THE MOVING FINGER CONTINUES TO WRITE
Having read and reread the boy's letter Doctor Holiday sat long with it
in his hand staring into the fire. Poor Teddy for whom life had hitherto
been one grand and glorious festival! He was getting the other, the seamy
side of things, at last with a vengeance. Knowing with the sure intuition
of love how deeply the boy was suffering and how sincerely he repented
his blunders the doctor felt far more compassion than condemnation for
his nephew. The fineness and the folly of the thing were so inextricably
confused that there was little use trying to separate the two even if he
had cared to judge the lad which he did not, being content with the boy's
own judgment of himself. Bad as the gambling business was and deeply as
he regretted the expulsion from college the doctor could not help seeing
that there was some extenuation for Ted's conduct, that he had in the
main kept faith with himself, paid generously, far more than he owed, and
traveling through the fiery furnace had somehow managed to come out
unscathed, his soul intact. After all could one ask much more?
It was considerably harder for Larry to accept the situation
philosophically than it was for the senior doctor's more tolerant and
mature mind. Larry loved Ted as he loved no one else in the world not
perhaps even excepting Ruth. But he loved the Holiday name too with a
fine, high pride and it was a bitter dose to swallow to have his younger
brother "catapulted in disgrace," as Ted himself put it, out of the
college which he himself so loved and honored. He was inclined to resent
what looked in retrospect as entirely unnecessary and uncalled for
generosity on Ted's part.
"Nobody but Ted would ever have thought of doing such a fool thing," he
groaned. "Why didn't he pull out in the first place as Hendricks wanted
him to? He would have been entirely justified."
But the older man smiled and shook his head.
"Some people could have done it, not Ted," he said. "Ted isn't built that
way. He never deserted anybody in trouble in his life. I don't believe he
ever will. We can't expect him to have behaved differently in this one
affair just because we would have liked it better so. I am not sure but
we would be wrong and he right in any case."
"Maybe. But it is a horrible mess. I can't get over the injustice of the
poor kid's paying so hard when he was just trying to do the decent, hard,
right thing."
"You have it less straight than Ted has, Larry. He knows he is paying not
for what he did and thought right but for what he did and knew was wrong.
You can't feel worse than I do about it. I would give anything I have to
save Ted from the torture he is going through, has been going through
alone for days. But I would rather he learned his lesson thoroughly now,
suffering more than he deserves than have him suffer too little and fall
worse next time. No matter how badly we feel for him I think it is up to
us not to try to dilute his penitence and to leave a generous share of
the blame where he puts it himself--on his own shoulders."
"I suppose you are right, Uncle Phil," sighed Larry. "You usually are.
But it's like having a piece taken right out of me to have him go off
like that. And the Canadians are the very devil of fighters. Always in
the thick of things."
"That is where Ted would want to be, Larry. Let us not cross that
bridge until we have to. As he says himself there are worse things than
death anyway."
"I know. Marrying the girl would have been worse. She was rather
magnificent, wasn't she, just as he says, not saving herself when she
might have at his expense?"
"I think she was. I am almost glad the poor child is where she can suffer
no more at the hands of men."
The next day came a wire from Ted announcing his acceptance in the
Canadian army and giving his address in the training camp.
The doctor answered at once, writing a long, cheerful letter full of home
news especially the interesting developments in Ruth's romantic story. It
was only at the end that he referred to the big thing that had to be
faced between them.
"I am not going to say a word that will add in any way to the burden you
are already carrying, Teddy, my lad. You know how sadly disappointed we
all are in your having to leave college this way but I understand and
sympathize fully with your reasons for doing what you did. Even though I
can't approve of the thing itself. I haven't a single reproach to offer.
You have had a harsh lesson. Learn it so well that you will never bring
yourself or the rest of us to such pain and shame again. Keep your scar.
I should be sorry to think you were so callous that you could pass
through an experience like that without carrying off an indelible mark
from it. But it isn't going to ruin your life. On the contrary it is
going to make a man of you, is doing that already if I may judge from
the spirit of your letter which goes far to atone for the rest. The
forgiveness is yours always, son, seventy times seven if need be. Never
doubt it. We shall miss you very much. I wonder if you know how dear to
us you are, Teddy lad. But we aren't going to borrow trouble of the
future. We shall say instead God speed. May he watch over you wherever
you are and bring you safe back to us in His good time!"
And Ted reading the letter later in the Canadian training camp was not
ashamed of the tears that came stinging up in his eyes. He was woefully
homesick, wanted the home people, especially Uncle Phil desperately.
But the message from the Hill brought strength and comfort as well as
heart ache.
"Dear Uncle Phil," he thought. "I will make it up to him somehow. I will.
He shan't ever have to be ashamed of me again."
And so Ted Holiday girded on manhood along with his khaki and his Sam
Browne belt and started bravely up out of the pit which his own willful
folly had dug for him.
Tony was not told the full story of her brother's fiasco. She only
knew that he had left college for some reason or other and had taken
French leave for the Canadian training camp. She was relieved to
discover that even in Larry's stern eyes the escapade, whatever it
was, had not apparently been a very damaging one and accepted
thankfully her uncle's assurance that there was nothing at all to
worry about and that Ted was no doubt very much better off where he
was than if he had stayed in college.
As for the going to war part small blame had she for Ted in that. She
knew well it was precisely what she would have done herself in his case
and teemed with pride in her bonny, reckless, beloved soldier brother.
She had small time to think much about anybody's affairs beside her own
just now. Any day now might come the word that little Cecilia had gone
and that Tony Holiday would take her place on the Broadway stage as a
real star if only for a brief space of twinkling.
She saw very little even of Alan. He was tremendously busy and seemed,
oddly enough, to be drawing a little away from her, to be less jealously
exacting of her time and attention. It was not that he cared less, rather
more, Tony thought. His strange, tragic eyes rested hungrily upon her
whenever they were together and it seemed as if he would drink deep of
her youth and loveliness and joy, a draught deep enough to last a long,
long time, through days of parching thirst to follow. He was very gentle,
very quiet, very loveable, very tender. His stormy mood seemed to have
passed over leaving a great weariness in its wake.
A very passion of creation was upon him. Seeing the canvases that
flowered into beauty beneath his hand Tony felt very small and humble,
knew that by comparison with her lover's genius her own facile gifts were
but as a firefly's glow to the light of a flaming torch. He was of the
masters. She saw that and was proud and glad and awed by the fact. But
she saw also that the artist was consuming himself by the very fire of
his own genius and the knowledge troubled her though she saw no way to
check or prevent the holocaust if such it was.
Sometimes she was afraid. She knew that she would never be happy in the
every day way with Alan. Happiness did not grow in his sunless garden.
Married to him she would enter dark forests which were not her natural
environment. But it did not matter. She loved him. She came always back
to that. She was his, would always be his no matter what happened. She
was bound by the past, caught in its meshes forever.
And then suddenly a new turn of the wheel took place. Word came just
before Christmas that Dick Carson was very ill, dying perhaps down in
Mexico, stricken with a malarial fever.
A few moments after Tony received this stunning news Alan Massey's card
was brought to her. She went down to the reception room, gave him a limp
cold little hand in greeting and asked if he minded going out with her.
She had to talk with him. She couldn't talk here.
Alan did not mind. A little later they were walking riverward toward a
brilliant orange sky, against which the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument
loomed gray and majestic. It was bitter cold. A stinging wind lashed the
girl's skirts around her and bit into her cheeks. But somehow she
welcomed the physical discomfort. It matched her mood.
Then the story came out. Dick was sick, very sick, going to die maybe and
she, Tony Holiday couldn't stand it.
Alan listened in tense silence. So Dick Carson might be going to be so
unexpectedly obliging as to die after all. If he had known how to pray he
would have done it, beseeched whatever gods there were to let the thing
come to an end at last, offered any bribe within his power if they would
set him free from his bondage by disposing of his cousin.
But there beside him clinging to his arm was Tony Holiday aquiver with
grief for this same cousin. He saw that there were tears on her cheeks,
tears that the icy wind turned instantly to frosted silver. And suddenly
a new power was invoked--the power of love.
"Tony, darling, don't cry," he beseeched. "I--can't stand it. He--he
won't die."
And then and there a miracle took place. Alan Massey who had never
prayed in his life was praying to some God, somewhere to save John Massey
for Tony because she loved him and his dying would hurt her. Tony must
not be hurt. Any God could see that. It must not be permitted.
Tony put up her hand and brushed away the frosted silver drops.
"No, he isn't going to die. I'm not going to let him. I'm going to Mexico
to save him."
Alan stopped short, pulling her to a halt beside him.
"Tony, you can't," he gasped, too astonished for a moment even to be
angry.
"I can and I am going to," she defied him.
"But my dear, I tell you, you can't. It would be madness. Your uncle
wouldn't let you. I won't let you."
"You can't stop me. Nobody can stop me. I'm going. Dick shan't die alone.
He shan't."
"Tony, do you love him?"
"I don't know. I don't want to talk about love--your kind. I do love him
one way with all my heart. I wish it were the way I love you. I'd go down
and marry him if I did. Maybe I'll marry him anyway. I would in a minute
if it would save him."
"Tony!" Alan's face was dead white, his green eyes savage. "You promised
to stick to me through everything. Where is your Holiday honor that you
can talk like that about marrying another man?" Maddened, he branished
his words like whips, caring little whether they hurt or not.
"I can't help it, Alan. I am sorry if I am hurting you. But I can't think
about anybody but Dick just now."
"Forgive me, sweetheart. I know you didn't mean it, what you said about
marrying him and you didn't mean it about going to Mexico. You know you
can't. It is no place for a woman like you."
"If Dick is there dying, it _is_ the place for me. I love you, Alan. But
there are some things that go even deeper, things that have their very
roots in me, the things that belong to the Hill. And Dick is a very big
part of them, sometimes I think he is the biggest part of all. I have to
go to him. Please don't try to stop me. It will only make us both unhappy
if you try."
A bitter blast struck their faces with the force of a blow. Tony
shivered.
"Let's go back. I'm cold--so dreadfully cold," she moaned clinging
to his arm.
They turned in silence. There was nothing to say. The sunset glory had
faded now. Only a pale, cold mauve tint was left where the flame had
blazed. A star or two had come out. The river flowed sinister black,
showing white humps of foam here and there.
At the Hostelry Jean Lambert met them in the hall.
"Tony, where have you been? We have been trying everywhere to locate you.
Cecilia died this afternoon. You have to take Miss Clay's place tonight."
Tony's face went white. She leaned against the wall trembling.
"I forgot--I forgot about the play. I can't go to Mexico. Oh, what shall
I do? What shall I do?"