HARRISON CRESSY REVERTS
Left to himself, Harrison Cressy discovered to his annoyance that there
was no train out of Dunbury for two hours. That was the worst of these
little one-horse towns. You might as well be dead as alive in 'em. By the
time he had smoked his after-dinner cigar he felt as if he might as well
be dead himself. He felt suddenly heavy, old, almost decrepit, though
that morning when he had left Boston he had considered himself in the
prime of life and vigor. Hang it! He was sixty-nine. A man was about done
for at sixty-nine, all but ready to turn into his grave. And he without
son or grandson. Lord! What a swindle life was anyway!
Well, there was no use sitting still groaning. He would get up and take a
little walk until train time. Maybe it was his liver that made him feel
so confoundedly rotten and no count. A little exercise would do him good.
Absentmindedly he noted, as he strolled down the elm-shaded streets, the
neatness of the lawns, the gay flower beds, the hammocks and swings out
under the trees as if people really lived out of doors here. There were
animate evidences of the fact everywhere. Children played here and there
in shady spaces under big trees. Pretty girls on wide, hospitable-looking
porches chatted and drank lemonade and knitted. A lithe, red-haired lass
in white played tennis on a smooth dirt court with a tall, clean looking
youth. As Mr. Cressy passed the girl cried out, "Love all" and the
millionaire smiled. It occurred to him it was not so hard to love all in
a village like this. It was only in cities that you hated your neighbor
and did him first lest you be done yourself.
He hadn't been loose in a country town like this for years. He had almost
forgotten what they were like when you didn't shoot through them in a
motor car, rushing always to get somewhere else. His casual saunter down
the quiet street was oddly soothing to his nerves, awoke happy, yet
half-sad memories.
He had met and loved Carlotta's mother in a country town. The lilacs had
been in bloom and the orioles had stood sponsor for his first Sunday
call. They had become engaged by the time the asters were out. The next
lilac time they had been married. A third spring and the little Carlotta
had come. They had both been disappointed at its not being a boy, but the
little girl was a wonder, with hair as gold as buttercups, eyes like wood
violets and a laugh that lilted and gurgled like the little brook down in
the meadow.
And then, two years later, the boy had come, come and drifted off to some
far place. It had been a bitter blow to Rose as well as to Harrison
Cressy, especially as they said there never could be any more children.
Rose grew frail, did not rally or regain her strength. They advised a
sanitarium in the Adirondacks for her. She had gone, but it had been of
no use. By the time they brought in the first gentians Rose had drifted
off after her little son. Carlotta and her father were alone.
By this time Harrison Cressy had begun to show the authentic Midas
touch. Only the little Carlotta stood between him and sheer, sordid
money grubbing. And even she was an excuse for the getting of always
more and more wealth. He told himself Carlotta should be a veritable
princess, should go always clad in the finest, have of the best, be
surrounded always by the most beautiful. She should know only joy and
light and laughter.
Thinking these thoughts, Carlotta's father sighed. For now at last
Carlotta wanted something he could not give her, was learning after
twenty-two years of cloudless joy the bitter way of tears. Why hadn't
that stubborn boy surrendered?
For that matter why didn't Carlotta surrender? This was a new idea to
Harrison Cressy. All the time he had been talking to Philip Lambert he
had been seeing Carlotta only in relation to Crest House and the Beacon
Street mansion. But just now he had been recalling her mother under very
different associations. Rose had been content with a tiny little cottage
set in a green yard gay with bright old fashioned flowers. He and Rose
had nested as happily as the orioles in the maples, especially after the
gold-haired baby came. Was Carlotta so different from Rose? Was her
happiness such a different kind of thing? Were women not pretty much
alike at heart? Did they not want about the same things?
Carlotta loved this lad of hers as Rose had loved himself. Was it her own
father who was cheating her out of happiness because he had taught her to
believe that money and limousines and great houses and many servants and
silken robes are happiness? If he had talked to her of other things, told
her about her mother and the happy old days among the lilacs and orioles,
with little but love to nest with, couldn't he have made her see things
more truly, shown her that love was the main thing, that money could not
buy happiness? One could not buy much of anything that was worth buying
Harrison Cressy thought. One could purchase only the worthless. That was
the everlasting failure of money.
He remembered the boy's, "I love Carlotta. But I don't love her enough to
let her or you buy me." It was true. Neither he nor his daughter had been
able to purchase the lad's integrity, his good faith, his ideals. And
Harrison Cressy was thankful from the bottom of his heart that it was so.
He turned his steps back to the village and as he did so an oriole
flashed out of the shrubbery near him, and passed like a flame out of
sight among the trees. This was a good sign. Orioles had nested every
year in the maple tree by the little white house where Carlotta had been
born. Carlotta herself had always loved them. "Pretty, pretty, birdie!"
she had been wont to call out. "Come, daddy, let's follow him and see
where he goes."
He would go home and tell Carlotta all this, make her see that her
happiness was in her own hands. No, it was the boy's story. If Carlotta
would not follow the orioles and her own heart for Philip Lambert she
would not for any argument of his.
By this time a distant puff of smoke gave evidence that the Boston train
was already on its way, leaving Harrison Cressy in Dunbury. Not that he
cared. He had business still to transact ere he departed, a new battle to
fight. He walked with the firm elastic step of a youth back to town. What
did it matter if you were sixty-nine when the best things of life were
still ahead of you?
Accordingly Phil was a second time that day surprised by the unheralded
arrival of Carlotta's father, a rather dusty, weary and limp-looking
gentleman this time, but exuding a sort of benignant serenity that had
not been there early in the day.
"Hello," greeted the millionaire blandly. "Missed my train--got to
browsing round the town like an old billy goat. Not sorry though. It is a
nice little town. Mind if I sit down? I'm a bit blown." And dropping on a
stool Mr. Cressy fanned himself with his panama and grinned at Philip, a
grin the young man could not quite fathom. What new trick had the clever
old financier at the bottom of his mind? Phil hoped he had not got to go
through the thing again. Once had been quite enough for one day.
"Let me send out for something cool to drink, Mr. Cressy. You must be
horribly hot. It is warm in here, even with all the fans going. Hi,
there, Tommy!" Philip summoned a freckled, red-haired youth from
somewhere in the background. "Run over to Greene's and get a lemonade for
this gentleman, will you?"
"Right, Mr. Phil." The boy saluted--an odd salute, Mr. Cressy noted. It
was rendered with the right hand, the three middle fingers held up, the
thumb bent over touching the nail of the little finger. The saluter stood
very straight as he went through the ceremony and looked very serious
about it. "Queer!" thought the onlooker. The messenger boys he knew did
not behave like that when you gave them an order.
Philip excused himself to attend to a customer and in a moment the
red-haired lad was back with a tall glass of lemonade clinking
delightfully with ice. Mr. Cressy took it and set it down on the counter
while he fumbled for his wallet and produced a dollar bill.
To his amazement the boy's grin faded, and he drew himself up with
dignity.
"No, thank you, sir," he said to the proffered greenback. "I'm a Scout
and Scouts don't take tips."
"What!" gasped Harrison Cressy. In all his life he did not recall meeting
a boy who ever refused money before. He began to think there was
something uncanny about this town of Dunbury. First a young man who could
not be bought at any price. And now a boy who wouldn't take a tip for
service rendered.
"I said I was a Scout," repeated the lad patiently. "And Scouts don't
take tips. We are supposed to do one good turn every day, anyway, and I
hadn't gotten mine in before. I'm only a Tenderfoot but I'm most ready
for my second class tests. Mr. Phil's going to try me out in first aid as
soon as he gets time."
"Mr. Phil! What's he got to do with it?" inquired Mr. Cressy, after a
long, satisfying swig of lemonade.
"He is our Scout-master and a peach of a one too. He is going to take us
on a hike tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Tomorrow is Sunday, young man." The Methodist in Harrison
Cressy rose to the surface.
"I know. We all go to church and Sunday school in the morning. Mr. Phil
won't take us unless we do. But in the afternoon he thinks it is all
right to go on a hike. We don't practise signaling and things like that,
but we get in a lot of nature study. I can identify all my ten trees now
and a whole lot more besides, and I've got a bird list of over sixty."
"You don't say so?" Harrison Cressy was plainly impressed. "So your Mr.
Phil gives a good deal of time to that sort of thing, does he?" he added,
his eyes seeking Philip Lambert in the distance.
"Should say he did. I guess he gives about all the time he has outside
of the store. He's a dandy Scout-master. What he says goes, you betcher."
Remembering the scene at the luncheon table that day, Harrison Cressy
thought it quite probable. What Philip had said had gone "you betcher" on
that occasion with a vengeance. So young Lambert gave his off hours to
business of this sort. Most of Carlotta's male friends gave most of
theirs to polo, jazz, and chorus girls. He began to covet Philip more
than ever for a possible, and he hoped probable, son-in-law.
It played into his purposes excellently that Philip on returning invited
him to supper on the Hill that night. He wanted to meet the boy's people,
especially the mother. Carlotta had told him once that Philip's mother
was the most wonderful person in the world.
Seated at the long table in the Lambert dining-room Harrison Cressy
enjoyed a meal such as his chef-ridden soul had almost forgotten could
exist--a meal so simple yet so delectable that he dreamed of it for days
afterward.
But the food, excellent as it was, was only a small part of the
significance of the occasion. It was a revelation to the millionaire to
know that a family could gather around the board like this and have such
a thoroughly delightful time all round. There was gay talk and ready
laughter, a fine flavor of old-fashioned courtesy and hospitality and
good will in everything that was said or done.
The Lambert girls--the pretty twins and the younger, slim slip of a
lassie, Elinor--were charming, fresh, natural, unspoiled, very different
from and far more to his taste than most of the young women who came to
Crest House--hot-house products, over-sophisticated, cynical, too
familiar with rouge and cigarettes and the game of love and lure,
huntresses more or less, the whole pack of them. It seemed girls could
still be plain girls on this enchanted Hill--girls who would make
wonderful wives some day for some lucky men.
But the mother! She was the secret of it all, quite as remarkable as
Carlotta had said. She was extraordinarily well read, talked well on a
dozen subjects as to which he was himself but vaguely informed, and she
was evidently even more extraordinarily busy. There was talk of a Better
Babies movement in which she was interested, of a Red Cross Chapter at
which she had spent the afternoon, of a committee meeting of the local
Woman's Club which was bringing a noted English poet-lecturer to town.
There were Chatauqua plans in view, and a new children's reading room in
the public library with a story-telling hour of which Clare was to be in
charge. A hundred things indicated that Mrs. Lambert was by no means
confined to the four walls of her home for interests and activities. Yet
her home was exquisitely kept and she was a mother first of all. One
could see that every moment. It was "Mums, this" and "Mums, that" from
them all. The life of the home clearly pivoted about her.
Harrison Cressy found himself wishing that Carlotta could have known a
motherhood like that. Rose had gone so soon. Carlotta had never known
what she missed. Perhaps Mr. Cressy himself had not known until he saw
Mrs. Lambert and realized what a mother might be. Poor Carlotta! He had
given her a great deal. At least, until this, afternoon, he had thought
he had. But he had never given her anything at all comparable to what
this quiet village store-keeper and his wife had given to their son and
daughters. He hadn't had it to give. He had been poor, after all, all
along. Though he hadn't suspected it until now.
After supper Stuart Lambert had slipped quickly away, bidding his son
stay up on the Hill a little longer with their guest. Phil had demurred,
but had been quietly overruled and had acquiesced perforce. Poor Dad!
There had not been a moment all day to relieve his mind about Mr.
Cressy's offer. Not once had the father and son been alone. Phil was
afraid his father was taking the thing a good deal to heart, and it
worried him. He had counted on talking it over together as they went back
to the store but his father had willed otherwise.
It was with Carlotta's father instead of his own that Philip talked first
after all.
"See here, Philip," began Mr. Cressy as they descended the Hill in
"Lizzie." "I went at this all wrong. So did Carlotta. I understand
better now. I've been back in the past this afternoon, remembering what
it means to live in the country and love and mate there in the good
old-fashioned way as Carlotta's mother and I did. It is what I want her
to do with you. Do you get that, boy? I want her to come to Dunbury. I
want her to have a piece of your mother. Carlotta never knew what it was
to have a mother. It is mostly my fault she doesn't see any clearer. You
mustn't blame her, lad."
"I don't," said Phil. "I love her."
"I know you do. And she loves you. Go to her. Make her see. Make her
marry you and be happy."
Phil was silent, not because he was not moved by the older man's plea but
because he was almost too moved to speak. It rather took his breath away
to have Harrison Cressy on his side like this. It was almost too
incredible, and yet there was no mistaking the sincerity in the other's
words or on his face. Carlotta's father did want Carlotta to come to him
on his Hill.
But would Carlotta want it? That was the question. For himself he
sought no higher road to follow than the one where his father and
mother had blazed the trail through fair weather and stormy these many
years. But would Carlotta be content to travel so with him? He did not
know. At any rate he could ask her, try once more to make her see, as
her father put it.
He turned to his companion with a sober smile at this point in his
reflections.
"Thank you, Mr. Cressy. I will try again and I know it is going to make a
great deal of difference to Carlotta--and to me--to have you on my side.
Perhaps she will see it differently this time. I--hope so."
"Lord, boy, so do I!" groaned Mr. Cressy. "You will come back to Crest
House tomorrow with me?"
Phil hesitated, considered, shook his head.
"I'll come next Saturday. I can't get away tomorrow," he said.
"Why not? For the Lord's sake, boy, get it over!"
Phil smiled but shook his head. He too wanted to get it over. He could
hardly wait to get to Carlotta, would have started that moment if he
could have done so. But there were clear-cut reasons why he could not go
tomorrow, obligations that held him fast in Dunbury.
"I can't go tomorrow because I have promised my boys a hike," he
explained.
Harrison Cressy nearly exploded.
"Heavens, man! What does a parcel of kids amount to when it comes to
getting you a wife? You can call off your hike, can't you?"
"I could, but it would be hard on a good many of them. They count on it a
good deal. Some of them have given up other pleasures they might have had
on account of it. Tommy has, for instance. His uncle asked him to go to
Worcester with him in his car, and he refused because of his date with
me. They are all bribed to church and Sunday School by the means. One of
the things Scouting stands for is sticking to your job and your word. I
don't think it is exactly up to the Scoutmaster to dodge his
responsibilities when he preaches the other kind of thing. Of course, if
it were a life and death matter, it would be different. It isn't. I have
waited a good many weeks to see Carlotta. I can wait one more."
Harrison Cressy grunted. He hardly knew whether to fly into a rage with
this extraordinary young man or to clap him on the back and tell him he
liked him better and better every minute. He contented himself by
repeating a remark he had made earlier in the day.
"You are a darn fool, young man." Then he added, half against his will,
"But I like your darnfoolness, hang me if I don't!"
Phil had a strenuous two hours in the store with never a minute to get at
his father. It was not until the last customer had departed, the last
clerk fled away and the clock striking eleven that the father and son
were alone.
Philip came over to where the older man stood. His heart smote him when
he saw how utterly worn and weary the other looked, as if he had suddenly
added a full ten years to his age since morning. His characteristic
buoyancy seemed to have deserted him for once.
"Dad, I've not had a minute alone with you all day. I am sorry Mr. Cressy
bothered you about that blue sky proposition of his. I never would have
let him if I had known. Of course there was nothing in it. I didn't
consider it for a minute."
Stuart Lambert smiled wearily and sat down on the counter.
"I am afraid you have given up more than we realized, Philip, in coming
into the store. Mr. Cressy gave me a glimpse into things that I knew
nothing about. You should have told us."
"There was nothing to tell. I've given up nothing that was mine. I told
Carlotta all along she would have to come to me. I couldn't come to her.
My whole life is here with you. It is what I have wanted ever since I had
the sense to want anything but to enjoy my fool self. But even then I
didn't appreciate what it would be like to be here with you. I couldn't,
till I had tried it and found out first hand what kind of a man my dad
was. I am absolutely satisfied. If Mr. Cressy had offered me a million a
year I wouldn't have taken it. It wouldn't have been the slightest
temptation even--" he smiled a little sadly--"even with Carlotta thrown
in. I don't want to get Carlotta that way."
"You say you are satisfied, Philip. Maybe that is so. But you are
not happy."
"I wasn't, just at first. I was a fool. I let the thing swamp me for
awhile. Mums helped pull me out of the slough and since then I've been
finding out that happiness is--well, a kind of by-product. Like the
kingdom of heaven it doesn't come for observation. I have had about as
much happiness here with you, and with Mums and the girls at home, and
with my Scouts in the woods, as I deserve, maybe more. I'm going to try
to get Carlotta. I haven't given up hope. I'm going down to Sea View next
week to ask her again and maybe things will be different this time. Her
father is on my side now, which is a great help. He has got the Holiday
Hill viewpoint all at once. He wants Carlotta to come to me--us. So do I,
with all my heart. But whether she does or doesn't, I am here with you as
long as you want me, first last and all the time and glad to be. Please
believe that, Dad, always."
Stuart Lambert rose.
"Philip, you don't know what it means to me to hear you say this." There
was a little break in the older man's voice, the suggestion of pent
emotion. "It nearly killed me to think I ought to give you up. You are
sure you are not making too much of a sacrifice?"
"Dad! Please don't say that word to me. There isn't any sacrifice. It is
what I want. I haven't been a very good son always. Even this summer I am
afraid I haven't come up to all you expected of me, especially just at
first when I was wrapped up in myself and my own concerns too much to see
that doing a good job in the store was only a small part of what I was
here in Dunbury to do. But anyway I am prouder than I can tell you to be
your son and I am going to try my darndest to live up to the sign if you
will let me stay on being the minor part of it."
He held out his hand and his father took it. There were tears in the
older man's eyes. A moment later the store was dark as the two passed out
shoulder to shoulder beneath the sign of STUART LAMBERT AND SON.