CONSTANCE EMORY and her mother, waiting quietly in their own home,
heard the cheers when the noise from Dan's shrieking engine reached
the crowd of desperate men on the square. Then presently they heard the
rattle and clash of the fire-engines as they were dragged through the
street, and were aware that the relief train had arrived, but it was not
until the doctor came in some time long after midnight that they knew
who had been the savior of the town.
“It's all over, dear. The fire is under control,” he said, cheerfully,
addressing his wife. “I guess we can go to bed now and feel pretty sure
we won't be burned out before morning.”
Constance put down the book she had been trying to read, and rose
tiredly and stiffly from her chair beside the table.
“Then the train did come, after all?” she said. “Yes, but not a moment
too soon. I tell you we can't be grateful enough. I've been with Oakley
and his father; that's what kept me,” he explained.
“Oakley!” Constance cried, in amazement. “You don't mean--”
“Yes. Didn't you know that it was Oakley and his father who brought
the relief train? The old man is dead. He was killed on the way. It's a
miracle that either of them got through alive. Hadn't you heard?”
Constance put out her hands blindly, for a sudden mist had come before
her eyes.
“Father, you don't mean that Mr. Oakley has returned to Antioch--that he
is here now?”
“Yes, it seems no one else would come. Oakley was in Chicago when he
first heard of the fire, and started immediately for Buckhorn, where he
found the relief train. Oddly enough, he found his father there, too.”
“Then there was something to the old man, after all,” said Mrs. Emory,
whose sympathies were as generous as they were easily aroused.
“A good deal, I should say. He must have known that he was coming back
to arrest and almost certain conviction.”
Constance's glance searched her father's face. She wanted to hear more
of Oakley. Her heart was hungering for news of this man who had risked
his life to save them. All her lingering tenderness--the unwilling
growth of many days--was sweeping away the barriers of her pride. “Mr.
Oakley was not hurt?” she questioned, breathlessly, pale to the lips.
“He is pretty badly shaken up, and no wonder, but he will be all right
in the morning.”
“Where is he now?” she asked.
Her father turned to her.
“Oakley--You look tired out, Constance. Do go to bed. I'll tell you all
about it in the morning.”
“Where is he now, papa?” she questioned, going to his side and clasping
her hands about his arm.
“Down at the shop. They carried his father there from the train.”
“Why didn't you have them bring him here?” said Mrs. Emory, quickly.
“After this I won't listen to a word against either of them. I would
like to show the town just how we feel in the matter.”
“I suggested it, but Oakley wouldn't hear to it. But don't worry about
the town. It's gone wild. You should have seen the crowd on the platform
when it saw Oakley in the engine-cab. It went stark mad.”
Again Constance's eyes swam with tears. The strike, the murder of Ryder,
the fire, had each seemed in turn a part of the tragedy of her life at
Antioch, but Oakley's return was wholly glorious.
Her father added, “I shall see Oakley in the morning, and learn if we
can be of any service to him.”
A little later, when Constance went to her own room, she drew forward a
chair and seated herself by the window. Across the town, on the edge of
the “flats,” she saw dimly the long, dark outline of the railroad shop,
with its single tall chimney. She thought of Oakley as alone there
keeping watch at the side of the grim old murderer, who had so
splendidly redeemed himself by this last sacrifice.
Great clouds of black smoke were still rolling over the town, and the
woods were still blazing fiercely in the distance. Beyond her window she
heard the call of frightened birds, as they fluttered to and fro in the
dull red light, and farther off, in the North End, the muffled throbbing
of the fire-engines.
If she had had any doubts as to her feeling for Oakley, these doubts
were now a thing of the past. She knew that she loved him. She had been
petty and vain; she had put the small things of life against the great,
and this was her punishment. She tried to comfort herself with the
thought that she should see him in the morning; then she could tell him
all. But what could she tell him? The time had gone by when she could
tell him anything.
It was almost morning when she undressed and threw herself down on her
bed. She was disconsolate and miserable, and the future seemed quite
barren of hope or happiness. Love had come to her, and she had not known
its presence. Yes, she would tell Oakley that she had been little and
narrow and utterly unworthy. He had cared for her, and perhaps he would
understand. She fell asleep thinking this, and did not waken until her
mother called her for breakfast.
“I am waiting for your father. He has gone down to see Mr. Oakley,” Mrs.
Emory said when she entered the dining-room. Constance glanced at the
table.
“Is he going to bring Mr. Oakley back with him?” she asked, nervously.
“He expected to. I declare, Constance, you look worn out. Didn't you
sleep well?”
“No, not very. I wonder if they are coming?”
“You might go look,” said her mother, and Constance hurried into the
parlor. She was just in time to see her father enter the gate. He was
alone. Constance flew to the front door and threw it open.
“He wouldn't come?” she cried, breathlessly.
“He's gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes, a train was made up early this morning, and he has returned to
Buckhorn--Why, what's the matter, Constance?”
For Constance, with a little gasp of dismay, had slipped down into a
chair, with her hands before her face.
“What is it, dear?” he questioned, anxiously. But she gave him no
answer. She was crying softly, unrestrainedly. It was all over. Oakley
was gone, and with him went her only hope of happiness. Yet more keen
than her sense of pain and personal loss was her regret that he would
never understand that she respected and admired him as he deserved.
“I am sorry, Constance, but I didn't know that you especially wanted to
see him,” said the doctor, awkwardly, but with a dawning comprehension
of what it all meant. She made no answer.
“What is it, dear?” he repeated.
“Oh, nothing. I wanted to tell him about something; that is all. It
doesn't matter now.” She glanced up into his face with a sudden doubt.
“You didn't see him--you are quite sure he went away without your seeing
him--you are not deceiving me?”
“Why, of course, Constance, but he'll come back.”
“No, he won't, papa,” shaking her head sadly. “He's gone, and he will
never come back. I know him better than you do.”
And then she fled promptly up-stairs to her own room.
This was the nearest Constance came to betraying her love for Oakley.
She was not much given to confidences, and the ideals that had sustained
her in her pride now seemed so childish and unworthy that she had no
wish to dwell upon them, but whenever Dan's name was mentioned in
her presence she looked frightened and guilty and avoided meeting her
father's glance.
It seemed, indeed, that. Oakley had taken final leave of Antioch. A new
manager appeared and took formal charge of the destinies of the road.
Under his direction work was resumed in the shops, for the strike had
died a natural death. None of the hands were disposed to question the
ten-per-cent cut, and before the winter was over the scale of wages
that had been in force before the strike was inaugurated was voluntarily
restored. The town had no criticisms to make of Johnson, the new
manager, a quiet, competent official; the most any one said was that he
was not Oakley. That was enough. For Dan had come into his own.
Early in October there was a flutter of excitement when Turner Joyce and
his wife left for the East to be Oakley's guests. When they returned,
some weeks later, they had a good deal to say about him that Antioch was
frankly curious to hear.
He had taken his father to Burton, where his mother was buried.
Afterwards he had joined General Cornish in New York.
While abroad, the financier had effected a combination of interests
which grouped a number of roads under one management, and Dan had
been made general superintendent of the consolidated lines, with his
headquarters in New York City. The Joyces were but vaguely informed as
to where these lines were, but they did full justice to their magnitude,
as well as to the importance of Oakley's new connection.
The dull monotony of those fall days in Antioch was never forgotten by
Constance Emory. She was listless and restless by turns. She had hoped
that she might hear from Oakley. She even thought the Joyces might bring
her some message, but none had come. Dan had taken her at her word.
She had made no friends, and, with Ryder dead and Oakley gone, she saw.
no one, and finally settled down into an apathy that alarmed the doctor.
He, after some deliberation, suddenly announced his intention of going
East to attend a medical convention.
“Shall you see Mr. Oakley?” Constance asked, with quick interest.
“Probably, if he's in New York when I get there.”
Constance gave him a scared look and dropped her eyes. But when the time
drew near for his departure, she followed him about as if there were
something on her mind which she wished to tell him.
The day he started, she found courage to ask, “Won't you take me with
you, papa?”
“Not this time, dear,” he answered.
She was quiet for a moment, and then said:
“Papa, you are not going to tell him?”
“Tell who, Constance? What?”
“Mr. Oakley.”
“What about Oakley, dear?”
She looked at him from under her long lashes while the color slowly
mounted to her cheeks.
“You are not going to tell him what you think you know?”
The doctor smiled.
“I wish you would grant me the possession of ordinary sense, Constance.
I am not quite a fool.”
“You are a precious,” she said, kissing him.
“Thank you. What message shall I give Oakley for you?”
“None.”
“None?”
“He won't want to hear from me,” shyly.
“Why not?”
“Because he just won't, papa. Besides, I expect he has forgotten that
such a person ever lived.”
“I wouldn't be too sure of that. What was the trouble, Constance? You'd
better tell me, or I may say something I shouldn't.”
“Oh, you must not say anything,” in alarm. “You must promise.”
“Constance, what did Oakley say to you that last day he was here at the
house?”
Constance's glance wandered meditatively from her father's face to
the window and back again, while her color came and went. There was a
faraway, wistful look in her eyes, and a sad little smile on her lips.
At last she said, softly, “Oh, he said a number of things. I can't
remember now all he did say.
“Did Oakley tell you he cared for you?”
Constance hesitated a moment, then, reluctantly:
“Well, yes, he did. And I let him go, thinking I didn't care for him,”
miserably, and with a pathetic droop of her lips, from which the smile
had fled. “I didn't know, and I have been so unhappy!”
“Oh!”
Constance left the room abruptly.
When he reached New York, the first thing the doctor did was to look up
Oakley. He was quick to notice a certain constraint in the young man's
manner as they shook hands, but this soon passed off.
“I am awfully glad to see you,” he had said. “I have thought of you
again and again, and I have been on the point of writing you a score of
times. I haven't forgotten your kindness to me.”
“Nonsense, Oakley. I liked you, and it was a pleasure to me to be able
to show my regard,” responded the doctor, with hearty good-will.
“How is Mrs. Emory--and Miss Emory?”
“They are both very well. They were just a little hurt that you ran off
without so much as a goodbye.”
Oakley gave him a quick glance.
“She is--Miss Emory is still in Antioch?”
The doctor nodded.
“I didn't know but what she might be in the city with you,” Dan
explained, with evident disappointment.
“Aren't we ever going to see you in Antioch again?” inquired the doctor.
He put the question with studied indifference. Dan eagerly scanned his
face. The doctor fidgeted awkwardly.
“Do _you_ think I'd better go back?” he asked, with a perceptible
dwelling on the “you.”
The doctor's face became a trifle red. He seemed to weigh the matter
carefully; then he said:
“Yes, I think you'd better. Antioch would like mightily to lay hands on
you.”
Dan laughed happily. “You don't suppose a fellow could dodge all that,
do you? You see, I was going west to Chicago in a day or so, and I had
thought to take a run on to Antioch. As a matter of fact, Cornish wants
me to keep an eye on the shops. They are doing well, you know, and we
don't want any falling off. But, you understand, I don't want to get let
in for any fool hysterics,” he added, impatiently.
Notwithstanding the supposed confidence in which telegrams are
transmitted, Brown, the day man at Antioch, generally used his own
discretion in giving publicity to any facts of local interest that came
under his notice. But when he wrote off Dr. Emory's message, announcing
that he and Oakley were in Chicago, and would arrive in Antioch the last
of the week, he held it for several hours, not quite knowing what to do.
Finally he delivered it in person, a sacrifice of official dignity that
only the exigencies of the occasion condoned in his eyes. As he handed
it to Mrs. Emory, he said:
“It's from the doctor. You needn't be afraid to open it; he's all right.
He'll be back Saturday night, and he's bringing Mr. Oakley with him. I
came up to see if you had any objection to my letting the town know?”
Mrs. Emory saw no reason why the knowledge of Oakley's return should be
withheld, and in less than half an hour Antioch, with bated breath, was
discussing the news on street corners and over back fences.
That night the town council met in secret session to consider the
weighty matter of his reception, for by common consent it was agreed
that the town must take official action. It was suggested that he be
given the freedom of the city. This sounded large, and met with instant
favor, but when the question arose as to how the freedom of the city was
conferred, the president turned, with a slightly embarrassed air, to the
member who had made the motion. The member explained, with some reserve,
that he believed the most striking feature had to do with the handing
over of the city keys to the guest of honor. But, unfortunately, Antioch
had no city keys to deliver. The only keys that, by any stretch of the
imagination, could be so called, were those of the court-house, and
they were lost. Here an appeal was made to the Hon. Jeb Barrows, who was
usually called in to straighten out any parliamentary tangles in which
the council became involved. That eminent statesman was leaning dreamily
against a pillar at the end of the council-chamber. On one of his cards
he had already pencilled the brief suggestion: “Feed him, and have out
the band.” He handed the card to the president, and the council heaved
a sigh of relief. The momentous question of Oakley's official reception
was settled.
When Dan and Dr. Emory stepped from No. 7 Saturday night the station
platform was crowded with men and boys. The brass-band, which Antioch
loved with a love that stifled criticism, perspiring and in dire haste,
was turning the street corner half a block distant. Across the tracks at
the railroad shops a steam-whistle shrieked an ecstatic welcome.
Dan glanced at the doctor with a slightly puzzled air. “What do you
suppose is the matter?” he asked, unsuspiciously.
“Why, man, don't you understand? It's _you!_”
There was no need for him to say more, for the crowd had caught sight of
Dan, and a hundred voices cried:
“There he is! There's Oakley!”
And in an instant Antioch, giving way to wild enthusiasm, was cheering
itself black in the face, while above the sound of cheers and the crash
of music, the steam-whistle at the shops shrieked and pealed.
The blood left Oakley's face. He looked down at the crowd and saw Turner
Joyce. He saw McClintock and Holt and the men from the shops, who were,
if possible, the noisiest of all. He turned helplessly to the doctor.
“Let's get out of this,” he said between his teeth. The crowd and the
noise and the excitement recalled that other night when he had ridden
into Antioch. As he spoke he swung himself down from the steps of the
coach, and the crowd closed about him with a glad shout of welcome.
The doctor followed more slowly. As he gained the platform, the Hon. Jeb
Barrows hurried to his side.
“Where is he to go, Doc?” he panted. “To your house, or to the hotel?”
“To my house.”
“All right, then. The crowd's spoiling the whole business. I've got
an address of welcome in my pocket that I was to have delivered, and
there's to be a supper at the Rink to-night. Don't let him get away from
you.”
Meanwhile, Dan had succeeded in extricating himself from the clutches of
his friends, and was struggling towards a closed carriage at the end of
the platform that he recognized as the Emorys'.
In his haste and the dusk of the dull October twilight, he supposed the
figure he saw in the carriage to be the doctor, who had preceded him,
and called to the man on the box to drive home.
As he settled himself, he said, reproachfully:
“I hope you hadn't anything to do with this?”
A slim, gloved hand was placed in his own, and a laughing voice said:
“How do you do, Mr. Oakley?”
He glanced up quickly, and found himself face to face with Constance
Emory.
There was a moment's silence, and then Dan said, the courage that had
brought him all the way to Antioch suddenly deserting him: “It's too
bad, isn't it? I had hoped I could slip in and out of town without any
one being the wiser.”
“But you can't,” with a little air of triumph. “Antioch is going to
entertain you. It's been in a perfect furor of excitement ever since it
knew you were coming back.”
“Well, I suppose there is no help for it,” resignedly.
“Where is my father, Mr. Oakley?”
“I guess we left him behind,” with sudden cheerfulness. He leaned
forward so that he could look into her face.
“Constance, I have returned because I couldn't stay away any longer. I
tried to forget, but it was no use.”
She had withdrawn her hand, but he had found it again, and now his
fingers closed over it and held it fast He was feeling a sense of
ownership.
“Did you come to meet me?” he asked.
“I came to meet papa.”
“But you knew I was coming, too?”
“Oh no.”
It was too dark for him to see the color that was slowly mounting to her
face.
“Constance, I don't believe you,” he cried.
“I was not sure you were coming,” Constance said, weakly.
“You might have known that I'd come back--that I couldn't stay away.”
“Don't you think you have been a long time in making that discovery?”
“Well, yes, but when I saw your father--”
“What did papa say to you?” with keen suspicion in her tones.
“You mustn't blame him, Constance. It was not so much what he said as
what he didn't say. I never knew any one to be quite so ostentatious
about what was left unsaid.”
Constance freed her hand, and, shrinking into a corner, covered her face.
She had a painful realization of the direction those confidences must
have taken, between her father, who only desired her happiness, and the
candid Oakley, who only desired her love.
“Was there any use in my coming? You must be fair with me now. It's too
serious a matter for you not to be.”
“You think I was not fair once?”
“I didn't mean that, but you have changed.”
“For the better, Mr. Oakley?”
“Infinitely,” with blunt simplicity.
“You haven't changed a scrap. You are just as rude as you ever were.”
Dan cast a hurried glance from the window. “Constance, we won't have
much more time to ourselves; we are almost home. Won't you tell me what
I have come to hear--that you do care for me, and will be my wife? You
know that I love you. But you mustn't send me from you a second time
without hope.”
“I shouldn't think you would care about me now. I wouldn't care about
you if you had been as unworthy as I have been,” her voice faltered.
“I might have shown you that I, too, could be brave, but I let the
opportunity pass, and now, when everyone is proud--”
“But I _do_ care. I care a great deal, for I love you just as I have
loved you from the very first.”
She put out both her hands.
“If you had only looked back when you left the house that day you told
me you cared--”
“What, Constance?”
“I was at the window. I thought you'd surely look back, and then you
would have known--”
“My darling!”
The carriage had drawn up to the Emorys' gate. Dan jumped out and gave
Constance his hand. Off in the distance they heard the band. Constance
paused and rested her hand gently on Oakley's arm.
“Hark! Do you hear?”
“I wish they'd stop their confounded nonsense,” said Dan.
“No, you can't stop them,” delightedly. “Antioch feels a sense of
proprietorship. But do you hear the music, Dan?”
“Yes, dear. It's the band.”
“Of course it's the band. But do you know what it is _playing?_”
Oakley shook his head dubiously. She gave his arm a little pat and
laughed softly.
“It might be difficult to recognize it, but it's the bridal-march from
'Lohengrin.'”
“If they stick to that, I don't care, Constance.”
And side by side they went slowly and silently up the path to the house.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Manager of The B. & A., by Vaughan Kester