KATHERINE COMES HOME
Next morning when the Limited slowed down beside the old frame
station--a new one of brick was rising across the tracks--a young
woman descended from a Pullman at the front of the train. She was
lithe and graceful, rather tall and slender, and was dressed with
effective simplicity in a blue tailored suit and a tan straw hat with
a single blue quill. Her face was flushed, and there glowed an
expectant brightness in her brown eyes, as though happiness and
affection were upon the point of bubbling over.
Standing beside her suit-case, she eagerly scanned the figures about
the station. Three or four swagger young drummers had scrambled off
the smoker, and these ambassadors of fashion as many hotel bus drivers
were inviting with importunate hospitality to honour their respective
board and bed. There was the shirt-sleeved figure of Jim Ludlow,
ticket agent and tenor of the Presbyterian choir. And leaning
cross-legged beneath the station eaves, giving the effect of
supporting the low roof, were half a dozen slowly masticating, soberly
contemplative gentlemen--loose-jointed caryatides, whose lank
sculpture forms the sole and invariable ornamentation of the facades
of all Western stations. But nowhere did the young woman's expectant
eyes alight upon the person whom they sought.
The joyous response to welcome, which had plainly trembled at the tips
of her being, subsided, and in disappointment she picked up her bag
and was starting for a street car, when up the long, broad platform
there came hurrying a short-legged little man, with a bloodshot,
watery eye. He paused hesitant at a couple of yards, smiled
tentatively, and the remnant of an old glove fumbled the brim of a
rumpled, semi-bald object that in its distant youth had probably been
a silk hat.
The young woman smiled back and held out her hand.
"How do you do, Mr. Huggins."
"How de do, Miss Katherine," he stammered.
"Have you seen father anywhere?" she asked anxiously.
"No. Your aunt just sent me word I was to meet you and fetch you home.
She couldn't leave Doctor West."
"Is father ill?" she cried.
The old cabman fumbled his ancient headgear.
"No--he ain't--he ain't exactly sick. He's just porely. I guess it's
only--only a bad headache."
He hastily picked up her suit-case and led her past the sidling
admiration of the drummers, those sovereign critics of Western
femininity, to the back of the station where stood a tottering surrey
and a dingy gray nag, far gone in years, that leaned upon its shafts
as though on crutches. Katherine clambered in, and the drooping animal
doddered along a street thickly overhung with the exuberant May-green
of maples.
She gazed with ardent eyes at the familiar frame cottages, in some of
which had lived school and high-school friends, sitting comfortably
back amid their little squares of close-cropped lawn. She liked New
York with that adoptive liking one acquires for the place one chooses
from among all others for the passing of one's life; but her affection
remained warm and steadfast with this old town of her girlhood.
"Oh, but it feels good to be back in Westville again!" she cried to
the cabman.
"I reckon it must. I guess it's all of two years sence you been home."
"Two years, yes. It's going to be a great celebration this afternoon,
isn't it?"
"Yes'm--very big"--and he hastily struck the ancient steed. "Get-ep
there, Jenny!"
Mr. Huggins's mare turned off Station Avenue, and Katharine excitedly
stared ahead beneath the wide-boughed maples for the first glimpse of
her home. At length it came into view--one of those big, square,
old-fashioned wooden houses, built with no perceptible architectural
idea beyond commodious shelter. She had thought her father might
possibly stumble out to greet her, but no one stood waiting at the
paling gate.
She sprang lightly from the carriage as it drew up beside the curb,
and leaving Mr. Huggins to follow with her bag she hurried up the
brick-paved path to the house. As she crossed the porch, a slight,
gray, Quakerish little lady, with a white kerchief folded across her
breast, pushed open the screen door. Her Katherine gathered into her
arms and kissed repeatedly.
"I'm so glad to see you, auntie!" she cried. "How are you?"
"Very well," the old woman answered in a thin, tremulous voice. "How
is thee?"
"Me? Oh, you know nothing's ever wrong with me!" She laughed in her
buoyant young strength. "But you, auntie?" She grew serious. "You look
very tired--and very, very worn and worried. But I suppose it's the
strain of father's headache--poor father! How is he?"
"I--I think he's feeling some better," the old woman faltered. "He's
still lying down."
They had entered the big, airy sitting-room. Katherine's hat and coat
went flying upon the couch.
"Now, before I so much as ask you a question, or tell you a thing,
Aunt Rachel, I'm going up to see dear old father."
She made for the stairway, but her aunt caught her arm in
consternation.
"Wait, Katherine! Thee musn't see him yet."
"Why, what's the matter?" Katherine asked in surprise.
"It--it would be better for him if thee didn't disturb him."
"But, auntie--you know no one can soothe him as I can when he has a
headache!"
"But he's asleep just now. He didn't sleep a minute all night."
"Then of course I'll wait." Katherine turned back. "Has he suffered
much----"
She broke off. Her aunt was gazing at her in wide-eyed, helpless
misery.
"Why--why--what's the matter, auntie?"
Her aunt did not answer her.
"Tell me! What is it? What's wrong?"
Still the old woman did not speak.
"Something has happened to father!" cried Katherine. She clutched her
aunt's thin shoulders. "Has something happened to father?"
The old woman trembled all over, and tears started from her mild eyes.
"Yes," she quavered.
"But what is it?" Katherine asked frantically. "Is he very sick?"
"It's--it's worse than that."
"Please! What is it then?"
"I haven't the heart to tell thee," she said piteously, and she sank
into a chair and covered her face.
Katherine caught her arm and fairly shook her in the intensity of her
demand.
"Tell me! I can't stand this another instant!"
"There--there isn't going to be any celebration."
"No celebration?"
"Yesterday--thy father--was arrested."
"Arrested!"
"And indicted for accepting a bribe."
Katherine shrank back.
"Oh!" she whispered. "Oh!" Then her slender body tensed, and her dark
eyes flashed fire. "Father accept a bribe! It's a lie! A lie!"
"It hardly seems true to me, either."
"It's a lie!" repeated Katherine. "But is he--is he locked up?"
"They let me go his bail."
Again Katherine caught her aunt's arm.
"Come--tell me all about it!"
"Please don't make me. I--I can't."
"But I must know!"
"It's in the newspapers--they're on the centre-table."
Katherine turned to the table and seized a paper. At sight of the
sheet she had picked up, the old woman hurried across to her in
dismay.
"Don't read that _Express_!" she cried, and she sought to draw the
paper from Katherine's hands. "Read the _Clarion_. It's ever so much
kinder."
But Katherine had already seen the headline that ran across the top of
the _Express_. It staggered her. She gasped at the blow, but she held
on to the paper.
"I'll read the worst they have to say," she said.
Her aunt dropped into a chair and covered her eyes to avoid sight of
the girl's suffering. The story, in its elements, was a commonplace to
Katherine; in her work with the Municipal League she had every few
days met with just such a tale as this. But that which is a
commonplace when strangers are involved, becomes a tragedy when loved
ones are its actors. So, as she read the old, old story, Katherine
trembled as with mortal pain.
But sickening as was the story in itself, it was made even more
agonizing to her by the manner of the _Express's_ telling. Bruce's
typewriter had never been more impassioned. The story was in
heavy-faced type, the lines two columns wide; and in a "box" in the
very centre of the first page was an editorial denouncing Doctor West
and demanding for him such severe punishment as would make future
traitors forever fear to sell their city. Article and editorial were
rousing and vivid, brilliant and bitter--as mercilessly stinging as a
salted whip-lash cutting into bare flesh.
Katherine writhed with the pain of it. "Oh!" she cried. "It's brutal!
Brutal! Who could have had the heart to write like that about father?"
"The editor, Arnold Bruce," answered her aunt.
"Oh, he's a brute! If I could tell him to his face----" Her whole
slender being flamed with anger and hatred, and she crushed the paper
in a fierce hand and flung it to the floor.
Then, slowly, her face faded to an ashen gray. She steadied herself on
the back of a chair and stared in desperate, fearful supplication at
the bowed figure of the older woman.
"Auntie?" she breathed.
"Yes?"
"Auntie"--eyes and voice were pleading--"auntie, the--the things--this
paper says--they never happened, did they?"
The old head nodded.
"Oh! oh!" she gasped. She wavered, sank stricken into a chair, and
buried her face in her arms. "Poor father!" she moaned brokenly. "Poor
father!"
There was silence for a moment, then the old woman rose and gently put
a hand upon the quivering young shoulder.
"Don't, dear! Even if it did happen, I can't believe it. Thy
father----"
At that moment, overhead, there was a soft noise, as of feet placed
upon the floor. Katherine sprang up.
"Father!" she breathed. There began a restless, slippered pacing.
"Father!" she repeated, and sprang for the stairway and rapidly ran
up.
At her father's door she paused, hand over her heart. She feared to
enter to her father--feared lest she should find his head bowed in
acknowledged shame. But she summoned her strength and noiselessly
opened the door. It was a large room, a hybrid of bedroom and study,
whose drawn shades had dimmed the brilliant morning into twilight. An
open side door gave a glimpse of glass jars, bellying retorts and
other paraphernalia of the laboratory.
Walking down the room was a tall, stooping, white-haired figure in a
quilted dressing-gown. He reached the end of the room, turned about,
then sighted her in the doorway.
"Katherine!" he cried with quavering joy, and started toward her; but
he came abruptly to a pause, hesitating, accused man that he was, to
make advances.
Her sickening fear was for the instant swept away by a rising flood of
love. She sprang forward and threw her arms about his neck.
"Father!" she sobbed. "Oh, father!"
She felt his tears upon her forehead, felt his body quiver, and felt
his hand gently stroke her back.
"You've heard--then?" he asked, at length.
"Yes--from the papers."
He held her close, but for a moment did not speak.
"It isn't a--a very happy celebration--I've prepared for you."
She could only cry convulsively, "Poor father!"
"You never dreamt," he quavered, "your old father--could do a thing
like this--did you?"
She did not answer. She trembled a moment longer on his shoulder;
then, slowly and with fear, she lifted her head and gazed into his
face. The face was worn--she thrilled with pain to see how sadly worn
it was!--but though tear-wet and working with emotion, it met her look
with steadiness. It was the same simple, kindly, open face that she
had known since childhood.
There was a sudden wild leaping within her. She clutched his
shoulders, and her voice rang out in joyous conviction:
"Father--you are not guilty!"
"You believe in me, then?"
"You are not guilty!" she cried with mounting joy.
He smiled faintly.
"Why, of course not, my child."
"Oh, father!" And again she caught him in a close embrace.
After a moment she leaned back in his arms.
"I'm so happy--so happy! Forgive me, daddy dear, that I could doubt
you even for a minute."
"How could you help it? They say the evidence against me is very
strong."
"I should have believed you innocent against all the evidence in the
world! And I do, and shall--no matter what they may say!"
"Bless you, Katherine!"
"But come--tell me how it all came about. But, first, let's brighten
up the room a little."
So great was her relief that her spirits had risen as though some
positive blessing had befallen her. She crossed lightly to the big bay
window, raised the shades and threw up the sashes. The sunlight
slanted down into the room and lay in a dazzling yellow square upon
the floor. The soft breeze sighed through the two tall pines without
and bore into them the perfumed freshness of the spring.
"There now, isn't that better?" she said, smiling brightly.
"That's just what your home-coming has done for me," he said
gratefully--"let in the sunlight."
"Come, come--don't try to turn the head of your offspring with
flattery! Now, sir, sit down," and she pointed to a chair at his desk,
which stood within the bay window.
"First,"--with his gentle smile--"if I may, I'd like to take a look at
my daughter."
"I suppose a father's wish is a daughter's command," she complained.
"So go ahead."
He moved to the window, so that the light fell full upon her, and for
a long moment gazed into her face. The brow was low and broad. Over
the white temples the heavy dark hair waved softly down, to be
fastened in a simple knot low upon the neck, showing in its full
beauty the rare modelling of her head. The eyes were a rich, warm,
luminous brown, fringed with long lashes, and in them lurked all
manner of fathomless mysteries. The mouth was soft, yet full and
firm--a real mouth, such as Nature bestows upon her real women. It was
a face of freshness and youth and humour, and now was tremulous with a
smiling, tear-wet tenderness.
"I think," said her father, slowly and softly, "that my daughter is
very beautiful."
"There--enough of your blarney!" She flushed with pleasure, and
pressed her fresh cheek against his withered one. "You dear old
father, you!"
She drew him to his desk, which was strewn with a half-finished
manuscript on the typhoid bacillus, and upon which stood a faded
photograph of a young woman, near Katherine's years and made in her
image, dressed in the tight-fitting "basque" of the early eighties.
Westville knew that Doctor West had loved his wife dearly, but the
town had never surmised a tenth of the grief that had closed darkly in
upon him when typhoid fever had carried her away while her young
womanhood was in its freshest bloom.
Katherine pressed him down into his chair at the desk, sat down in one
beside it, and took his hand.
"Now, father, tell me just how things stand."
"You know everything already," said he.
"Not everything. I know the charges of the other side, and I know your
innocence. But I do not know your explanation of the affair."
He ran his free hand through his silver hair, and his face grew
troubled.
"My explanation agrees with what you have read, except that I did not
know I was being bribed."
"H'm!" Her brow wrinkled thoughtfully and she was silent for a moment.
"Suppose we go back to the very beginning, father, and run over the
whole affair. Try to remember. In the early stages of negotiations,
did the agent say anything to you about money?"
He did not speak for a minute or more.
"Now that I think it over, he did say something about its being worth
my while if his filter was accepted."
"That was an overture to bribe you. And what did you say to him?"
"I don't remember. You see, at the time, his offer, if it was one, did
not make any impression on me. I believe I didn't say anything to him
at all."
"But you approved his filter?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Marcy says in the _Express_, and you admit it, that he offered
you a bribe. You approved his filter. On the face of it, speaking
legally, that looks bad, father."
"But how could I honestly keep from approving his filter, when it was
the very best on the market for our water?" demanded Doctor West.
"Then how did you come to accept that money?"
The old man's face cleared.
"I can explain that easily. Some time ago the agent said something
about the Acme Filter Company wishing to make a little donation to our
hospital. I'm one of the directors, you know. So, when he handed me
that envelope, I supposed it was the contribution to the
hospital--perhaps twenty-five or fifty dollars."
"And that is all?"
"That's the whole truth. But when I explained the matter to the
prosecuting attorney, he just smiled."
"I know it's the truth, because you say it." She affectionately patted
the hand that she held. "But, again speaking legally, it wouldn't
sound very plausible to an outsider. But how do you explain the
situation?"
"I think the whole affair must be just a mistake."
"Possibly. But if so, you'll have to be able to prove it." She thought
a space. "Could it be that this is a manufactured charge?"
Doctor West's eyes widened with amazement.
"Why, of course not! You have forgotten that the man who makes the
charge is Mr. Sherman. You surely do not think he would let himself be
involved in anything that he did not believe to be in the highest
degree honourable?"
"I do not know him very well. During the four years he has been here,
I have met him only a few times."
"But you know what your dearest friend thinks of him."
"Yes, I know Elsie considers her husband to be an ecclesiastical Sir
Galahad. And I must admit that he has seemed to me the highest type of
the modern young minister."
"Then you agree with me, that Mr. Sherman is thoroughly honest in this
affair? That his only motive is a sense of public duty?"
"Yes. I cannot conceive of him knowingly doing a wrong."
"That's what has forced me to think it's only just a mistake," said
her father.
"You may be right." She considered the idea. "But what does your
lawyer say?"
His pale cheeks flushed.
"I have no lawyer," he said slowly.
"I see. You were waiting to consult me about whom to retain."
He shook his head.
"Then you have approached some one?"
"I have spoken to Hopkins, and Williams, and Freeman. They all----" He
hesitated.
"Yes?"
"They all said they could not take my case."
"Could not take your case!" she cried. "Why not?"
"They made different excuses. But their excuses were not their real
reason."
"And what was that?"
The old man flushed yet more painfully.
"I guess you do not fully realize the situation, Katherine. I don't
need to tell you that a wave of popular feeling against political
corruption is sweeping across the country. This is the first big case
that has come out in Westville, and the city is stirred up over this
as it hasn't been stirred in years. The way the _Express_----You saw
the _Express_?"
Her hands instinctively clenched.
"It was awful! Awful!"
"The way the _Express_ has handled it has especially--well, you
see----"
"You mean those lawyers are afraid to take the case?"
Doctor West nodded.
Katherine's dark eyes glowed with wrath.
"Did you try any one else?"
"Mr. Green came to see me. But----"
"Of course not! It would kill your case to have a shyster represent
you." She gripped his hand, and her voice rang out: "Father, I'm glad
those men refused you. We're going to get for you the biggest man, the
biggest lawyer, in Westville."
"You mean Mr. Blake?"
"Yes, Mr. Blake."
"I thought of him at first, of course. But I--well, I hesitated to
approach him."
"Hesitated? Why?"
"Well, you see," he stammered, "I remembered about your refusing him,
and I felt----"
"That would never make any difference to him," she cried. "He's too
much of a gentleman. Besides, that was five years ago, and he has
forgotten it."
"Then you think he'll take the case?"
"Of course, he'll take it! He'll take it because he's a big man, and
because you need him, and because he's no coward. And with the biggest
man in Westville on your side, you'll see how public opinion will
right-about face!"
She sprang up, aglow with energy. "I'm going to see him this minute!
With his help, we'll have this matter cleared up before you know it,
and"--smiling lightly--"just you see, daddy, all Westville will be out
there in the front yard, tramping over Aunt Rachel's sweet williams,
begging to be allowed to come and kiss your hand!"
He kissed her own. He rose, and a smile broke through the clouds of
his face.
"You've been home only an hour, and I feel that a thousand years have
been lifted off me."
"That's right--and just keep on feeling a thousand years younger."
She smiled caressingly, and began to twist a finger in a buttonhole of
his coat. "U'm--don't you think, daddy, that such a very young
gentleman as you are, such a regular roaring young blade,
might--u'm--might----"
"Might what, my dear?"
"Might----" She leaned forward and whispered in his ear.
A hand went to his throat.
"Eh, why, is this one----"
"I'm afraid it is, daddy--very!"
"We've been so upset I guess your aunt must have forgotten to put out
a clean one for me."
"And I suppose it never occurred to the profound scientific intellect
that it was possible for one to pull out a drawer and take out a
collar for one's self." She crossed to the bureau and came back with a
clean collar. "Now, sir--up with your chin!" With quick hands she
replaced the offending collar with the fresh one, tied the tie and
gave it a perfecting little pat. "There--that's better! And now I must
be off. I'll send around a few policemen to keep the crowds off Aunt
Rachel's flower-beds."
And pressing on his pale cheek another kiss, and smiling at him from
the door, she hurried out.