THE
LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR
A NOVEL
BY
GUY WETMORE CARRYL
[Illustration: Publishers symbol]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1903
Copyright, 1902
BY THE ESS ESS PUBLISHING CO.
Copyright, 1903
BY GUY WETMORE CARRYL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published March, 1903_
TO
M. R. B.
IN MEMORY OF THE RESCUE OF A MAN AT SEA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE FLY ON THE WHEEL 1
II. THE ODDS AGAINST YOUNG NISBET 21
III. A FACE IN THE CROWD 40
IV. AS BETWEEN FRIENDS 60
V. A BRAND FROM THE BURNING 80
VI. MCGRATH LAUGHS 98
VII. THE MIRAGE OF POWER 117
VIII. THE GOVERNOR UNMASKS 137
IX. THE NINTH PASSES IN REVIEW 156
X. A QUESTION AND AN ANSWER 177
XI. YOUNG NISBET FINDS HIS TONGUE 196
XII. DIOGENES 215
XIII. THE INSTRUMENT OF FATE 234
XIV. THE VOICE OF ALLEGHENIA 252
THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR
I
THE FLY ON THE WHEEL
The offices of the Governor and the Lieutenant-Governor adjoined. Each
had its ante-room, in which a private secretary wrote eternally at a
roll-top desk, an excessively plain-featured stenographer rattled the
keys of his typewriter, and a smug-faced page yawned over a newspaper,
or scanned the cards of visitors with the air of an official censor. At
intervals, an electric bell whirred once, twice, or three times; and,
according to the signal, one of the trio disappeared into the presence
of the august personage within.
A door connected the office of the chief executive with that of his
lieutenant, but this was rarely opened by either, and then only after a
formal tap and permission to enter had been given. It was a matter of
general knowledge that the Governor and the Lieutenant-Governor were not
in sympathy; but few, even among the intimates of either, were aware how
deep, and wide, and hopelessly impassable was the gulf which lay between
them. This was due not alone to disparity in age, though twenty-eight
years separated the white-haired Governor from his handsome subordinate,
who had been nominated to this, his first public office, on his
thirtieth birthday; nor was it wholly a difference between the
experience of the one and the inexperience of the other. The point of
view of the veteran is, naturally, not that of the novice, particularly
in politics. That the enthusiasms of Lieutenant-Governor Barclay should
have been the disillusions of Governor Abbott, and his pitfalls his
senior's stepping-stones,--this was to be expected. The root of their
dissimilarity lay deeper. It was nothing less than mutual distrust which
kept the connecting door closed day after day, and clogged the channel
of coöperation with the sharp-pointed boulders of antagonism.
The convention which nominated the successful ticket of the preceding
year had been a veritable chaos of contending factions. The labor
delegates, encouraged by the unexpected strength of their
representation, were not content with such nominal plums as had fallen
to their share in former conventions. Led by Michael McGrath, an
agitator whose native Irish eloquence, made keener and more persuasive
by practice in bar-room forensics, brought him naturally to the fore,
they threatened, at one stage of the proceedings, to carry all before
them. The more conservative faction, its strength sapped by the
formation, in its very ranks, of a reform party determined upon the fall
of the "machine," was forced to yield ground. The reformers themselves,
young men for the most part, distinguished by great ideals but small
ability, were too few to impose their individual will upon their
opponents, yet sufficiently numerous to make their support necessary to
the success of either party. The usual smooth course of the convention,
upset by this unlooked-for resistance from two quarters, staggered
helplessly, and was on the point of coming to a deadlock. It was Michael
McGrath's shrewd perception of the situation which solved the problem.
In a brief, impassioned speech he laid the claims of his faction before
the delegates, winding up with a stirring picture of the coöperation of
labor and reform, now possible, which held the convention in spellbound
silence for ten seconds after he had closed, and then set the hall
ringing to cheers and vigorously plied hands and feet. For an instant he
paused, with his arms folded, and his keen blue eyes sliding over the
faces before him, and then played his trump card. At his signal, a
banner, hastily prepared, was borne, slowly revolving, down the central
aisle, and on this were boldly lettered the words which at the same
moment McGrath was thundering from the platform:--
LABOR AND REFORM!
FOR GOVERNOR,
ELIJAH ABBOTT.
FOR LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR,
JOHN HAMILTON BARCLAY.
McGrath had no need to look toward the labor faction for support. He
knew what the name of Elijah Abbott meant in that quarter. His shifting
glance was fixed upon the seats of the reform delegates, and a little
smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, as he saw them rise with a
cheer. Barclay was the chief spirit of their movement. They had not
expected this recognition. But if, in the enthusiasm of unlooked-for
victory, they did not perceive how little, in reality, was their gain,
McGrath was far from being unaware how great was his own. Before the
cheering of the now allied forces of labor and reform had fairly died
away, he had moved that nominations were in order, and, ten minutes
later, while the partisans of the "machine" were still endeavoring to
collect their wits, the main business of the convention was an
accomplished fact, and Abbott and Barclay were declared the regular
Democratic nominees for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of the state.
In six weeks followed their election by a small plurality, and on the
first of January the two men moved into their adjoining rooms, in the
inexcusably unlovely state capitol, on the main hill of Kenton City,
wherein they were, thenceforward, separated, one from the other, by two
inches of Georgia pine and a practically infinite diversity of principle
and prejudice.
From the first their relationship had been no better than an armed
truce. Both were courteous men, the one because such was his policy, the
other because he was to this manner born. There was no need for them to
discuss their individual creeds. They tacitly accepted the fact that
there was not a parallel between the two. From the moment when his
election was assured by the returns, Abbott was candidly the man of the
Labor--nay, more--of the Socialist party. McGrath and his associates
manipulated him as readily as a marionette. The promises and pledges of
the campaign were ruthlessly jettisoned. If Governor Abbott did not
stand for anarchy, it was only because, for the moment, anarchy was not
the demand of his party. Withal, he was dignified and self-possessed,
robed in an agreeable suavity which became him at functions and
ceremonials, and assured his popularity with those--and they were, as
always, in the majority--who did not look below the surface.
Lieutenant-Governor Barclay had not been ten days in office before he
realized the futility of resistance to the established order, as
represented in his superior. He had accepted his nomination, and
welcomed his election, with an almost Quixotic elation in the
opportunity thus opened to him. He would accomplish--oh, there was no
telling what Lieutenant-Governor Barclay would _not_ accomplish!
He was standing at his office window now, staring out disconsolately
over the sloping lawns of the capitol grounds, mottled with thin
patches of snow, which had contrived to withstand the recent thaw, and
he was telling himself, for the thousandth time, the dispiriting fact
that, as a force for good or evil in the destiny of his state, he was no
more significant than his stenographer's Remington or his secretary's
roll-top desk. With all his ideals, with all those pledges which are
infinitely more vital when made in private to one's conscience than when
made in public to one's party, he found himself merely a cog in the
state machinery--a cog, too, that, seemingly, might be skipped at any or
every time, without in the least degree disturbing the progress of
routine. On the few occasions, in the early days of their official
relation, when he had ventured to set his will in opposition to that of
the Governor, there had not been manifest in the latter's attitude even
that spirit of resistance which spurs men to more active and resolute
endeavor. Governor Abbott had smiled pleasantly upon him, and then
quietly shifted the conversation into other channels, with an air of
selecting a topic more suited to his companion's comprehension.
Finally, on one occasion, when Barclay had voiced his opinion with an
energy which savored of rebuke, the Governor had gone further, and had
asked calmly--"And what were you proposing to do about it?" After that
Barclay had relinquished the unequal struggle, and resigned himself to
the unavoidable conclusion of his impotency.
It is a situation which tries men's souls, this of utter helplessness in
the face of plain duty. He could have no hope of making his position
clear to the constituency to which he was responsible. Debarred on the
one side from taking an active part in the administration of state
affairs, and bitterly arraigned on the other on the grounds of
inefficiency, laxity, and indifference to duty, the second month of
office found John Barclay in a fair way to be ground to powder between
the millstones of impuissance and hostile criticism. The men of his
party who had, both in private conviction and public statement, based
their hopes of political reform upon the frankly avowed platform of his
principles, now passed him coldly, with a bare nod, sometimes with none
whatever; the labor element jeered joyously at his attitude; the
"machine" pointed to him as proof of the fallacy of the reform creed. It
is easy to expect great performances from great promises, easier still
to outline the duties and condemn the delinquencies of another, and not
even Barclay's knowledge of his own good faith was sufficient
compensation for the sneers of press and public which fell to his share.
As he surveyed the dispiriting prospect from his office window, on that
late February afternoon, he was near to resigning his position, and with
it all further pretension to political prominence.
In the opinion of those competent to judge, the state of Alleghenia was
going to the dogs. A press distinguished alike for the amplitude of its
headlines and the pitiable paucity of its principles; a legislature of
which practically every member had, not only a price, but such a price
as the advertisements describe as being "within the reach of all;" a
Governor who avowedly stood ready to sanction the most extreme
pretensions of the notoriously corrupt party which had secured him his
election,--here, surely, were good and sufficient reasons for the
generously bestowed disapproval of Alleghenia's sister states. In all
the _personnel_ of her government there was but one man sincerely
devoted to her advancement on the lines of integrity and
non-partisanship. And that man was Lieutenant-Governor Barclay, whose
influence on the trend of affairs was approximately that of the
proverbial fly on the hub of the revolving wheel.
The Lieutenant-Governor had turned back to his desk, and was arranging
his papers, preparatory to departing for the day, when his ears were
greeted by the unusual and unwelcome sound of a rap upon the
communicating door. Instinctively he braced himself for an unpleasant
encounter before replying. It was his experience that the Governor's
room was like to Nazareth of old, in that no good might be expected to
issue therefrom. Nevertheless, as Governor Abbott entered, in response
to Barclay's "Come!" it was difficult to believe that he was aught but
what he appeared to be,--a courteous, conspicuously well-dressed and
white-haired gentleman, of sixty or thereabouts, smooth-shaven save for
chop side-whiskers of iron gray, with a habit of rubbing his hands, and
an inclination from the hips forward which suggested a floor-walker. In
brief, the Governor of Alleghenia seemed the type of a man who turns
sideways and slips through narrow places, rather than run the risk of
barking his elbows by a face-front advance. In reality he was somewhat
less pliable than a steel rail.
"You are going?" he asked, seeing how Barclay was employed.
"I was thinking of it," replied the Lieutenant-Governor. "Of course, if
there is anything"--
Governor Abbott seated himself on the edge of the desk, holding a lapel
of his coat in each hand, and surveyed his subordinate from under his
drooping eyelids, with his head cocked on one side.
"I believe you know Peter Rathbawne," he said.
"I do. I am engaged to his elder daughter."
"Ah! That is what I thought."
The Governor looked contemplatively at the ceiling, closing his right
eye, and nibbling behind his pursed lips.
"Peter Rathbawne," he said, "is the second most obstinate man in Kenton
City, if not in Alleghenia. I'm afraid he thinks he is the _most_
obstinate. If so, he does me an injustice. His mills are the largest in
the state. I am told that when they are running full strength they
employ over four thousand hands."
"Something like that number, I believe," put in Barclay, as the Governor
seemed to expect a reply.
"Ah! It is a pity for such an industry as that to be tied up on account
of one man's obstinacy."
"I had not heard"--began Barclay; but Governor Abbott continued
steadily, disregarding the interruption.
"Yesterday morning Mr. Rathbawne discharged fifteen employees on the
ground of incompetency. It is hard to see exactly what Mr. Rathbawne
means by 'incompetency.' These men were not newcomers. Some of them had
been in the mills for as much as eighteen months. It seems as if he
might have discovered the alleged incompetency long ago. It is more or
less arbitrary, one might say, this discharging men by wholesale, as it
were."
"I suppose," commented Barclay, "that a man may do as he will with his
own."
"Ah!" said the Governor, lifting his hands from his lapels with a little
gesture of deprecation, but immediately replacing them. "But _can_ he? A
man in Peter Rathbawne's position has a responsibility to fulfill toward
the community. He cannot beggar men for a caprice--because his horse has
gone lame, or his breakfast has not agreed with him. He must show
reasons--give an accounting. He must be fair."
"Oh, when it comes to fairness," laughed the other, "I assure you,
Governor Abbott, you won't find Mr. Rathbawne's equal this side of the
Pacific. He's famous for square dealing."
"He _has_ been," corrected the Governor. "In the present instance he
seems to have fallen below standard. He has declined to reconsider his
decision in the case of the discharged men. What's worse, he has flatly
refused to see the committee appointed by the Union."
"I'm not surprised at that," said Barclay slowly, fingering a
paper-cutter on the desk before him. "Mr. Rathbawne is peculiar in one
respect; he supports and considers the Union in every other. But he has
always insisted upon his right to discharge the hands at will, and
without giving reasons. Incompetency is only a word which is used to
cover more serious causes."
"Well, he's wrong," said the Governor, with a heat unusual to him.
"He's dead wrong, Mr. Barclay, and he will find it out before he's a day
older."
"Do you mean"--
"I mean that if the men in question are not taken back before to-morrow
noon, every man, woman, and child in the employ of the Rathbawne Mills
will be out on strike. The question is, what is Peter Rathbawne prepared
to do?"
The silence that followed was broken only by the tap, tap, tap of the
Lieutenant-Governor's paper-cutter on the silver-mounted blotter.
Presently he looked up and met the Governor's eye.
"If you want _my_ opinion, sir," he answered, "it is that Mr. Rathbawne
would fight such a point to a standstill. He's sole owner of the mills,
and he's a rich man. He has always treated his employees as if they were
his own children. If they turn on him now for something which, from
their experience of his character, they must know was fair and
justifiable"--
"But _was_ it?" interrupted the Governor.
"I don't know the facts, sir, but I know Peter Rathbawne," said Barclay,
throwing back his head, "and I can say, with clear conviction, that it
_must_ have been. If, as you suggest, the hands go out, I think he would
close down the mills for a year, and go abroad. He's a man who doesn't
argue; he simply acts. I fancy there wouldn't be much opposition left by
the time he wanted to reopen."
"Provided always that there were anything left to reopen," suggested the
Governor softly.
"The state troops have more than once proved their ability to assure the
sanctity of property," answered his subordinate, with a touch of the old
pride with which he had assumed office.
"Hum!" said Governor Abbott. "But calling out the militia is a serious
matter, Mr. Barclay, to say nothing of the expense entailed. Considering
that the difficulty would be due entirely to the obstinacy of one
man--er--one might not feel justified"--
He hesitated briefly under the Lieutenant-Governor's keen glance, and
then swerved from this line of suggestion.
"What I wanted to say was this: You are a friend of Mr.
Rathbawne's,--something more than a friend, indeed. No doubt he has a
respect for your opinion, as you have for his. Now, if in the course of
a quiet chat--it will have to be to-night--you should point out the
situation that threatens him, the distress that a strike will cause, the
probable destruction of his property, perhaps he might consent to
reinstate the discharged men to-morrow morning."
"It would be a surrender of principle, to which he would never consent,"
said Barclay firmly. "Of that I am sure. Moreover, sir, I should be
speaking against my convictions were I to advise him to adopt such a
course."
The Governor's lip wrinkled slightly.
"The Union is prepared to do the right thing by the man who settles this
question," he said.
"I hope you don't mean that!" exclaimed Barclay. "You are the first man
to make such a suggestion to me. Pardon me, Governor Abbott, but I
cannot but think the executive chamber of the capitol of Alleghenia a
singular place for it to be mentioned."
The Governor held up his hand.
"You misunderstand me," he said. "One would suppose I had offered you a
purse! I mean simply that the popularity of the man who averts this
strike will be an assured fact. He would be the idol of the working
people, and hardly less esteemed by the element of capital. Moreover, he
would be doing a humane and merciful thing. You are the only man who is
in a position to approach Rathbawne, and, if you will excuse the
suggestion, I think you can hardly afford to throw away the chance. As
it is, you--er--you are not what might be called popular, Mr. Barclay."
This time the silence was broken by a single sharp little
click--the latch of the connecting door slipping into place. The
Lieutenant-Governor sank slowly into his revolving chair, tipped back,
swung round a half circle, and stared out disconsolately over the
sloping lawns of the capitol grounds, mottled with thin patches of
snow.
II
THE ODDS AGAINST YOUNG NISBET
Young Nisbet leaned forward in his chair.
"And I've been thinking," he added, "that perhaps--that perhaps"--
"That perhaps what?" asked the junior Miss Rathbawne, leaning forward in
hers.
"If I don't have tea _instantly_," said her mother, with profound
conviction, as she came ponderously through the portières, tugging at
her gloves, "I shall expire! How de do, Mr. Nisbet. _Do_ sit up
straight, Dorothy, my dear."
She sank heavily into a low chair, which brought her within the radius
of lamp-light at the tea-table, and was thus revealed as a lady of
generous proportions, with a conspicuous absence of features, and no
observable lap. In speaking, she displayed a marked partiality for undue
emphasis. Sublimely unconscious of the depression induced by her
advent, she continued to talk, as she pulled off her gloves, which were
a size too small, and came away with reluctance, leaving imprints of the
stitching on her pudgy pink hands.
Young Nisbet surveyed her with a kind of mute despair. He was a very
average young American, very conventionally in love, and the trifling
remnant of self-assertiveness which had triumphed over the crescent
humility natural to his condition inevitably evaporated into thin air at
the approach of Mrs. Rathbawne; and always, as he was doing now, he
turned in his toes excessively when she was present, hitched at his
right trouser-leg, where the crease passed over his knee, and looked
first at her, and then at the floor, and then at her again, with the
purposeless regularity of a mechanical toy.
There was a tremendous and highly significant rattling of cups, saucers,
and silver spoons, as Dorothy Rathbawne prepared her mother's tea. All
things considered, one found something very admirable about Dorothy at
such a time as this. It was not complete submission, still less was it
open revolt, but savored of both, and was incomparable as an attitude
toward Mrs. Rathbawne. On some occasions it was almost as impossible to
get on with Mrs. Rathbawne as it would have been, on others, to get on
without her. The which, nowadays, is more or less true of all parents.
And children.
"Natalie and your Aunt Helen got out at the florist's," went on the good
lady, "but I came straight on, and sent the carriage back for them. I
felt that I _couldn't_ exist an _instant_ longer without my tea. I'm
sure I don't see how Natalie _stands_ it. She was out all morning in the
brougham, too. You had best make enough for three cups, Dorothy--and
_do_ sit up straight, my dear!--and order Thomas to bring in some more
tartines. They are _sure_ to be hungry, and they are apt to come in at
_any_ moment."
"That is a family failing," said Dorothy venomously, from behind the
kettle.
"Well, I'm _sure_, my dear," said Mrs. Rathbawne innocently, as she
straightened her rings, and picked an imaginary speck out of one of her
round, flat nails, "there is no disgrace at all in a healthy appetite.
I'm thankful we all have it--though as for your Aunt Helen, _hers_ is
about like that of a fly."
"Flies have very good appetites--judging from all I've seen, that is,"
said Dorothy, "so I don't think she is to be commiserated on that
account."
"That was only a figure of speech, my dear," replied Mrs. Rathbawne,
with engaging placidity. "Mercy! but I'm glad to get home. We've had a
positively _exhausting_ day with Natalie's shopping, and the _worst_ of
it is to think what a _lot_ more there is to do. A wedding certainly
_is_ an undertaking, Mr. Nisbet."
"Is it?" answered young Nisbet, perceptibly startled at being thus
abruptly included in the conversation.
"Decidedly!" asseverated Mrs. Rathbawne.
"Of course, in the case of an _ordinary_ man"--
"Two lumps, mother?"
"_Always_ two lumps, Dorothy, my dear. Surely you must know that, by
this time! As I was _saying_, Mr. Nisbet, the fact that my elder
daughter is to marry Mr. Barclay"--
Dorothy's eyebrows went up resignedly as she bent with affected
solicitude over the alcohol lamp, than which none ever burned more
blamelessly. There was no stopping Mrs. Rathbawne now!
"One has to keep his position in mind," she was saying. "It isn't like
the _usual_ marriage, which interests only the families and friends of
the persons concerned, you know. It isn't even as if only Kenton City
were looking on. _All_ Alleghenia will be on the _qui vive_, Mr. Nisbet,
_all_ the state of Alleghenia. I shouldn't wonder if _some_ notice were
taken of the event, even at Washington. Marrying a statesman, you
see,--a Lieutenant-Governor! Oh, it's _quite_ different--_quite_! _Do_
sit up straight, Dorothy, my dear!"
She continued to prattle of the momentous marriage impending, until her
complacent chatter was interrupted by the entrance of her half-sister,
Mrs. Wynyard, and the elder Miss Rathbawne.
The two newcomers were both beautiful, in widely dissimilar ways. Helen
Wynyard, Mrs. Rathbawne's junior by nearly a score of years, retained at
thirty the transparent brilliancy of complexion which, at eighteen, had
made her the most admired _débutante_ of her season in San Francisco.
Her marriage with Ellery Wynyard had caused a great to-do among the
gossips, and, later, had defrauded them pitilessly of their
self-promised "I told you so's," by reason of the death of the handsome
young rake, before the rose-color of the honeymoon had begun to fade.
Beauty, wit, and infallible tact she inherited from her mother, shrewd
business ability and a keen insight into men and things from her father,
and wealth and a certain attractive audacity of speech from her
husband; and five years of widowhood only served to develop and
emphasize the promise of her first season. There were numerous feet
which aspired to be shod with Ellery Wynyard's discarded shoes, but no
one pair, said the world, so much as an inch in advance of the rest.
Mrs. Wynyard was spending the winter with her half-sister, and the
Rathbawnes, whom the circumstance of widely distant residence had always
kept from coming into close touch with her, were equally at a loss when
they wondered how they had formerly contrived to exist without her, and
in what manner they should resign themselves to giving her up. She was a
woman who came amazingly near to being indispensable.
For the moment, Natalie Rathbawne, in reality the beauty which Dorothy
by a fraction fell short of being, suffered by comparison with her
sister. She was desperately tired--that was in her smile. But there was
something else: a singular preoccupation which was nearly akin to
listlessness. That was in the droop of her eyelids, in the eloquently
inattentive gesture with which she touched a bowl of Gloire de Dijon
roses as she passed, and in her conventionally courteous acknowledgment
of young Nisbet's greeting. And, too, as she seated herself beside her
sister on the divan, there was perceptible purpose in her avoidance of
the lamp-light, her withdrawal into the dark, deep corner. To the
conversation which followed she contributed only such brief remarks as
were made necessary by those occasionally addressed to her.
The two women brought with them a delicious, indefinite atmosphere of
out-of-doors: that commingled smell of cold flowers, and cold flesh, and
cold fur, which is to a drawing-room in winter what a whiff of salt air
is in summer to a sun-baked hillside; and this proved almost too much
for the self-possession, already tottering, of young Nisbet. He had
always been accustomed to have the things he desired, had young Nisbet,
but these, until now, had been either creature comforts, readily
obtainable when one's father is a multi-millionaire, or athletic honors,
equally easy of attainment when one measures forty-two around the chest,
and can do one's quarter in something under fifty. Again, the Nisbets
lived on a ranch, and when one does not know people in New York one
spends the Sundays in New Haven, so that neither the terms nor the
vacations incidental to his four years at Yale had equipped him, in the
sense in which they equipped his fellows, for dealing with society.
Now that he was in Kenton City, representing his father's interests,
young Nisbet was painfully self-conscious of multitudinous shortcomings,
totally unsuspected hitherto. His speech was apparently hopelessly
incrusted with slang, his legs were too long, his ears protruded
abominably, his hair was desperately unruly, his freckles and his
capacity for blushing were inexhaustible. He was as much at ease in such
surroundings as these in which he now found himself as a trout in a
sandpile. The great room, with its costly furnishings, the tea-table
crowded with silver and fragile porcelain, the kettle purring
contentedly above the iridescent flame of the alcohol lamp,--above all,
the subtle, indefinable suggestion of femininity which unknowably
pervaded his surroundings,--all these enthralled young Nisbet beyond
expression, and awed him immeasurably, into the bargain. He was, as
usual, very clear in his own mind as to what he wanted, and that was the
younger Miss Rathbawne, but, for the first time in his experience, the
means at his command did not seem to be sufficient unto the end. For the
younger Miss Rathbawne was, very evidently, not the sort of triumph
which is achieved by recourse to an imposingly ample bank-account, nor
yet by two months' loyalty to the exigencies of the training-table. And
this was February, and he had known her since July, and, altogether, it
was highly discouraging. Unwittingly, young Nisbet heaved a sigh so
profound and so pitiable that Mrs. Wynyard immediately proffered her
sympathy.
"Poor, dear Mr. Nisbet! I never heard a more pathetic sigh. Whatever is
the matter?"
"He's sleepy," put in Dorothy. "He always is, after talking with me for
a whole hour."
"I was just thinking," protested young Nisbet helplessly.
"Oh!" exclaimed Dorothy, "that's it, is it? Then pray don't discourage
him, Aunt Helen. He's really getting into some very good habits, of
late."
"Why, _Dorothy_!" said Mrs. Rathbawne, digging her chin reproachfully
into her black velvet collar, "how _can_ you say such things? Mr. Nisbet
will think you have had _no_ bringing up at all. And _do_ sit up
straight, my dear!"
"And if you don't stop nagging, O most conscientious of parents,"
retorted Dorothy, with her nose in the air, "Mr. Nisbet will think you
bring people up by throwing them down!"
"And slang! _Dorothy!_"
"I always think," said Mrs. Wynyard, "that Dorothy should have had a
fairy godmother, to promise that every time she uttered a word of slang
a pearl should pop out of her mouth. We should have all been wearing
triple strings down to our knees within a week after she learned to
talk."
"That settles it!" exclaimed Dorothy. "If you are going to side with the
enemy, Aunt Helen, there is nothing left for me to do but to beat a
retreat. Come on, Mr. Nisbet, there is rest for the weary in the
conservatory--that is, unless you want another cup of tea?"
In the conservatory the air was heavy with the moist, sweet smell of
earth and moss, and faintly vibrant with the tiny plash of water,
dripping from a pile of rocks into the circular central pool, wherein
fat gold-fish went idly to and fro, nuzzling floating specks upon the
surface. Through the polished green of the surrounding palms and
rubber-plants stared gardenias and camelias; below, between maidenhair
and sword-ferns, winked the little waxen blossoms of fuchsias and
begonias: at intervals poinsettia flared audaciously among its more
quietly dressed neighbors; and, in the far corners the golden spheres
were swelling to fairly respectable proportions on the branches of dwarf
orange-trees.
Dorothy installed herself on a bench, and young Nisbet perched upon the
rim of the pool, and stared at vacancy.
"It's corking, in here," he said, after a moment.
"Isn't it, though?" agreed Dorothy, with a nod of approval. "It's my
favorite part of the house. You can't imagine how many hours I spend
here, sewing, or reading, or fiddling with the fish and all those funny
little plants under the palms."
"You bet!" said young Nisbet, with enthusiasm, if not much relevancy.
"I've just got a picture of that, you know. Besides, we've spent a good
many of those hours together in here, these past few months."
"Oh, not a tenth of them!" exclaimed Dorothy, "and then only the very
shortest."
"Oh!" said young Nisbet gloomily. His fertile imagination was
immediately peopled with the forms and faces of those who had shared the
other hours, a score of eligible and attractive young men, his moral,
mental, and physical superiors in every conceivable particular,
faultlessly arrayed, scintillating with wit, and surpassingly skilled in
the way to win a woman. The conservatory was full of them. He saw them
in every imaginable posture: feeding the gold-fish, watering the
begonias, looking up into Dorothy's eyes as they sat at her feet,
looking down at her slender fingers, as she pinned gardenias to their
lapels. And these had been granted the long hours, he only the short.
Inwardly, young Nisbet groaned; aloud, as was his wont, he said the
wrong thing.
"They seemed long enough to me."
"_Well!_" said Dorothy.
"Oh, hang it all! I didn't mean that. What an oaf I am!"
"Never mind," said Dorothy consolingly. "I know you well enough to
understand you, by this time." She smoothed her skirt reflectively.
"Let me see," she added, "what were we talking about when we were
swamped by the family?"
"I think," answered young Nisbet, with one of his illogical blushes,
"that I had just asked you what sort of a man you thought you would like
to marry. I remember I was on the point of saying that I thought perhaps
you had ideas like--er--like your mother's."
Dorothy raised her eyebrows.
"Like the Mater's?"
"About a man being big and prominent, and all that, you know,"
floundered young Nisbet. "She always makes such a point of Barclay's
being Lieutenant-Governor--I thought you might be for the same kind of
thing."
Dorothy looked him over, with a whimsical smile, as he was speaking.
There was a deep bronze light in his close-cropped, ruddy hair, and his
skin was very smooth and clean. His eyes were appealing, with that
unspeakable eloquence of simple honesty which is almost pathetic. Under
his blue cloth coat, the great muscles of his shoulders and chest stood
out magnificently, rippling the fabric as he stirred, as if eager to
throw off their trammels, and be given free play. About him there was a
distinct suggestion of sane living and regular exercise. For all his
freckles, and his nose that was too little, and his mouth that was too
large, "the ugliest of the Nisbet boys"--he had often been called
that!--was very emphatically good to look upon.
"A big man?" answered Dorothy. "Yes, I think I should like to marry a
big man. I want him very clean, too--_very_ clean!--morally, as well as
otherwise. And honest as the day is long. And not _too_ bright! I don't
want to be continually trying to live up to his brain, and continually
failing. It is fatal to one's self-respect, that sort of thing. Then, he
must be heels over head in love with me--for keeps! And then--oh, he
must be a _man_, a man through and through, who wouldn't think anything
he didn't dare to say, nor say anything he didn't dare to do! That's
what I want, and if I can get it, all the prominence in the world may
go hang!"
"That's just about John Barclay, though," said young Nisbet, "with the
prominence thrown in."
"Well, I'm not saying I wouldn't have married John Barclay, if I'd had
the chance. He comes pretty close to being all I would ask for, in the
way of a man. But, unfortunately, there's only one John Barclay, and,
like the rest of the world, he looked directly over poor little Me's
shoulders, and saw only Natalie. Good gracious! Who could blame him?
She's the loveliest little thing in the world! But, at all events, she
nabbed him, so all that is left for me to do is to grin and bear the
disappointment as best I may. He's very much of a man, John Barclay is!"
"Yes," assented young Nisbet, somewhat mournfully. "I can see that would
be the kind of a chap that the dames would stand for everlastingly."
"But, as I said before," continued Dorothy, "it's not because he's
Lieutenant-Governor, whatever the Mater may think about it, that I
admire him. It's just because he's so big, and earnest, and loyal,
and--and"--
"White," said young Nisbet.
"Yes, _isn't_ he? That's it--white!"
"I can understand a man like that getting spliced," observed young
Nisbet very earnestly. "He has so much to offer a girl. But as for the
rest of us"--
"Oh, as to that," broke in Dorothy airily, "John Barclay isn't the only
man in the world, by any manner of means! Besides, Natalie having
already bagged him, it is plain I shall have to look elsewhere."
There was a long pause, broken only by the plash of the water, which
seemed, as the seconds slipped by, to grow amazingly loud. Then young
Nisbet raised his eyes, and looked at her, blushing deplorably.
"I wish"--he said, "I wish"--
"Dorothy! _Do_ excuse me, Mr. Nisbet, but _really_--dinner at seven, you
know, and this child _must_ be thinking about dressing. She takes
_ages_!"
Mrs. Rathbawne folded her fat hands, and stood waiting, at the
conservatory door. Young Nisbet rose.
"Of course!" he said. "I'm always so stupid about these things. Good-by,
Miss Rathbawne. I'm off to New York to-morrow on some confounded
business, so I probably won't see you for a week or so. Good-by."
"_Would_ you mind going out by the hall, Mr. Nisbet?" suggested Mrs.
Rathbawne. "Mr. Barclay is in the drawing-room with my elder daughter,
and he is so _greatly_ occupied with affairs of state that they have
_very_ little time together. I _hate_ to have them interrupted. One can
do _so_ much harm sometimes, you know, by thoughtlessly interrupting
people who are in love with each other. Thank you _so_ much; good-by.
_Do_ try to stand a little straighter, Dorothy, my dear."
III
A FACE IN THE CROWD
At the sound of the Lieutenant-Governor's voice at the front door, Mrs.
Rathbawne had beaten a hasty retreat, dragging her immensely edified
half-sister in her wake, so that when he stepped through the curtained
doorway Barclay found Natalie alone.
"I'm so glad you could come early," she said, from the corner of the
divan. "Now we can have a talk before dinner. I seem to see so little of
you. I suppose that's the penalty attached to being engaged to the
second biggest man in the state. I'm sometimes jealous, Johnny boy, of
Alleghenia's place in your affections."
"You're the only person in the world who has no need to be," laughed
Barclay. "What is the news?"
"Probably," said Natalie, "the only interesting items are that you are
cold and a little cross, and that you want a big chair and a cup of tea
and some hot toast."
"Your summary of the situation is so exhaustive," said Barclay, "that
there seems to be nothing left for me to say, except that you are the
most beautiful girl in the world, and that I think I must stand still a
moment and just look at you, before I accept any of the luxuries you
suggest."
"I can't imagine how you know that I'm so beautiful. You can't possibly
see me in this dark corner. But I see I've made one mistake! You are
distinctly _not_ cross."
"Why should I be?" asked the Lieutenant-Governor, standing before the
table, with his long legs far apart, and rocking from his toes to his
heels and back again. "When a man has been walking for half an hour
through a gnawing February air, and suddenly, out of all proportion to
his deserts, comes full upon a rose in bloom, is that a reason for being
cross?"
She was very small, and deliciously delicate, was Natalie Rathbawne,
like a little Dresden image, with an arbutus-pink complexion, brown
hair, and deep-blue eyes, now clouded thoughtfully, but oftener alight
with humor, or dilating and clearing under the impetus of conversation.
A doll-like daintiness of tiny pleats and ruffles, fresh bows, and fine
stitching pervaded everything she wore, and if her voice inspired the
hackneyed comparison of running water, it was of water running under
moss, the sound whereof is as different from that of an open brook as is
music from discord. To John Barclay's thinking the barely believable
fact that this little miracle of beauty--this pocket-Venus, as he was
wont to call her--actually belonged to him remained one of the insoluble
mysteries of life. He could not, in the thraldom of his present Elysium,
be expected to remember, even if he had ever fully realized, that he
himself was tall, broad-shouldered, clean-cut, and clean-lived, with the
unmistakable stamp of the American gentleman on his linen and his
simple, well-fitting clothes, and the evidences of a sane, regular
existence in his steady hands and his clear eyes and his firm mouth,--a
man of whom any woman might be, and of whom this particular woman was,
extravagantly proud. For the first tribute which a lover lays at the
feet of his lady is, in ordinary, the stamped-upon and abused summary of
his personal attributes, which, in his own mind, he has taken remarkable
pains to render as despicable as possible, and which, in hers, her
imagination contrives not only to rehabilitate, but to imbue with a
preposterously exaggerated splendor.
"I wonder," added the Lieutenant-Governor presently, "whether when
gentlemen are invited to tea they are supposed to kiss the hostess on
entering."
"If you are in any doubt about it," observed Natalie, with an air of
superb indifference, "I advise you to write for advice to the etiquette
editor of the 'Kenton City Record.' She is probably sixty-two years old,
looks like an English walnut, has never had a proposal in her life, and
so knows all about"--
What the lady in question was supposed to know all about was for
sufficient reasons never made clear. There are occasions, despite the
manuals of polite behavior, when interruption cannot with any approach
to justice be regarded as rudeness.
Barclay heaved a long sigh of satisfaction as he took his tea and two
thin slices of toast and settled himself in his chair.
"Do you think it possible," he asked, "for a man to be asleep for six
weeks, dreaming that he is in another garden of Eden, with an Eve in a
French frock, who has no partiality for apples"--
"I _adore_ apples!" said the girl.
"And then wake up," he continued, disregarding the interruption, "and
find that the dream was only a dream, after all,--that he's only a poor
dog of a politician, that the garden is only a dingy office, and the
flower-beds full of briers and pitfalls?"
"You've been eating pie for lunch again," said Natalie severely, "and it
always makes you morbid. No; I don't think it possible at all. If I did,
I should hang on to your coattails like fury and keep you in dreamland,
whether you wanted to wake up or not."
"It's all too good to be true! How _dare_ you be so beautiful?"
"John"--
"It's gospel truth!"
Barclay paused for a moment, and then went on more seriously.
"You're tired, littlest and most lovely in the world, and troubled about
something."
Natalie laughed shortly, with evident effort.
"Why do you say that?" she asked.
"Why not? Don't you suppose I know? Do you think you could say a hundred
words without my perceiving that? It almost seems to me that the
knowledge that you were unhappy would make its way to me, no matter what
distance separated us, and that I should come to you at top-speed to set
things right. I've hardly seen your face, and yet I know your dear, deep
eyes are troubled; I had barely heard your voice before I felt its
weariness."
Natalie bent forward until her face came under the light.
"Yes, I'm tired," she said; "or, rather, I was tired when I first came
in. I'm better now, since I've had my tea. But you're right, Johnny
boy,--there's something more. I'm troubled, desperately troubled and
heartsick. I've been trying to make myself believe that it's all
imagination, that I have no reason for feeling as I do; but I'm afraid I
can't manage it. John, I thought I saw Spencer Cavendish to-day."
"Spencer Cavendish? Are you sure? I had almost forgotten his
existence!--Of course, it's not impossible; but I imagined he had taken
root in some South Sea island long ago. That's what he was always
expecting to do, you remember. How I have hated that man!"
"You were good friends once."
"Yes, and should be yet, if I had not been the most suspicious mortal
that ever breathed, and he the most hot-blooded. There was a reason, you
know,--a little reason, but the most important in the world! I was
jealous, Natalie, insanely jealous. I could forgive him everything now."
"That hurts me, John. I'm so happy, boy dear, that I want everybody else
to be happy as well. Oh, why is it that a girl must always have that one
thought on her mind, which is so hard, so hard?--I mean the thought of
the good men, the true, brave, loyal men, whom she has cared for, who
have been her best friends perhaps, and yet whom she has been forced to
hurt bitterly because they asked her for something she was not able to
give. A man has so much easier a road! His happiness, when it comes to
him, isn't clouded by the thought of those to whom it means the loss of
their last remnant of hope. They are there, the disappointed ones, but
he doesn't know, he doesn't know! He hasn't on his conscience the memory
of hearts cruelly wounded,--wounded even to death. He doesn't in memory
see the eagerness in a good friend's eyes die to disillusion, to
hopelessness, to bitter, bitter sorrow. He doesn't have to remember how
the life died suddenly out of a voice that had been tender and eloquent.
He doesn't sicken with the thought that his hand has given a blow so
merciless, so unmerited, and yet so inevitable. Worst of all, for the
girl, is the after-discovery that her decision has made a difference--a
hideous, irreparable difference,--that the man can never be the same
again,--that she has wrecked a life with a word! Oh, there ought to be
some way! The man ought not to ask unless he is sure of the reply! It's
too much responsibility to force upon the girl!
"So with Spencer Cavendish," she went on after a moment. "In spite of
all--in spite of all, John!--I can't forget that he loved me. I think a
woman never forgets that."
"Until the man marries another woman!"
"Ah," said Natalie, with a faint smile, "then least of all, John! And
besides, Spencer never married. He knew I loved you, long before you
did! I felt that it was due to him that he should know; he was my
oldest and best friend then, and so I told him! And then he went out of
my life--out of his own--into darkness. I can't forget it! I can't
forget that I broke up your friendship"--
"Dearest!"
"I did, John! It wasn't my fault, perhaps, nor any one's, for that
matter, but I did, just the same. Besides, it wasn't only the question
of your friendship. What hurt me most was the wilful wreck of his life.
And yet, how could I have known what was going to happen? What could I
do when it did happen? He was beyond my reach. He didn't even answer the
letter I wrote, asking him to come and see me. I thought, if he cared
for me, I could save him. But it was just as he had said,--he must have
everything, or he would have nothing at all. And so he went wrong--oh,
so terribly, terribly wrong!--he who might have been anything, if it
hadn't been for me. I can never forget it--never! I can never forget the
pity of it, the tragedy of its awful publicity, the newspapers, the
scandal, people's sneers, his mother dying of a broken heart--_and I did
it_! Think of it! Think of a man like Spencer Cavendish in the police
courts, not once, but a dozen times. Think of what Justice Meyer called
him at last, and what was printed in the papers,--'a common drunk!' Oh,
John!"
"Natalie, Natalie!" broke in the Lieutenant-Governor. "Why should you
think of such things, brood over them, above all, blame them on
yourself? How could it possibly have been your fault? how could you
possibly have helped it? He was a reckless, hot-headed chap--brilliant,
of course, but a slave to his impulses and his nerves. If Lochinvars
could act with impunity nowadays, he'd have ridden up to your door on a
black horse, killed Thomas, and carried you off across his pommel. As it
was, he let himself go, and disgraced himself. I tried to talk to him,
just as you did, but he wouldn't have it--called me 'an insolent cub'
and--er--worse. I had to give it up. It was all very distressing, I
admit, but then, dear, it was all so long ago. He hasn't been in Kenton
City for two years and more, and I've no doubt he pulled himself
together long since, and is leading a straight life somewhere. He had
lots in him, with all his recklessness. A chap like that, with no family
hanging about his neck, and with his brains, and only his own living to
make, could forge ahead almost anywhere."
"But John, I'm _sure_ I saw him to-day, and suppose I should tell you
that he was--begging?"
Barclay almost smiled at her earnest, troubled face, as he replaced his
cup on the table.