted the decree and it was made
absolute. It is understood that a satisfactory settlement of the joint
property has been made. Mrs. Fenn will continue to hold the position she
has held during the year past as chief clerk in the office of the
superintendent of the Harvey Improvement Company. Mr. Fenn is former
county attorney and is now engaged in the insurance business, having
sold his real estate business to Joseph Calvin this morning."
And thus the decree of divorce between Henry Fenn and Margaret, his
wife, whom God had joined together, was made absolute, and further
deponent sayeth not.
But the town of Harvey had more or less to say about the divorce and
what the town said, more or less concerned Judge Thomas Van Dorn. For
although Henry Fenn sober would not speak of the divorce, Henry Fenn
drunk, babbled many quotations about the "rare and radiant maiden, who
was lost forever more." He was also wont to quote the line about the
lover who held his mistress "something better than his dog, a little
dearer than his horse."
As for the Judge, his sensitive mind felt the disapproval of the
community. But the fighting blood in him was roused, and he fought a
braver fight than the cause justified. That summer he went to all the
farmers' picnics in his district, spoke wherever he was invited to
speak, and spoke well; whatever charm he had he called to his aid. When
the French of South Harvey celebrated the Fall of the Bastille, Judge
Van Dorn spoke most beautifully of liberty, and led off when they sung
the _Marseillaise_; on Labor Day he was the orator of the occasion,
and made a great impression among the workers by his remarks upon the
dignity of labor. He quoted Carlyle and Ruskin and William Morris, and
wept when he told them how the mob had crucified the Carpenter, who was
labor's first prophet.
But one may say this for Judge Van Dorn: that with all his desire for
the approval of his fellows, even in South Harvey, even at the meetings
of men who he knew differed with him, he did not flinch from attacking
on every occasion and with all his eloquence the unions that Grant Adams
was promoting. The idea of mutual help upon which they rested seemed to
make Van Dorn see red, and he was forever going out of his way to combat
the idea. So bitter was his antagonism to the union idea that in the
Valley he and Grant Adams became dramatized in the minds of the men as
opponents.
But in Harvey, where men regarded Grant Adams's activities with tolerant
indifference and his high talk of bettering industrial conditions as the
madness of youth, Judge Van Dorn was the town's particular idol.
A handsome man he was as he stood out in the open under the bower made
by the trees, and with the grace and charm of true oratory, spoke in his
natural voice--a soft, penetrating treble that reached to the furthest
man in the crowd; tall, well-built, oval-faced, commanding--a judge
every inch of him, even if a young judge--was Tom Van Dorn. And when he
had finished speaking at the Harvest Home Picnic, or at the laying of
the corner stone of the new Masonic Temple, or at the opening of the
Grant County fair, men said:
"Well, I know they say Tom Van Dorn is no Joseph, but all the same I'm
here to tell you--" and what they were there to tell you would
discourage ladies and gentlemen who believe that material punishments
always follow either material or spiritual transgressions.
So the autumn wore into winter, and the State Bar Association promoted
Judge Van Dorn; he appeared as president of that dignified body, and
thereby added to his prestige at home. He appeared regularly at church
with Mrs. Van Dorn--going the rounds of the churches punctiliously--and
gave liberally when a subscription paper for any cause was presented.
But for all this, he kept hearing the bees of gossip buzzing about him,
and often felt their sting.
Day after day, through it all he never slept until in some way, by some
device, through some trumped up excuse that seemed plausible enough in
itself, he had managed to see and speak to Margaret Fenn. Whether in her
office in the Light, Heat & Power Company's building upon a business
errand, and he made plenty of such, or upon the street, or in the court
house, where she often went upon some business of her chief, or walking
home at evening, or coming down in the morning, or upon rare occasions
meeting her clandestinely for a moment, or whether at some social
function where they were both present--and it of necessity had to be a
large function in that event--for the town could register its
disapproval of the woman more easily than it could put its opprobrium
upon the man; or whether he spoke to her just a word from the sidewalk
as he passed her home, always he managed to see her. Always he had one
look into her eyes, and so during all the day, she was in his thoughts.
It seems strange that a man of great talents could keep the machinery of
his mind going and still have an ever present consciousness of a guilty
intrigue. Yet there it was. Until he had seen her and spoken to her, it
was his day's important problem to devise some way to bring about the
meeting. So with devilish caution and ponderous circumlocution and craft
he went about his daily work, serene in the satisfaction that he was
being successful in his elaborate deceit; rather gloating at times in
the iniquity of one in his position being in so low a business. He
wondered what the people would say if they really knew the depths of his
infamy, and when he sentenced a poor devil for some minor crime, he
would often watch himself as a third party and wonder if he would ever
stand up and take his sentence. But he had no fear of that. The little
drama between Judge Van Dorn, the prisoner at the bar, and the lover of
Margaret Fenn, was for his diversion, rather than for his instruction,
and he enjoyed it as an artistic travesty upon the justice he was
dispensing.
Thomas Van Dorn believed that the world was full of a number of
exceedingly pleasant things that might be had for the taking, and no
questions asked. So when he felt the bee sting of gossip, he threw back
his head, squared his face to the wind, put an extra kink of elegance
into his raiment, a tighter crimp into his smile and an added ardor into
his hale greeting, did some indispensable judicial favor to the old
spider of commerce back of the brass sign at the Traders National,
defied the town, and bade it watch him fool it. But the men who drove
the express wagons knew that whenever they saw Judge Van Dorn take the
train for the capital they would be sure to have a package from the
capital the next day for Mrs. Fenn; sometimes it would be a milliner's
box, sometimes a jeweler's, sometimes a florist's, sometimes a dry-goods
merchant's, and always a candy maker's.
At last the whole wretched intrigue dramatized itself in one culminating
episode. It came in the spring. Dr. Nesbit had put on his white linens
just as the trees were in their first gayety of foliage and the spring
blooming flowers were at their loveliest.
After a morning in the dirt and grime and misery and injustice and
wickedness that made the outer skin over South Harvey and Foley and
Magnus and the mining and smelter towns of the valley, the Doctor came
driving into the cool beauty of Quality Hill in Harvey with a middle
aged man's sense of relief. South Harvey and its neighbors disheartened
him.
He had seen Grant Adams, a man of the Doctor's own caste by birth,
hurrying into a smelter on some organization errand out of overalls in
his cheap, ill-fitting clothes, begrimed, heavy featured, dogged and
rapidly becoming a part of the industrial dregs. Grant Adams in the
smelter, preoccupied with the affairs of that world, and passing
definitely into it forever, seemed to the Doctor symbolic of the passing
of the America he understood (and loved), into an America that
discouraged him. But the beauty and the calm and the restful
elm-bordered lawns of Harvey always toned up his spirits. Here, he said
to himself was the thing he had helped to create. Here was the town he
had founded and cherished. Here were the people whom he really
loved--old neighbors, old friends, dear in associations and sweet in
memories.
It was in a cherubic complaisance with the whole scheme of the universe
that the white-clad Doctor jogged up Elm Street behind his maternal
sorrel in the phaeton, to get his noon day meal. He passed the Van Dorn
home. Its beauty fitted into this mood and beckoned to him. For the
whole joy of spring bloomed in flower and shrub and vine that bordered
the house and clambered over the wide hospitable porch. The gay color of
the spring made the house glow like a jewel. The wide lawn--the stately
trees, the gorgeous flowers called to his heart, and seeing his daughter
upon the piazza, the Doctor surrendered, drew up, tied the horse and
came toddling along the walk to the broad stone steps, waving his hands
gayly to her as he came. Little Lila, coming home from kindergarten and
bleating through the house lamb-wise: "I'm hungry," saw her grandfather,
and ran down the steps to meet him, forgetting her pangs.
He lifted her high to his shoulder, and came up the porch steps
laughing: "Here come jest and youthful jollity, my dear," and stooping
with his grandchild in his arms, kissed the beautiful woman before him.
"Some one is mighty sweet this morning," and then seeing a package
beside her asked: "What's this--" looking at the address and the
sender's name. "Some one been getting a new dress?"
The child pulling at her mother's skirts renewed her bleat for food.
When Lila had been disposed of Laura sat by her father, took his fat,
pudgy hand and said:
"Father, I don't know what to do; do you mind talking some things over
with me. I suppose I should have been to see you anyway in a few days.
Have we time to go clear to the bottom of things now?"
She looked up at him with a serious, troubled face, and patted his hand.
He felt instinctively the shadow that was on her heart, and his face may
have winced. She saw or knew without seeing, the tremor in his soul.
"Poor father--but you know it must come sometime. Let us talk it all out
now."
He nodded his head. He did not trust his voice.
"Well, father dear," she said slowly. She nodded at the package--a long
dress box beside the porch post.
"That was sent to Margaret Fenn. It came here by mistake--addressed to
me. There were some express charges on it. I thought it was for me; I
thought Tom had bought it for me yesterday, when he was at the capital,
so I opened it. There is a dress pattern in it--yellow and black--colors
I never could wear, and Tom has an exquisite eye for those things, and
also there is a pair of silk stockings to match. On the memoranda pinned
on these, they are billed to Mrs. Fenn, but all charged to Tom. I hadn't
opened it when I sent the expressman to Tom's office for the express
charges, but when he finds the package has been delivered here--we shall
have it squarely before us." The daughter did not turn her eyes to her
father as she went on after a little sigh that seemed like a catch in
her side:
"So there we are."
The Doctor patted his foot in silence, then replied:
"My poor, poor child--my poor little girl," and added with a heavy sigh:
"And poor Tom--Laura--poor, foolish, devil-ridden Tom." She assented
with her eyes. At the end of a pause she said with anguish in her voice:
"And when we began it was all so beautiful--so beautiful--so wonderful.
Of course I've known for a long time--ever since before Lila came that
it was slipping. Oh, father--I've known; I've seen every little giving
of the tie that bound us, and in my heart deep down, I've known
all--all--everything--all the whole awful truth--even if I have not had
the facts as you've had them--you and mother--I suppose."
"You're my fine, brave girl," cried her father, patting her trembling
hand. But he could speak no further.
"Oh, no, I'm not brave--I'm not brave," she answered. "I'm a coward. I
have sat by and watched it all slip away, watched him getting further
and further from me, saw my hold slipping--slipping--slipping, and saw
him getting restless. I've seen one awful--" she paused, shuddered, and
cried, "Oh, you know, father, that other dreadful affair. I saw that
rise, burn itself out and then this one--" she turned away and her body
shook.
In a minute she was herself: "I'm foolish I suppose, but I've never
talked it out before. I won't do it again. I'm all right now." She took
his hands and continued:
"Now, then, tell me--is there any way out? What shall we do to be
saved--Tom and Lila and I?" She hesitated. "I'm afraid--Oh, I know, I
know I don't love Tom any more. How could I--how could I? But some way I
want to mother him. I don't want to see him get clear down. I know this
woman. I know what she means. Let me tell you, father. For two years
she's been playing with Tom like a cat. I knew it when she began. I
can't say how I knew it; but I felt it--felt it reflected in his moods,
saw him nervous and feverish. She's been torturing him, father--she's
strong. Also she's--she's hard. Tom hasn't--well, I mean she's always
kept the upper hand. I know that in my soul. And he's stark, raving mad
somewhere within him." A storm of emotion shook her and then she cried
passionately, "And, oh, father, I want to rescue him--not for myself.
Oh, I don't love him any more. That's all gone. At least not in the old
way, I don't, but he's so sensitive--so easy to hurt. And she's slowly
burning him alive. It's awful."
The little pink face of the Doctor began to harden. His big blue eyes
began to look through narrow slits in his eyelids, and the pudgy,
white-clad figure stood erect. The daughter's voice broke and as she
gripped herself the father reached his bristling pompadour and cried in
wrath, "Let him burn--let him burn, girl--hell's too good for him!"
His voice was high and harsh and merciless. It restored the woman's
poise and she shook her head sorrowfully as she resumed:
"I can't bear to see it; I--I want to shield him--I must--if I can." A
tremor ran through her again. She caught hold of herself, then went on
more calmly. "But things can't go on this way. Here is this box--"
"Child--child," cried the Doctor angrily, "you come right home--right
home," he piped with rising wrath. "Right home to mother and me."
The wife shook her head and replied: "No, father, that's the easy road.
I must take the hard road." Her father's mobile face showed his pain and
the daughter cried: "I know, father--I know how you would have stopped
me before I chose this way. But I did choose and now here is Lila, and
here is a home--a home--our home, father, and I mustn't leave it. Here
is my duty, here in this home, and I must not ran away. I must work out
my life as it is--as before God and Lila--and Tom--yes, Tom, father, as
before all three, I have my responsibility. I must not put away Tom--no
matter--no matter how I feel--no matter what he has done. I won't," she
repeated. "I won't."
The father turned an impatient face to his daughter, and retorted, "You
won't--you won't leave that miserable cur--that--that woman hunting
dog--won't leave--"
The father's rage sputtered on his lips, but the daughter caught his
hand as it was beating his cane on the floor. "Stop, father," she said
gently, "it's something more than women that's wrong with Tom. Women are
merely an outward and visible sign--it's what he believes--and what he
does, living his creed--always following the material thing. As a judge
I thought he would see his way--must see his way to bring justice
here--" She looked into the fume stained sky above South Harvey, and
Foley and Magnus, far down the valley, and tightened her grip on her
father's hands. "But no--no," she cried, "Tom doesn't know justice--he
only sees the law, the law and profits, and prosperity--only the eternal
material. He sits by and sees the company settle for four and five
hundred dollars for the lives of the men it wasted in the mine--yes,
more than sits by--he stands at the door of justice and drives the
widows and children into a settlement like an overseer. And he and Joe
Calvin have some sort of real estate partnership--Oh--I know it's
dishonest, though I don't know how. But it branches so secretly into the
law and it all reaches down into politics. And the whole order here,
father--Daniel Sands paying for politics, paying for government that
makes the laws, paying for mayors and governors that enforce the laws
and paying the judges to back them up--and all that poverty and
wretchedness and wickedness down there and all this beauty and luxury
and material happiness up here. It's all, all wrong, father." Her voice
broke again in sobs, and tears were running down her cheeks as she
continued. "How can we blame Tom for violating his vows to me? Where are
all our vows to God to deal justly with His people--the widows and
orphans and helpless ones, father?" She looked at her father through her
tears, at her father, whose face was agape! He was staring into the
wistaria vines as one who saw his world quaking. A quick bolt of
sympathy shot through the daughter's heart. She patted his limp hands
and said softly, "So--father--I mustn't leave Tom. He's a poor, weak
creature--a rotten stick--and because I know it--I must stay with him!"
* * * * *
Behind the screen of matter, the lusty fates were pulling at the screws
of the rack. "Pull harder," cried the first fate; "the little old
pot-bellied rascal--make him see it: make him see how he warned her
against the symptoms, but not the disease that was festering her lover's
soul!"
"Turn yourself," cried the second, "make the forehead sweat as he sees
how he has been delivering laws in a basket to grind iniquity through
Tom Van Dorn's mill! Turn--turn, turn you lout!"
"And you," cried the third fate at the screw to the first, "twist that
heart-string, twist it hard when he sees his daughter's broken face and
hears her sobbing!"
But the angels, the pitying angels, loosened the cords of the rack with
their gentle tears.
* * * * *
As the taut threads of the rack slackened, he heard the soft voice of
his daughter saying: "But of course, the most important thing is
Lila--not that she means a great deal to him now. He doesn't care much
for children. He doesn't want them--children."
She turned upon her father and with anguished voice and with all her
denied motherhood, she cried: "O, father--I want them--lots of
them--arms full of them all the time."
She stretched out her arms. "Oh, it's been so hard, to feel my youth
passing, and only one child--I wanted a whole house full. I'm strong; I
could bear them. I don't mind anything--I just want my babies--my babies
that never have come."
And then the pitiless fates turned the screws of the rack again and the
father burst forth in his vain grief, with his high, soft, woman's
voice. "I wonder--I wonder--I wonder, what God has in waiting for you to
make up for this?"
Before she could answer, the telephone bell rang. The wife stepped to
the instrument. "Well," she said when she came back. "The hour has
struck; the expressman went to Tom for the express charges; he knows the
package is here and," she added after a sigh, "he knows that I know all
about it." She even smiled rather sadly, "So he's coming out--on his
wheel."