IN WHICH WE WITNESS A CEREMONY IN THE TEMPLE OF LOVE
George Brotherton took the Captain to the street car that night. They
rode face to face and all that the Captain had seen and more, outside
the Vanderbilt House, and all that George Brotherton had seen within its
portals, a street car load of Harvey people heard with much "'Y gorying"
and "Well--saying," as the car rattled through the fields and into
Market Street. Amiable satisfaction with the night's work beamed in the
moon-face of Mr. Brotherton and the Captain was drunk with martial
spirit. He shouldered his gun and marched down the full length of the
car and off, dragging Brotherton at his chariot wheels like a spoil of
battle.
"Come on, George," called the Captain as the audience in the car smiled.
"Young man, I need you to tell the girls that their pa ain't gone stark,
staring mad--eh? And I want to show 'em a hero!--What say? A genuine
hee-ro!"
It was half an hour after the Captain bursting upon his hearthstone like
a martial sky rocket, had exploded the last of his blue and green
candles. The three girls, sitting around the cold base burner, beside
and above which Mr. Brotherton stood in statuesque repose, heard the
Captain's tale and the protests of Mr. Brotherton much as Desdemona
heard of Othello's perils. And when the story was finished and retold
and refinished and the Captain was rising with what the girls called the
hash-look in his snappy little eyes, Martha saw Ruth swallow a vast yawn
and Martha turned to Emma an appreciative smile at Ruth's discomfiture.
But Emma's eyes were fixed upon Mr. Brotherton and her face turned
toward him with an aspect of tender adoration. Mr. Brotherton, who was
not without appreciation of his own heroic caste, saw the yawn and the
smile and then he saw the face of Emma Morton.
It came over him in a flash of surprise that Ruth and Martha were young
things, not of his world; and that Emma was of his world and very much
for him in his world. It got to him through the busy guard of his outer
consciousness with a great rush of tenderness that Emma really cared for
the dangers he had faced and was proud of the part he had played. And
Mr. Brotherton knew that, with Ruth and Martha, it was a tale that was
told.
As he saw her standing among her sisters, his heart hid from him the
little school teacher with crow's feet at her eyes, but revealed instead
the glowing heart of an exalted woman, who did not realize that she was
uncovering her love, a woman who in the story she had heard was living
for a moment in high romance. Her beloved, imperiled, was restored to
her; the lost was found and the journey which ends so happily in lovers'
meetings was closing.
His eyes filled and his voice needed a cough to prime it. The fire,
glowing in Emma Morton's eyes, steamed up George Brotherton's will--the
will which had sent him crashing forward in life from a train peddler to
a purveyor of literature and the arts in Harvey. Deeds followed impulses
with him swiftly, so in an instant the floor of the Morton cottage was
shaking under his tread and with rash indifference, high and heroic,
ignoring with equal disdain two tittering girls, an astonished little
old man and a cold base burner, the big man stalked across the room and
cried:
"Well, say--why, Emma--my dear!" He had her hands in his and was putting
his arm about her as he bellowed: "Girls--" his voice broke under its
heavy emotional load. "Why, dammit all, I'm your long-lost brother
George! Cap, kick me, kick me--me the prize jackass--the grand
sweepstake prize all these years!"
"No, no, George," protested the wriggling maiden. "Not--not here! Not--"
"Don't you 'no--no' me, Emmy Morton," roared the big man, pulling her to
his side. "Girl--girl, what do we care?" He gave her a resounding kiss
and gazed proudly around and exclaimed, "Ruthie, run and call up the
_Times_ and give 'em the news. Martha, call up old man Adams--and
I'll take a bell to-morrow and go calling it up and down Market Street.
Then, Cap, you tell Mrs. Herdicker. This is the big news." As he spoke
he was gathering the amazed Ruth and Martha under his wing and kissing
them, crying, "Take that one for luck--and that to grow on." Then he let
out his laugh. But in vain did Emma Morton try to squirm from his grasp;
in vain she tried to quiet his clatter. "Say, girls, cluster around
Brother George's knee--or knees--and let's plan the wedding."
"You are going to have a wedding, aren't you, Emma?" burst in Ruth, and
George cut in:
"Wedding--why, this is to be the big show--the laughing show, all the
wonders of the world and marvels of the deep under one canvas. Why,
girls--"
"Well, Emma, you've just got to wear a veil," laughed Martha
hysterically.
"Veil nothing--shame on you, Martha Morton. Why, George hasn't asked--"
"Now ain't it the truth!" roared Brotherton. "Why veil! Veil?" he
exclaimed. "She's going to wear seven veils and forty flower
girls--forty--count 'em--forty! And Morty Sands best man--"
"Keep still, George," interrupted Ruth. "Now, Emma, when--when, I say,
are you going to resign your school?"
Mr. Brotherton gave the youngest and most practical Miss Morton a look
of quick intelligence. "Don't you fret; Ruthie, I'm hog tied by the
silken skein of love. She's going to resign her school to-morrow."
"Indeed I am not, George Brotherton--and if you people don't hush--"
But Mr. Brotherton interrupted the bride-to-be, incidentally kissing her
by way of punctuation, and boomed on in his poster tone, "Morty Sands
best man with his gym class from South Harvey doing ground and lofty
tumbling up and down the aisles in pink tights. Doc Jim in linen pants
whistling the Wedding March to Kenyon Adams's violin obligato, with the
General hitting the bones at the organ! The greatest show on earth and
the baby elephant in evening clothes prancing down the aisle like the
behemoth of holy writ! Well, say--say, I tell you!"
The Captain touched the big man on the shoulder apologetically. "George,
of course, if you could wait a year till the Household Horse gets going
good, I could stake you for a trip to the Grand Canyon myself, but just
now, 'y gory, man!"
"Grand Canyon!" laughed Brotherton. "Why, Cap, we're going to go seven
times around the world and twice to the moon before we turn up in
Harvey. Grand Canyon--"
"Well, at least, father," cried Martha, "we'll get her that tan
traveling dress and hat she's always wanted."
"But I tell you girls to keep still," protested the bride-to-be, still
in the prospective groom's arms and proud as Punch of her position.
"Why, George hasn't even asked me and--"
"Neither have you asked me, Emma, ''eathen idol made of mud what she
called the Great God Buhd.'" He stooped over tenderly and when his face
rose, he said softly, "And a plucky lot she cared for tan traveling
dresses when I kissed her where she stud!" And then and there before the
Morton family assembled, he kissed his sweetheart again, a middle-aged
man unashamed in his joy.
It was a tremendous event in the Morton family and the Captain felt his
responsibility heavily. The excited girls, half-shocked and half-amused
and wholly delighted, tried to lead the Captain away and leave the
lovers alone after George had hugged them all around and kissed them
again for luck. But the Captain refused to be led. He had many things to
say. He had to impress upon Mr. Brotherton, now that he was about to
enter the family, the great fact that the Mortons were about to come
into riches. Hence a dissertation on the Household Horse and its growing
popularity among makers of automobiles; Nate Perry's plans in blue print
for the new factory were brought in, and a wilderness of detail spread
before an ardent lover, keen for his first hour alone with the woman who
had touched his bachelor heart. A hundred speeches came to his lips and
dissolved--first formal and ardent love vows--while the Captain rattled
on recounting familiar details of his dream.
Then Ruth and Martha rose in their might and literally dragged their
father from the room and upstairs. Half an hour later the two lovers in
the doorway heard a stir in the house behind them. They heard the
Captain cry:
"The hash--George, she's the best girl--'Y gory, the best girl in the
world. But she will forget to chop the hash over night!"
As George Brotherton, bumping his head upon the eternal stars, turned
into the street, he saw the great black hulk of the Van Dorn house among
the trees. He smiled as he wondered how the ceremonies were proceeding
in the Temple of Love that night.
It was not a ceremony fit for smiles, but rather for the tears of gods
and men, that the priest and priestess had performed. Margaret Van Dorn
had taken Kenyon home, then dropped Lila at the Nesbit door as she
returned from South Harvey. When she found that her husband had not
reached home, she ran to her room to fortify herself for the meeting
with him. And she found her fortifications in the farthest corner of the
bottom drawer of her dresser. From its hiding place she brought forth a
little black box and from the box a brown pellet. This fortification had
been her refuge for over a year when the stress of life in the Temple of
Love was about to overcome her. It gave her courage, quickened her wits
and loosened her tongue. Always she retired to her fortress when the
combat in the Temple threatened to strain her nerves. So she had worn a
beaten path of habit to her refuge.
Then she made herself presentable; took care of her hair, smoothed her
face at the mirror and behind the shield of the drug she waited. She
heard the old car rattling up the street, and braced herself for the
struggle. She knew--she had learned by bitter experience that the first
blow in a rough and tumble was half the battle. As he came raging
through the door, slamming it behind him, she faced him, and before he
could speak, she sneered:
"Ah, you coward--you sneaking, cur coward--who would murder a child to
win--Ach!" she cried. "You are loathsome--get away from me!"
The furious man rushed toward her with his hands clinched. She stood
with her arms akimbo and said slowly:
"You try that--just try that."
He stopped. She came over and rubbed her body against his, purring, with
a pause after each word:
"You are a coward--aren't you?"
She put her fingers under his jaw, and sneered, "If ever you lay hands
on me--just one finger on me, Tom Van Dorn--" She did not finish her
sentence.
The man uttered a shrill, insane cry of fury and whirled and would have
run, but she caught him, and with a gross physical power, that he knew
and dreaded, she swung him by force into a chair.
"Now," she panted, "sit down like a man and tell me what you are going
to do about it? Look up--dawling!" she cried, as Van Dorn slumped in the
chair.
The man gave her a look of hate. His eyes, that showed his soul, burned
with rage and from his face, so mobile and expressive, a devil of malice
gaped impotently at his wife, as he sat, a heap of weak vanity, before
her. He pulled himself up and exclaimed:
"Well, there's one thing damn sure, I'll not live with you any more--no
man would respect me if I did after to-night."
"And no man," she smiled and said in her mocking voice, "will respect
you if you leave me. How Laura's friends will laugh when you go, and say
that Tom Van Dorn simply can't live with any one. How the Nesbit crowd
will titter when you leave me, and say Tom Van Dorn got just what he had
coming! Why--go on--leave me--if you dare! You know you don't dare to.
It's for better or worse, Tom, until death do us part--dawling!"
She laughed and winked indecently at him.
"I will leave you, I tell you, I will leave you," he burst forth, half
rising. "All the devils of hell can't keep me here."
"Except just this one," she mocked. "Oh, you might leave me and go with
your present mistress! By the way, who is our latest conquest--dawling?
I'm sure that would be fine. Wouldn't they cackle--the dear old hens
whose claws scratch your heart so every day?" She leaned over, caressing
him devilishly, and cried, "For you know when you get loose from me,
you'll pretty nearly have to marry the other lady--wouldn't that be
nice? 'Through sickness and health, for good or for ill,'--isn't it
nice?" she scoffed. Then she turned on him savagely, "So you will try to
hide behind a child, and use him for a shield--Oh, you cur--you
despicable dog," she scorned. Then she drew herself up and spoke in a
passion that all but hissed at him. "I tell you, Tom Van Dorn, if you
ever, in this row that's coming, harm a hair of that boy's head--you'll
carry the scar of that hair to your grave. I mean it."
Van Dorn sprang up. He cried: "What business is it of yours? You she
devil, what's the boy to you? Can't I run my own business? Why do you
care so much for the Adams brat? Answer me, I tell you--answer me," he
cried, his wrath filling his voice.
"Oh, nothing, dawling," she made a wicked, obscene eye at him, and
simpered: "Oh, nothing, Tom--only you see I might be his mother!"
She played with the vulgar diamonds that hid her fingers and looked down
coyly as she smiled into his gray face.
"Great God," he whispered, "were you born a--" he stopped, ashamed of
the word in his mouth.
The woman kept twinkling her indecent eyes at him and put her head on
one side as she replied: "Whatever I am, I'm the wife of Judge Van Dorn;
so I'm quite respectable now--whatever I was once. Isn't that lawvly,
dawling!" She began talking in her baby manner.
Her husband was staring at her with doubt and fear and weak, footless
wrath playing like scurrying clouds across his proud, shamed face.
"Oh, Margaret, tell me the truth," he moaned, as the fear of the truth
baffled him--a thousand little incidents that had attracted his notice
and passed to be stirred up by a puzzled consciousness came rushing into
his memory--and the doubt and dread overcame even his hate for a moment
and he begged. But she laughed, and scouted the idea and then called out
in anguish:
"Why--why have you a child to love--to love and live for even if you
cannot be with her--why can I have none?"
Her voice had broken and she felt she was losing her grip on herself,
and she knew that her time was limited, that her fortifications were
about to crumble. She sat down before her husband.
"Tom," she said coldly, "no matter why I'm fond of Kenyon Adams--that's
my business; Lila is your business, and I don't interfere, do I? Well,"
she said, looking the man in the eyes with a hard, mean, significant
stare, "you let the boy alone--do you understand? Do what you please
with Grant or Jasper or the old man; but Kenyon--hands off!"
She rose, slipped quickly to the stairway, and as she ran up she called,
"Good night, dawling." Before he was on his feet he heard the lock click
in her door, and with a horrible doubt, an impotent rage, and a mantling
shame stifling him, he went upstairs and from her distant room she heard
the bolt click in the door of his room. And behind the bolted doors
stood two ghosts--the ghosts of rejected children, calling across the
years, while the smudge of the extinguished torch of life choked two
angry hearts.