THE DUNBURY CURE
Harrison Cressy awoke next morning to the cheerful chirrup of robins and
the pleasant far-off sound of church bells. He liked the bells. They
sounded different in the country he thought. You couldn't hear them in
the city anyway. There were too many noises to distract you. There was no
Sabbath stillness in the city. For that matter there wasn't much Sabbath.
He got up out of bed and went and looked out of the window. There was a
heavenly hush everywhere. It was still very early. It had been the
Catholic bells ringing for mass that he had heard. The dew was a-dazzle
on every grass blade. The robins hopped briskly about at their business
of worm-gathering. The morning glories all in fresh bloom climbed
cheerfully over the picket fence. He hadn't seen a morning glory in
years. It set him dreaming again, took him back to his boyhood days.
If only Carlotta would be sensible and yield to the boy's wooing. Dunbury
had cast a kind of spell upon him. He wanted his daughter to live here.
He wanted to come here to visit her. In his imagination he saw himself
coming to Carlotta's home--not too big a home--just big enough to live
and grow in and raise babies in. He saw himself playing with Carlotta's
little golden-haired violet-eyed daughters, and walking hand in hand with
her small son Harrison, just such a sturdy, good-looking, wide-awake
youngster as Philip Lambert had no doubt been. Harrison Cressy's mind
dwelt fondly upon this grandson of his. That was a boy indeed!
Carlotta's son should not be permitted to grow up a money grubber. There
would be money of course. One couldn't very well avoid that under the
circumstances. The boy would be trained to the responsibilities of being
Harrison Cressy's heir. But he should be taught to see things in their
true values and proportions. He must not grow up money-blinded like
Carlotta. He should know that money was good--very good. But he should
know it was not the chief good, was never for an instant to be classed
with the abiding things--the real things, not to be purchased at a price.
Mr. Cressy sighed a little at that point and crept back to bed. It
occurred to him he would have to leave this latter part of his grandson's
education to the Lambert side of the family. That was their business,
just as the money part was his.
He fell asleep again and presently re-awoke in a kind of shivering panic.
What if Carlotta would not marry Philip after all? What if it was too
late already? What if his grandson turned out to be a second Herbert
Lathrop, an unobjectionable, possibly even an objectionable ass.
Perspiration beaded on the millionaire's brow. Why was that young idiot
on the Hill waiting? What were young men made of nowadays? Didn't Philip
Lambert know that you could lose a woman forever if you didn't jump
lively? Hanged if he wouldn't call the boy this minute and tell him he
just had to change his mind and go to Crest House that very morning
without a moment's delay. Delay might be fatal. Harrison Cressy sat up in
bed, fumbled for his slippers, shook his head gloomily and returned to
his place under the covers.
It wasn't any use. He might as well give up. He couldn't make Philip
Lambert do anything he did not want to do. He had tried it twice and
failed ignominiously both times. He wouldn't tackle it again. The boy was
stronger than he was. He had to lie back and let things take their course
as best they might.
"Cheer up! Cheer up!" counseled the robins outside, but millionaire
Cressy heeded not their injunctions. The balloon of his hopes lay pricked
and flat in the dust.
He rose, dressed, breakfasted and discovered there was an eleven o'clock
train for Boston. He discovered also that he hadn't the slightest wish to
take it. He did not want to go to Boston. He did not want to go to Crest
House. And very particularly and definitely he did not want to see his
daughter Carlotta. Carlotta might ferret out his errand to Dunbury and be
bitterly angry at his interference with her affairs. Even if she were not
angry how could he meet her without telling her everything, including
things that were the boy's right to tell? It was safer to stay away from
Crest House entirely. That was it. He would telegraph Carlotta his gout
was worse, that he had gone to the country to take a cure. He would be
home Saturday.
Immensely heartened he dispatched the wire. By this time it was
ten-thirty and the dew on the grass was all dry, the morning glories shut
tight and the robins vanished. The church bells were ringing again
however and Harrison Cressy decided to go to church, the white Methodist
church on the common. He wouldn't meet any of the Hill people there. The
Holidays were Episcopal, the Lamberts Unitarian--a loose, heterodox kind
of creed that. He wished Phil were Methodist. It would have given him
something to go by. Then he grinned a bit sheepishly at his own expense
and shook his head. He had had the Methodist creed to go by himself and
much good had it done him. Maybe it did not make so much difference what
you believed. It was how you acted that mattered. Why that was
Unitarianism itself, wasn't it? Queer. Maybe there was something in it
after all.
Seated in the little church Harrison Cressy hardly listened to the
preacher's droning voice. He followed his own trend of thought instead,
recalling long-forgotten scriptural passages. "What shall it profit a man
though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" was one of the
recurring phrases. He applied it to Philip Lambert, applied it sadly to
himself and with a shake of his head to his daughter, Carlotta. He
remembered too the story of the rich young man. Had he made Carlotta as
the rich young man, cumbered her with so many worldly possessions and
standards that by his own hand he was keeping her out of the heaven of
happiness she might have otherwise inherited? He feared so.
He bowed his head with the others but he did not pray. He could not. He
was too unhappy. And yet who knows? Perhaps his unwonted clarity of
vision and humility of soul were acceptable that morning in lieu of
prayer to Sandalphou.
As he ate his solitary dinner his despondency grew upon him. He felt
almost positive Philip would fail in his mission, that Carlotta would go
her willful way to regret and disillusionment, and all these things gone
irretrievably wrong would be at bottom his own fault.
Later he endeavored to distract himself from his dreary thoughts by
discoursing with his neighbor on the veranda, a tall, grizzled, soldierly
looking gentleman with shrewd but kind eyes and the brow of a scholar.
As they talked desultorily a group of khaki clad youngsters filed past,
Philip Lambert among them, looking only an older and taller boy in their
midst. The lads looked happy, alert, vigorous, were of clean, upstanding
type, the pick of the town it seemed probable to Harrison Cressy who said
as much to his companion.
The other smiled and shook his head.
"You are mistaken, sir," he said. "Three months ago most of those fellows
were riffraff--the kind that hang around street corners smoking and
indulging in loose talk and profanity. Young Lambert, the chap with them,
their Scout-master, picked that kind from choice, turned down a
respectable church-mothered bunch for this one, left the other for a man
who wanted an easier row to hoe. It was some stunt, as the boys say. It
took a man like Phil Lambert to put it through. He has the crowd where he
wants them now though. They would go through fire and water if he led
them and he is a born leader."
Harrison Cressy's eyes followed the departing group. Here was a new light
on his hoped-for son-in-law. So he picked "publicans-and sinners" to eat
with. Mr. Cressy rather liked that. He hated snobs and pharisees,
couldn't stomach either brand.
"It means a good deal to a town like this when its college-bred boys come
back and lend a hand like that," the other man went on. "So many of them
rush off to the cities thinking there isn't scope enough for their
ineffable wisdom and surpassing talents in their own home town. A number
of people prophesied that young Lambert would do the same instead of
settling down with his father as we all wanted him to do. I wasn't much
afraid of that myself. Phil has sense enough to see rather straight
usually. He did about that. And then the kickers put up a howl that he
had a swelled head, felt above the rest of Dunbury because he had a
college education and his father was getting to be one of the most
prosperous men in town. They complained he wouldn't go in for things the
rest of the town was interested in, kept to himself when he was out of
the store. There were some grounds for the kick I will admit. But it
wasn't a month before he got his bearings, had his head out of the clouds
and was in the thick of everything. They swear by him now almost as much
as they do by his father which is saying a good deal for Dunbury has
revolved about Stuart Lambert for years. It is beginning to revolve about
Stuart Lambert and Son now. But I am boring you with all this. Phil
happens to be rather a favorite of mine."
"You know him well?" questioned Mr. Cressy.
"I ought to. I am Robert Caldwell, principal of the High School here.
I've known Phil since he was in knickerbockers and had him under my
direct eye for four years. He kept my eye sufficiently busy at that," he
added with a smile. "There wasn't much mischief that youngster and a
neighbor of his, young Ted Holiday, didn't get into. Maybe that is why he
is such a success with the black sheep," he added with a nod in the
direction in which the khaki-clad lads had gone.
"H-mm," observed Mr. Cressy. "I am rather glad to hear all this. You see
it happens that I came to Dunbury to offer Philip Lambert a position. My
name's Cressy--Harrison Cressy," he explained.
His companion lifted his eye-brows a little dubiously.
"I see. I didn't know I was discussing a young man you knew well enough
to offer a position to. May I ask if he accepted it?" "He did not,"
admitted Harrison Cressy grimly.
"Turned it down, eh?" The school man looked interested.
"Turned it down, man? He made the proposition look flatter than a last
year's pan-cake and it was a mighty good proposition. At least I thought
it was," the magnate added with a faint grin remembering all that went
with that proposition.
Robert Caldwell smiled. He rather liked the idea of one of his boys
making a proposition of millionaire Cressy's look like a last year's
pan-cake. It was what he would have expected of Phil Lambert.
"I am sorry for you, Mr. Cressy," he said. "But I am glad for Dunbury.
Philip is the kind we need right here."
"He is the kind we need right everywhere," grunted Mr. Cressy. "Only we
can't get 'em. They aren't for sale."
"No," agreed Robert Caldwell. "They are not for sale. Ah, the Boston
train must be in. There is the stage."
Mr. Cressy allowed his eyes to stray idly to the arriving bus and the
descending passengers.
Suddenly he stiffened.
"Good Lord!" he ejaculated, an exclamation called forth by the fact that
the last person to alight from the bus was a slim young person in a trim,
tailored, navy blue suit and a tiny black velvet toque whose air bespoke
Paris, a person with eyes which were precisely the color of violets which
grow in the deepest woods.
A little later Harrison Cressy sat in a deep leather upholstered chair in
his bedroom with his daughter Carlotta in his lap.
"Don't try to deceive me, Daddy darling," Carlotta was saying. "You were
worried--dreadfully worried because your little Carlotta wept salt tears
all over your shirt bosom. You thought that Carlotta must not be allowed
to be unhappy. Wars, earthquakes, ship sinkings, wrecks--anything might
be allowed to go on as usual but not Carlotta unhappy. You thought that,
didn't you, Daddy darling?"
Daddy darling pleaded guilty.
"Of course you did, you old dear. The moment I knew you were in Dunbury I
knew what you were up to. I understand perfectly how your mind works. I
ought to. Mine works very much the same way. It is a simple three stage
operation. First we decide we want a thing. Next we decide the surest,
quickest way to get it and third--we get it. At least we usually do. We
must do ourselves that much justice, must we not, Daddy darling?"
Daddy darling merely grunted.
"You came to Dunbury to tell Phil he had to marry me because I was in
love with him and wanted to marry him. He couldn't very well marry me and
keep on living in Dunbury because I wouldn't care to live in Dunbury.
Therefore he would have to emigrate to a place I would care to live in
and he couldn't very well do that unless he had a very considerable
income because spending money was one of my favorite sports both indoor
and outdoor and I wouldn't be happy if I didn't keep right on playing it
to the limit. Therefore, again, the very simple solution of the whole
thing was for you to offer Phil a suitable salary so that we could marry
at once and live in the suitable place and say, 'Go to it. Bless you my
children. Bring on your wedding bells--I mean bills. I'll foot 'em.' Put
in the rough, that was the plan wasn't it, my dear parent?"
"Practically," admitted the dear parent with a wry grin. "How did you
work it out so accurately?"
Carlotta made a face at him.
"I worked it out so accurately because it was all old stuff. The plan
wasn't at all original with you. I drew the first draft of it myself last
June up on the top of Mount Tom, took Phil up there on purpose indeed to
exhibit it to him."
"Humph!" muttered Harrison Cressy.
"Unfortunately Phil didn't at all care for the exhibit because it
happened that I had fallen in love with a man instead of a puppet. I
could have told you coming to Dunbury was no earthly use if you had
consulted me. Phil did not take to your plan, did he?"
"He did not."
"And he told you--he didn't care for me any more?" Carlotta's voice was
suddenly a little low.
"He did not. In fact I gathered he was fair-to-middling fond of you
still, in spite of your abominable behavior."
"Phil, didn't say I had behaved abominably Daddy. You know he didn't. He
might think it but he wouldn't ever say it--not to you anyway."
"He didn't. That is my contribution and opinion. Carlotta, I wish to the
Lord Harry you would marry Philip Lambert!"
Carlotta's lovely eyes flashed surprise and delight before she
lowered them.
"But, Daddy," she said. "He hasn't got very much money. And it takes a
great deal of money for me."
"You had better learn to get along with less then," snapped Harrison
Cressy. "I tell you, Carlotta, money is nothing--the stupidest, most
useless, rottenest stuff in the world."
Carlotta opened her eyes very wide.
"Is that what you thought when you came to Dunbury?" she asked gravely.
"No. It is what I have learned to think since I have been in Dunbury."
"But you--you wouldn't want me to live here?" probed Carlotta.
"My child, I would rather you would live here than any place in the whole
world. I've traveled a million miles since I saw you last, been back in
the past with your mother. Things look different to me now. I don't want
what I did for you. At least what I want hasn't changed. That is the same
always--your happiness. But I have changed my mind as to what makes for
happiness."
"I am awfully glad, Daddy darling," sighed Carlotta snuggling closer in
his arms. "Because I came up here on purpose to tell you that I've
changed my mind too. If Dunbury is good for gout maybe--maybe it will be
good for what ails me. Do you think it might, Daddy?" For answer he held
her very tight.
"Do you mean it, child? Are you here to tell that lad of yours you are
ready to come up his Hill to him?"
"If--if he still wants me," faltered Carlotta. "I'll have to find that
out for myself. I'll know as soon as I see Phil. There won't anything
have to be said. I am afraid there has been too much talking already. You
shouldn't have told him I cried," reproachfully.
"How could I help it? That is, how the deuce did you know I did?"
floundered the trapped parent.
"Daddy! You know you played on Phil's sympathy every way you could. It
was awful. At least it would have been awful if you had bought him
with my silly tears after you failed to buy him with your silly money.
But he didn't give in even for a moment--even when you told him I
cried, did he?"
"Not even then. But that doesn't mean he doesn't care. He--"
But Carlotta's hand was over his mouth at that. How much Phil cared she
wanted to hear from nobody but from Phil himself.
Philip Lambert found a queer message waiting for him when he came in from
his hike. Some mysterious person who would give no name had telephoned
requesting him to be at the top of Sunset Hill at precisely seven o'clock
to hear some important information which vitally concerned the firm of
Stuart Lambert and Son.
"Sounds like a hoax of some sort," remarked Phil. "But Lizzie has been
chafing at the bit all day in the garage and I don't mind a ride. Come
on, Dad, let's see what this bunk means."
Stuart Lambert smiled assent. And at precisely seven o'clock when dusk
was settling gently over the valley and the glory in the western sky was
beginning to fade into pale heliotrope and rose tints Lizzie brought the
two Lamberts to the crest of Sunset Hill where another car waited, a
hired car from the Eagle garage.
From the tonneau of the other car Harrison Cressy stepped out, somewhat
ponderously, followed by some one else, some one all in white with hair
that shone pure gold even in the gathering twilight.
Phil made one leap and in another moment, before the eyes of his father
and Carlotta's, not to mention the interested stare of the Eagle garage
chauffeur, he swept his far-away princess into his arms. There was no
need of anybody's trying to make Carlotta see. Love had opened her
eyes. The two fathers smiled at each other, both a little glad and a
little sad.
"Brother Lambert," said Mr. Cressy. "Suppose you and I ride down the
hill. I rather think this spot belongs to the children."
"So it seems," agreed Stuart Lambert. "We will leave Lizzie for
chaperone. I think there will be a moon later."
"Exactly. There always was a moon, I believe. It is quite customary."
As Stuart Lambert got out of the small car Philip and Carlotta came to
him hand-in-hand like happy children.
Carlotta slipped away from Phil, put out both hands to his father. He
took them with a happy smile.
"I have a good many daughters, my dear," he said. "But I have always
wanted to welcome one more. Do you think you could take in another Dad?"
"I know I could," said Carlotta lifting her flower face to him for a
daughterly kiss.
"Come, come! Where do I come in on this deal? Where is my son, I'd like
to know?" demanded Mr. Cressy.
"Right here at your service--darnfoolness and all," said Phil holding
out his hand.
"Don't rub it in," snapped Harrison Cressy, though he gripped the
proffered hand hard. "Come on, Lambert. This is no place for us."
And the two fathers went down the hill in the hired car leaving Lizzie
and the lovers in possession of the summit with the world which the moon
was just turning to silver at their feet.