WHICH DEVELOPS THE COLONEL'S FINANCIAL STRATEGY
To Judith Blanchard the publication of her sister's engagement was an
experience. Hourly Beth came to show a new letter or present, and with
head at Judith's shoulder sighed because people were so kind. Whenever
this happened, the image of Mather grew a little clearer in Judith's
heart, and that of Ellis so much less distinct. At the same time there
rose in Judith a dread of those vague misfortunes which Jim might bring
on Beth, and when one evening Ellis came to call, he found Judith
inspired with a desire to protect her sister against knowledge of the
real hard-heartedness of the world.
"Your sister is very happy," he said after glancing at the table on
which the presents were displayed. "May she always remain so!"
Judith turned on him with a curious energy. "You think she may not?"
"I hope she may," was all he would reply.
Judith studied him for a moment, then her eyes softened. "I am very fond
of Beth," she said. "We all know Jim; among us we must teach him to be
more of a man."
She spoke simply, but her words moved Ellis; her assumption that he was
capable of human, domestic feeling almost roused it in him, and as at
their first meeting he felt that she could make him better than himself.
With the mist of sisterly affection shed upon her eyes, Judith was
sweeter than he had ever known her; yet at the same time a knowledge of
her pricelessness came to him, and he feared this softer side of her as
the one on which she would be strongest in defense: it was Mather's
side. The sole feelings which Ellis knew himself capable of rousing in
her were ambition and the admiration of great things; he felt that he
must keep them constantly before her.
"I have some news for you," he said. And so he found himself safely in
the back parlour just as the door-bell rang for another visitor.
It was Mather who came; Beth met him with thanks for the roses he had
sent, perishable signs of good wishes. Jim had grumbled at the flowers:
"Why doesn't he send something practical?" But Beth had been delighted,
and now told Mather so, calling Wayne to her side to echo her words.
Next she spoke with still deeper gratitude, alluding to the position
which had been given Jim.
"And you are glad," Mather asked, "because after this you can't see so
much of him?"
"Ah," Beth replied shyly, "we shall the sooner be able to see each other
all the time."
"But don't thank me," Mather continued. "It was Pease's idea. Thank me
if Jim _keeps_ his place." He nodded at the young man with a meaning
which was not exactly jovial, and which Jim (being like others of his
age, half-loutish and half-assertive) resented accordingly. So Jim got
himself away, to talk aimless commonplaces with the next visitor, Pease,
and to glare at Mather as he still spoke with Beth.
"He's prepared to be a father to me," Jim grumbled, for, in the business
talk already held, Mather had laid down application and steadiness as
requisites. Jim had taken the warning indifferently, whence the renewed
hint, purposely given for Beth's benefit, as Jim appreciated. "Now," he
thought, "she'll rub it into me."
Meanwhile Mather and Beth spoke of matrimony, and exchanged
conventionalities while they struggled with deep thoughts. They felt
that they understood each other; besides, each had at the same time a
regret for the other's fate. Thus Beth, with her knowledge of Ellis in
the back parlour, pitied Mather, who in his turn grieved that Jim's
weaknesses were unknown to Beth. But being genuinely sympathetic, Mather
and Beth felt the thrill of their friendship, and were more closely
drawn together by this belief in each other's impending unhappiness.
Therefore, though for a time they spoke in a lighter vein, at last their
feeling came to the surface. Mather had described marriage and its
inconveniences, as seen from the bachelor's standpoint. "I am not
afraid!" declared Beth with a toss of the head. Then with an impulse he
took her hands.
"We know that troubles may come, however lucky we may seem, don't we,
Beth?" he said. "Look here, if ever you need any help, you'll remember
me, won't you?"
And Beth, instead of retorting that she had her father and Jim to rely
on, for the moment forgot those sturdy protectors, and promised that she
would. Beth was at this time always on the edge of emotional gratitude,
and there was a glimmer of tears in her affectionate eyes as she
answered. Then the Colonel came wandering into the room, at the same
time as the voices of Judith and Ellis were heard at the door of the
back parlour, and Beth and Mather separated. Jim drew her aside at once.
"Why did you hold hands with him so?" he asked.
"He's one of the oldest friends I have," she replied in surprise. "And
I'm so sorry for him, Jim!" She led him to the window recess, and tried
to interest her lover in Mather's mournful fate, but Jim did not enter
into her sorrow to the degree which she anticipated. Then that happened
which Mather had desired and Jim dreaded, for Beth spoke of the position
at the mill: he mustn't lose it. "You will work hard, won't you, Jim
dear?"
"Do you suppose I shan't?" he demanded testily. Whereby he put Beth in
the wrong, so that she repressed a sigh, and begged his pardon.
Now while Jim, after this triumph, assumed a sulky dignity which was
quite appropriate, the Colonel was still wandering, mentally at least,
if the quality of his words with Mather and Pease was a sign.
"Woolgathering," decided Mather, and relapsed into silence while the
Colonel explained to Pease that the peculiar actions of the autumn
weather were--ha, peculiar, and how were matters with Mr. Pease? Then
the Colonel did not listen, and started when the answer was innocently
ended with a question. Vaguely, he said he didn't know.
"In my business," went on Pease, apparently satisfied, "the state of the
stock market occasions considerable vigilance. One does not seem able
even to guess what will happen."
"No," acquiesced the Colonel, this time with an attention which the
fervour of his tone attested. "That is very true."
Unhappily true, he might have said without exaggeration. Indeed, were
life an opera, and had each person his _leit-motif_, the Colonel would
have taken wherever he went an undertone of jarring excitement. The
cymbals would best express the clashing of his hopes and fears; he rose
in the night to figure on bits of paper, read the news feverishly each
evening, and roused Judith's criticism of his tendency to carry away
the stock-market reports. Judith was watching those stocks in which
Ellis was interested, but while her concern was merely in the theory of
market manipulation, the Colonel's was sadly practical.
And it was on his mind this night that he was near an end; his life's
opera was approaching that grand crash when the cymbals were to be
drowned by the heavier brasses. In his pocket were barely two hundred
dollars in cash, he had placed his last thousand at the broker's, and
the broker had sent word that he must have another in the morning. The
Colonel looked at his daughters, Beth sweet and Judith proud; he looked
at Pease and Ellis, safe from calamity; he looked at Jim with his youth
and Mather with his strength. None of them had troubles; he alone was
miserable.
And the Colonel, when he could withdraw, went into a corner and brooded
over his ill-luck, thus alone, of all the company, failing to remark the
special brilliancy of Judith's beauty. Ellis saw it and was proud, for
he had caused it; Mather noted it and groaned, for it was not for him;
Beth admired; Jim came out of his sulk, swaggered, and made up to her;
even Pease was roused to a mild admiration. And Judith herself felt as
if she had moved the world a foot from its orbit.
Ellis's news had been important. "Do you remember the advice you gave
me?" he had inquired when the two were alone in the little parlour.
"About the corporation lawyer?" she asked eagerly. "Of course! Tell me,
have you done anything with him?"
"Anything? Everything!" he responded with enthusiasm. "That magazine
told all about him, and I looked him up in New York. He came on here--I
don't know how I should have put it through without him."
"Then you have managed it?" she asked.
Indeed he had, he assured her. A man gets--well, misjudged by others,
sometimes; there had been a prejudice to overcome before he could affect
this consolidation. The others had been unusually shy; the safeguards
Ellis offered had not satisfied them. But the lawyer had straightened
matters out so that all had gone smoothly, and he, Ellis, had saved
money by his means.
"Good!" cried Judith.
"We paid him twenty-five," Ellis said.
"Twenty-five?"
"Thousand," he explained.
"So much?" cried Judith.
"Oh," answered Ellis, "it was no great affair for him. He often gets
much more."
Judith was speechless.
"And," said Ellis, "there is some one else we ought to fee, if only it
were possible. But I scarcely see how I could bring her name before the
directors."
"A woman?" she asked, much excited.
"You," he replied briefly, and his mouth shut with its customary
firmness. But his eyes noted her exhilaration.
"I?" she demanded. "I? Do you mean that what I said was of importance?"
"You have saved us time. You have put money directly in my pocket. Ten
thousand is what I calculate I've saved in concessions, and in the time
gained by shortening trouble I reckon I've made as much more." He
laughed. "What percentage shall I give you?"
But she would not jest. "You're welcome, welcome!" she exclaimed. "I'm
satisfied, just to feel that I have been a factor. Just to know that
I--oh, Mr. Ellis, you can't know how I feel!"
And Judith was near the danger line at that moment, as she leaned toward
him with sparkling eyes. He saw it, believed his chance had come, and
sought to take advantage of it. "I shall consult you always after this,"
he said. "I will bring you all my difficulties. A partnership--what do
you say to that?"
She laughed in deprecation, yet she was flattered, and the stimulus
caused her to rear her head and expand her nostrils in the way she had.
In his turn he was thrilled, and fire entered his veins.
"What do you say?" he repeated, leaning toward her. "Shall we be
partners?"
"A silent partnership?" she asked. "Or will you put up the sign, Ellis
and Blanchard?"
The answer sprang to his lips, but he checked it, wondering if he dared
venture. A glance at her face decided him; she was looking, still with
those triumphant eyes, away from him, as if she saw visions of success.
He spoke hoarsely.
"Not Ellis and Blanchard, but--Ellis and Ellis!"
She looked at him. "What did you say?" she asked absently, as if her
thoughts had been elsewhere. Then, looking where her glance had been, he
saw Mather in the farther room. Mather--and she had not heard!
"I said nothing," he answered, almost choking.
Even his discomfiture escaped her, and presently she took him to the
others. Her excitement was not gone, it made her wonderfully beautiful,
but though he might triumph that he had caused it, he knew that she had
slipped away from him. He tried in vain to master his exasperation.
Judith's thoughts were of Mather; she felt that if she could tell him
what she had done, she would crush him. This was what she had hoped
for: the time when she should prove that she could influence events. He
had said the world would be too much for her! Perhaps now she could
break that masterfulness against which she had always rebelled. And she
smiled at the quiet assurance of his manner, for he had merely started a
mill and built up a business, while she had all but created a Trust! It
would humble him, if he but knew.
There is no need of describing the next half-hour's doings of that mixed
company. Pride and sweetness, loutishness, strength, amiability,
ambition, and a feeble man's weak despair, all were together in the
Blanchard's parlour, and got on very badly. It is enough to say that
Judith talked with Mather, looking at him from time to time with a gleam
of unexpressed thought which he did not understand; that Ellis, trying
to subdue a grin of fury into a suave smile, put his hands in his
pockets and clenched them there; and that by this action he exposed,
protruding from his vest pocket, the end of a narrow red book at which
the Colonel was presently staring as if fascinated.
Now the Colonel had once been, as already stated, what the early
Victorians were fond of calling a man of substance. Hence complacence to
the exclusion of persistence, and a later life dominated by the
achievements of youth. He ran away from college to go to the Civil War,
and at the coming of peace retired on his laurels. Arduous service in
the State militia brought him his title; he married, travelled, and
frittered away the years until changes in the value of property brought
him face to face with what might seem the unavoidable choice, either to
accommodate himself to a more modest establishment, or to go to work to
earn money.
Out of the seeming deadlock the Colonel's financial insight found a way.
His capital, used as income, for some years more maintained him in the
necessary way of life. Meanwhile he promised himself to regain his money
by the simple means of the stock market, but when he came to apply the
remedy, some perverseness in its workings made it fail, and to his
astonishment he found himself at the end of his resources. To none of
his friends might he turn for relief, for your friend who lends also
lectures, and the Colonel could never bear that. Our esteemed warrior
was, however, still fertile in resource, and his genius discovered a
possible base of supplies. Hence the fascination exerted by the
check-book which Ellis always carried about with him.
Some moralists might dub the Colonel weak for dwelling on this
contemplation. Yet consistency is regarded as a virtue, and the Colonel
was usually consistent in trying to get what he wanted. With his
military eye still fixed on the end of the narrow red book, he drew near
to Ellis and began to speak with him. Naturally, that which was in the
Colonel's mind came first to his lips.
"The stock market has been flighty lately," quoth he.
So were girls, thought Ellis. "Very flighty," he said. "But that
scarcely concerns you, I hope."
"Oh, no, no!" the Colonel hastily assured him. "And yet--Mr. Ellis, may
I have a word with you in my study?"
Accustomed though he was to every turn of fortune, Ellis's heart leaped.
Was the fool coming into his hands at last? Then, as he looked once more
at Judith, the unduly sensitive organ made the reverse movement,
contracting with a spasm of real pain. She was not even noticing him
now. He followed the worthy Colonel to what was called his study.
Blanchard had no moral struggle to make before he broached his subject.
His fibre had degenerated long ago; his sole feeling was regret that he
must expose himself to one who was below his station. Taking care,
therefore, not to lower himself in his own eyes by subservience in word
or manner, the Colonel indicated his need of a few thousands, "just to
tide him over." He wondered if Ellis were willing to advance the money.
Ellis took the request quietly, and sat as if thinking. His cold face
concealed a disturbance within: elation struggling with an unforeseen
doubt. This collapse on the Colonel's part Ellis had watched and hoped
for, yet now that it had come a dormant instinct stirred, questioning
whether to control Judith by such means were not unworthy of himself. A
man was fair game, but a woman--Ellis roused himself impatiently.
Entirely unaccustomed to making moral decisions, he could not see that
he stood at the parting of ways, and that from the moment when he
leagued himself with the Colonel, deceit entered into his relations with
Judith. Intolerant of what seemed a weakness, he crushed down the doubt.
What was he dreaming of? The chance was too good to be lost.
Need of appearing businesslike made him ask a few questions. "What
security can you offer?"
"Nothing whatever," answered the Colonel, grandly simple.
"This house?" asked Ellis.
"Twice mortgaged, and," added the Colonel as if the joke were upon his
mortgagees, "out of repair."
Ellis took note of the admission; if the mortgagees knew that the house
were in poor condition, they might sell cheap. "The house at Chebasset?"
he inquired.
"Merely rented."
"No stocks or bonds, no other property?" Ellis persisted.
"My furniture," was all the Colonel could suggest.
This time a real repugnance seized Ellis. "Nothing of that kind," he
answered sharply, feeling that to have a lien on the very chair which
Judith sat in was too much. Yet the thought of her, thus again brought
in, grew in spite of this spasm of right feeling, and even while he
despised the Colonel for his unmanliness, his own lower nature spoke.
"There is one other thing, however."
The Colonel saw his meaning. "Mr. Ellis," he cried, with fine
indignation, "I mean to repay you every cent!"
But the eye of the warrior fell before that of the parvenu. "Cur!"
thought Ellis. "Damn your small spirit!" Nevertheless, he drew out his
check-book. "You will give your note, of course?"
"Of course!" replied the Colonel with dignity. Two documents changed
hands, one in fact, the other by courtesy representing the value of five
thousand dollars. Then Ellis refused the Colonel's invitation to stay
and smoke; the transaction tasted badly in his mouth.
"But at least you will come into the parlour again," said the Colonel,
when they were once more in the front hall. Ellis stood without
replying, and the Colonel waited while he looked in at the others.
Pease had gone, the other four remained, and Mather was the center of
the group. Wayne was regarding him resentfully, Beth affectionately,
Judith unfathomably. She still remembered the news which Ellis had
brought.
"So you are glad to be a city man again?" asked Beth of Mather.
"Yes," he replied, "but poor Jim!"
"Poor Jim!" echoed Beth tenderly.
"He can stand it," testily rejoined the object of their sympathy.
"I don't know that I shall feel at home here, after being a countryman
so long," said Mather. "Will you tell me all that has happened down-town
in my absence. Judith?"
Without answering, she threw him a glance, meaning that she could--if
she would! In the hall Ellis turned abruptly away, and gathered up his
hat and coat.
"No, I won't come in," he said to the Colonel, and went away at once.
His hold on Blanchard, now that it was gained, seemed unaccountably
small. It would grow, Ellis had no doubt of that, for the Colonel was on
the road down hill; and yet the relationship promised less than it
might. For though by this means Ellis might win possession of Judith, he
wanted more than that; he must have her esteem. And Mather had taken her
mind from him! Ellis grew hot and cold with that strange feeling whose
name he could not discover, while yet its disturbances were stronger
from day to day.
* * * * *
For the Colonel another act of his opera began with a pleasant jig;
cheered, he retired to his study, and began to plan how to double
Ellis's note. Jim took Beth away into the back parlour, where presently
the light grew dim. As the two went, Judith saw Beth's upward glance
into her lover's face, and her own thoughts changed and grew soft; she
turned to watch Mather as he sat before what had been, earlier in the
evening, a wood fire.
She noticed how natural it seemed for him to gather the embers together,
put on wood from the basket, and start a little blaze. The action first
carried her back to the period before he was her declared lover; next it
drew her thoughts forward to a time when he might be--what Jim was to
Beth. And Mather, unconsciously working at the fire, started for Judith
a train of musing.
Beth had taught her that to love was enviable, and that it might be a
relief to have one's future fixed. Sitting thus with Mather, it seemed
to Judith that just so must many a husband and wife be sitting,
contented and at home. When compared with the restless dissatisfaction
which so long had tormented her, the picture was alluring. Judith gave
herself to the mood.
Mather toyed with the tongs for a minute longer, then gave the logs a
final tap into place, and turned to her as if rousing from thought.
"It's pleasant to be here," he said, "and it's fine to be in the city. I
like to meet people on the street again. It's as if I had had years of
exile."
She smiled without replying, and he went on. "I think it's done me good.
Curious, isn't it, that to be knocked down and kicked out, and then to
go away and look at people through a telescope, should be a real
benefit? But I've gained a better perspective than before; I've had time
to think of the theory as well as the practice of affairs. Yes, it's
been healthful--but it's good to be back. You understand what I mean,
don't you, Judith?"
"I do," she answered. Ellis was forgotten; here was George speaking as
he had not spoken for a year, of his ideas and experiences. She was glad
to have them brought to her, glad that he spoke freely and not bitterly,
and again the remembrance of Beth's happiness brought a vision of closer
relationship.
He noted the softness of her mood, and without effort let the time drift
on, careful only not to disturb this harmony, until at last he felt that
the talk should be stopped before it ended of itself, and so he took his
leave.
She gave him one of her direct looks as she offered her hand. "You have
been too busy, George," she said. "Come oftener." With the firm
hand-clasp to express the undercurrent of their thoughts, they parted.
Alone again by the fire, Judith indulged herself by looking forward. One
could drift into marriage, easily and agreeably.
Then she heard Jim say good-night, and Beth came and leaned upon her
chair. "I want to tell you what Mr. Fenno said to me this afternoon,"
said Beth. "About George and the new combination of the cotton millers."
"What had George to do with that?" asked Judith.
"The Wampum Mills held out a long while," answered Beth; "the whole
thing depended upon them. Mr. Fenno is president; George is a director,
but he sent in his resignation soon after he went to Chebasset, and
didn't attend their meetings for weeks."
"Well?" asked Judith.
"Well, the directors couldn't make up their minds, and at last they
refused to accept George's resignation, and sent for him. He looked into
the matter, and then he----" Beth paused to laugh.
"Go on," begged Judith.
"He scolded them for not jumping at the chance. Mr. Fenno said he hadn't
been so lectured since he was a boy; he was much pleased by it. So the
Wampum Mills went into the combination three days ago, all of the little
mills followed at once, and they expect to do almost double business
now. Isn't it fine of George?"
"Fine!" agreed Judith, but her gentler mood was destroyed. Ellis also
had had part in the combination, the greater part. If one were to
compare the achievements and to choose between the men, if one were to
do rather than to dream----! She threw off her thoughts of Mather as
one throws off a cloak and looks upon it lying shapeless. Life and
action suddenly called her again; she, too, had influenced this matter.
She remembered Ellis's acknowledgment of indebtedness, the suggestion of
partnership, and the compliment pleased her. Mather passed completely
from her mind, and Ellis dominated her as before.