RELATING HOW VARNEY FAILS TO DIE; AND WHY SMITH REMAINED IN HUNSTON; AND
HOW A RECEPTION IS PLANNED FOR MR. HIGGINSON
Thus it happened that the southbound local, which went through at
eight-ten, did not acquire Varney as a passenger that night; and his old
friend, Elbert Carstairs, did not meet his emissary at nine-thirty, or
indeed at any hour that evening. But two travelers for New York did
board the local at Hunston, and both of them, as it chanced, repaired to
the car provided for smokers, each for his own reasons.
One of them straightway lighted a long cigar, which a gentleman had
given him that morning, doubtless unwisely, for he was not above twelve
years old. The other, who happened to sit in the seat just before him,
did not smoke. He was rendered conspicuous by the fact that he wore no
hat, and by the deadly pallor of his face, relieved only by a reddening
bump beneath the right eye. His clothes also were dirty and disheveled
till he seemed scarcely the superior in elegance of the little
ragamuffin behind him.
So that it was not surprising that the amiable conductor, standing by
for the tickets and struck by the obvious likeness, should have
observed:
"Your son's pretty young to be a-smokin' seegars, ain't he?"
Mr. Stanhope, not knowing what this remark meant, and caring less,
answered with a cold stare, though inwardly he cursed the man for his
fatuous impertinence. That done, he relapsed dully into his own
thoughts, which were all of the house he had scurried from, terrified by
Peter's cry, half an hour before....
In that house, in Mr. Stanhope's own deserted bed, Varney lay at his
ease, as quiet as a statued man. Over the bed, industriously at work,
hung the keen-faced town doctor, whom Hare had gotten with a speed which
passed all understanding. At the foot of the bed stood Peter Maginnis,
his face like the face of a carven image.
At the very moment when the garrulous conductor was trying to foist off
poor little Tommy Orrick upon Mr. Stanhope, the old doctor raised his
head.
"He's not dead _yet_. An excellent chance I should say."
Peter's face did not change. His hand tightened on the foot-board till
his nails whitened. It was as though he had pulled a signal cord which
ran unseen under the bed-clothes and rung a mysterious bell in some
remote corner of his friend's head. Varney immediately opened one eye,
let it rest on Peter and said in a clear voice:
"You all right, Peter?"
That done he relapsed immediately into unconsciousness again. The doctor
took out a large handkerchief, wiped his brow and smiled. Peter, his
quick relief like a storm of joy, went downstairs to tell his friends
of the Reform Committee, and do a thousand other things.
By nine o'clock the town was ringing with the wild story, and in the
still watches of the later night the telegraph flung it to far places,
to be read in wonder next morning in a million homes. Overnight, the
great eye of the country turned like an unwinking searchlight upon the
dingy town by the Hudson where happened to dwell Mrs. Elbert Carstairs
and her only daughter, Mary. And all the world read how two men who were
doubles had strangely met in a lonely house with a drunken mob outside;
how one of them, who had earned the mob, turned the other out to face
it; how the son of a famous captain of industry had shamed the
Berserkers in his passionate muscularity: how one "double" had fled to
save his skin and how the other, battered almost beyond recognition, now
lay trembling between life and death.
In Hunston, there followed next day a whirl of police activity, of which
the net results were tame in the extreme. Of all the fierce band which
had stormed the house of Mr. Stanhope, only poor old Orrick and Mr.
British, the bookseller--he who had been pulled out senseless from under
the beams of the porch--were identified. Mr. British flatly and
resolutely declined to testify as to who his comrades were, and old Sam
Orrick, terrified though he was by prospective horrors of the law,
loyally perjured his immortal soul by swearing that the men were all
strangers to him and that he believed them to be visitors from another
city.
The count against these two proved to be only assault and battery,
though for three days and nights it was a toss of the coin whether they
would not have to answer for a graver charge. Peter's joy had soon
proved premature and the doctor's smile faded in unexpected
bewilderment. The sick man did not improve in the least. Delirium
followed hard upon deadly stupor and there seemed no rousing him from
either.
The yellow cottage with the trampled flower-beds and smashed windows,
which looked so bare-faced with its front porch shaved away, had passed
to Peter for the moment by right of conquest. In it everything that
conducted to the comfort of ill man had been quickly and lavishly
installed. Everybody was wonderfully kind and thoughtful. Mrs. Marne,
who reached the cottage with Mrs. Carstairs half an hour after the
doctor the first night, and had done wonders before the nurses arrived,
was simply invaluable. Hare came night and morning, horribly formal and
ill at ease, begging for something to do. Flowers and inquiries from
total strangers were an hourly occurrence. From Charlie Hammerton came a
quart of magnificent Scotch, followed on the second day by a pile of
clippings from the _Gazette's_ exchanges which must have gratified the
injured man extremely if only he had been able to read them. His own
leading article, headed "Laurence Varney, Hero," Editor Hammerton
modestly suppressed. By the hand of sad-faced McTosh came a hideous
floral piece, in fact, a red, white, and blue star, bearing the label
"From the sorrowing crew of the _Cypriani_." Mrs. Carstairs, whose
emotions at the time were hardly fully understood in the yellow cottage,
called daily and sent beautiful roses and chicken jelly. The roses faded
and the chicken jelly was considerably enjoyed by the nurses. But from
Mrs. Carstairs's daughter, whose filial relations had invoked all these
things, there came neither flower nor word.
The fight had taken place upon a Thursday night. On Friday, the Hunston
doctor, at his wits' end, had asked for a consultation. On Saturday, the
great doctor from the city had spent an hour in the sick-room, first
examining the patient in a bodily way, and then prodding him with a
tireless stream of questions, however futile--anything to make him talk.
At the end of that time he had whispered awhile with the town doctor and
drawn Peter into the study downstairs.
"What's the matter with him, Mr. Maginnis?" he asked abruptly.
"Matter?" echoed Peter. "Wasn't he beaten to a pulp?"
"Kicks don't kill a man with that kind of physique. What has he got on
his mind?"
"I don't know," said Peter, miserably. "The last time I saw him--"
"Find out," said the great doctor, briefly. "If you don't, he may die.
He seems to have had a shock of some kind. You must work upon that line.
There is nothing the matter with his body that he can't throw off. But
he will not get well unless you put the idea into his head that he
_must_."
And glancing at his watch, he bowed stiffly, and was whirled away to
the station.
Peter was utterly at a loss. He had no idea what had taken Varney up the
road to Stanhope's that afternoon, much less of any shock that could
conceivably have come to him. But he set himself to find out. By the
next morning, partly through inquiry, partly through patching two and
two together, he had worked out a theory. Guesswork, of course, was
rather dangerous in a delicate matter such as this; but the doctor's
report after breakfast had been the very worst yet. Peter never
faltered. He picked up his hat from the study table, in front of which
he had been figuring these things out, and started down the hall.
Mrs. Marne was sitting quietly on the bottom step of the stairway, her
dark head in her hands; and Peter was glad to see her.
"I've found out a little about that," said Peter, in a low voice. "I
believe it was--to see Miss Carstairs that he came up the road that
day."
"Yes," said Mrs. Marne. "I have heard that too."
"She struck me," said Peter, "as a nice little girl. Probably she
doesn't understand the situation. I am going to see her now."
"She won't see you," said Mrs. Marne.
"Yes, she will," said Peter quietly, and started for the door.
But Mrs. Marne caught him by the hand, protectingly, like an elder
sister, and drew him into the parlor and shut the door.
Half an hour later Peter came out and went up the stairs. At the
landing he paused to take off his shoes, and went on up in his stocking
feet.
It was Sunday morning, near eleven o'clock, a brilliant morning all sun
and wind. The far church bells of Hunston were ringing on the clear air
like chimes from another world. Never afterward could Peter hear the
Sunday bells without thinking of that moment. At the door, he met Miss
Nevin, the day-nurse, coming out. She said she was going to telephone
the doctor.
Peter slipped into the darkened room and shut the door noiselessly
behind him. After a moment, he tipped over to the bed and sat down in
the nurse's chair, silently. The bed looked very fresh and white and
unrumpled, and that was because the injured man had for two days lain
almost wholly quiet. The thin coverlet defined his long frame perfectly.
Many bandages about the limbs and trunk made it look grotesquely bumpy
and misshapen. One arm, wrapped from shoulder to finger-tip was outside
the coverlet; now and then the hand, which was muffled large as a
boxing-glove, moved a little. Cloths ran slantwise about chin, brow, and
head, leaving only breathing space and one eye uncovered.
Presently, as he became more used to the darkness, Peter observed that
the eye was open and regarding him incuriously: and he started in some
confusion. "Do you feel much pain now, old chap?" he began rather
huskily.
"Pain?" repeated Varney, vaguely. "No, I don't feel any pain."
"No pain! That's fine!" said Peter with lying cheerfulness, for he knew
that this deadness to sensation was the worst feature in the case.
"That--left leg is rather badly bruised, it seems. I was a little afraid
_that_ might be troubling you some."
Silence.
"Did Miss Nevin show you all your flowers? They 've just been pouring in
all day every day. We could turn florists to-day without spending a
penny for stock. Couldn't we, Larry, eh?"
"Yes," said Varney laboriously. "We could."
"Everybody has been so kind," continued Peter, desperately, "that upon
my word it's hard to pick and choose. If I were asked to say who had
really been kindest--let me see--yes, I'd name--Mrs. Carstairs. Flowers
and something to eat, some little dainty or delicacy, twice a day. The
fact is, old chap, to put it plainly, though I don't want to distress
you, you know--she is blaming herself about this. Blaming herself
greatly."
"She oughtn't to do that," said Varney after a time.
"Of course she ought n't to. Yet it's natural enough in a way. Of
course, I'm blaming myself, too--like the mischief--I'd had so many
warnings, you know. Little Hare is blaming himself. And Mr.
Carstairs--poor old fellow! I'll show you his letters when--the light's
a little better for reading. They're fine, honestly. Of course, he
wanted to come on right away, but I wouldn't let him."
Silence again.
"So you see how many of us," continued Peter, nearing his awkward
climax, "have been worried, _personally_, about this--trouble. And how
much, well--how much--happiness is bound up in your getting well. And by
the way--I declare I nearly forgot Miss Carstairs--I declare!"
There was a long silence, which Peter resolved not to break. Through the
shuttered window, the distant bells chimed faintly into the room. The
sick man's stray arm moved restlessly on the coverlet, but otherwise he
lay quite still.
At length Varney said: "When did you see Miss Carstairs? She
hasn't--been here--?"
But poor Peter's errand was not so easy as that. He had no glad shaft of
promise with which to pierce that deadly Nessus-coat of apathy.
"She couldn't come here, old chap," said Peter, very gravely. "You
hadn't heard, of course. Miss Carstairs is very ill."
"Miss Carstairs is very ill," repeated Varney, not inquiringly, but like
a child saying over a lesson.
"Awfully ill," said Peter encouragingly. "It seems that she came home
Thursday night a little after seven, looking very pale and badly, but
insisting that there was nothing the matter. She sat upstairs with her
mother until about eight, when somebody called her down to the
telephone. Well, she didn't come back. So after a while Mrs. Carstairs
sent down to find out why. The maid found her in the hall--in fact, on
the floor, I believe. She had fainted, you know. Yes--that was it.
Fainted dead away--poor little girl."
After what seemed an eternity of waiting, Varney asked: "What was
it--do you know? At the telephone?"
"Yes. It was Mrs. Marne. She called up Miss Carstairs in the first
excitement of--of your accident, it seems, and I'm afraid she gave a
very exaggerated and alarming account, you know. They put her to bed,"
continued Peter clearing his throat, "and there she's been ever since.
The great shock, you know. Mrs. Marne saw her this morning--the first
time she had been admitted. It's all quite sad. Quite sad. We'll talk of
it again when--you're feeling a bit stronger."
Varney, who had lain like a statue for two days and nights, had begun
moving a little under the coverlet, stirring first one swathed leg, then
the other, as though seeking vainly to shift his position. Now he said
at once: "I want to hear now."
Peter gave a deep sigh. He thought, and rightly, that this was the best
thing that had happened yet.
"Well, it's all very strange, Larry. When I said that it was the shock
of the accident that had made her ill, I did not tell the whole truth.
It seems that she is suffering from a terrible hallucination about it.
She feels in some strange way that the responsibility for all this--is
hers. She told Mrs. Marne that she was responsible for your being on the
road that night, and that she had been unfair about something or other,
and that but for that the--trouble would never have happened. I don't
pretend to understand it. But feeling as she does now--if anything were
to--to go wrong, the poor child would count herself--she would count
herself--"
"Don't!" said Varney very clearly and distinctly.
His face looked all at once so ghastly that Peter's heart stopped
beating. He thought in a horrible flash that the end had come, and that
he, Peter Maginnis, had brought it by tearing at the worst wound his
friend had. His clumsy diplomacy fell from him as at the last trump. He
dropped on his knees beside the bed with a groan.
"For God's sake, Larry, don't leave _that_ mark to a child like her.
Don't give us all _that_ sorrow to carry to our graves--"
But Varney had pulled his arms free and was clutching wildly at his
head-bandages with heavily swathed fingers.
"You needn't worry about me," he said in a sharp anguished voice. "Great
Scott! What's--what's wrong with my _head_! It's killing me."
He recovered with a speed which puzzled the old Hunston doctor even more
than his previous lethargy had done. Five days later he was well enough
to be lifted downstairs to the small back piazza, and here he lay
blanketed up in a reclining chair for half the sunny afternoon.
A bundle of letters and telegrams lay on his covered knees; and going
slowly through them, he came presently to one from Elbert Carstairs,
arrived only that morning:
"MY DEAR BOY:
Words are feeble things at their best,
and I know of none that would convey to you my great
joy at the news that you are out of danger. By the same
mail, I have learned that my other dear sick one in Hunston
is quite herself again, and I say to God in gratitude
upon my knees that my cup is full."
A pause in the reading here. The long hand of the nurse's clock on the
window-sill had crawled half around the dial before Varney raised the
letter again from his blanketed lap:
"There is much in my heart to tell you, much to beg your
forgiveness for, but I shall keep it to say to you face to
face. Just now the keenest point in my grief is that all
this suffering I have brought upon you has been worse
than unnecessary. Light has come to me in these sleepless
nights, and I see now that there was a much better
way to seek what I sought, a far happier path."
The letter slipped down upon the swathed knees again, and he lay staring
at the blown and sunny tree-tops. Presently the door at his side opened;
a man started to come through it, stopped short, and stood motionless on
the threshold.
Varney slowly turned his head. In the doorway, to his dim surprise,
stood Mr. Stanhope's man, Henry, bowing, unobtrusive, apologetic, ready
to efface himself at a gesture like the well-trained servant he was.
"Why--is that you, Henry?"
"Harskin' your pardon for the hintrusion, sir," said Henry with a wooden
face. "I didn't know you were 'ere, sir. 'Opin' you are feeling improved
to-day, sir--if you please, Hi'll withdraw--"
"Henry," said Varney, "that is no way for you to speak to me--after the
way you stood up for me that night. Come here."
And he disentangled from his covers and held out a rather maimed-looking
hand.
Then he saw the soul of the man whip through the livery of the menial
like a knife, and Henry, stumbling forward with a working face, clasped
that hand proudly in his strong white one: only he dropped on one knee
to do it, as if to show that, though gentlemen might be pleased to show
him kindness now and then, he perfectly understood that he was not as
they.
"Ho, sir," he broke out in a tone very different from his
well-controlled voice of service, "I never seen a pluckier thing done,
nor a gamer fight put up. You make me too proud, sir, with your
'and--man to man ... I was shamed, sir, till I couldn't bear it when I
came to and learned that I 'ad not stayed with you, sir, to the end.
Three of them closed in on me, sir, and harskin' your pardon, sir, I was
whippin' hof 'em to standstill when one of them tripped me from be'ind,
sir,--"
"Stand up, Henry," said Varney, rather agitated, "like the man you are."
Henry stood up, with a jerky "Thank you, sir," striving with momentary
ill-success to get a lackey's mask back upon that quivering face.
"I'll always remember you," said Varney with some difficulty, "as a good
and brave man. I don't think I'll ever forget how you disobeyed an
order--to try to save me. And now tell me--what became of your master?"
"'E's in the village, sir," said Henry rather bothered by his throat
"I'm expecting 'im in any moment, sir--"
"In the village?" repeated Varney, surprised. "Mr. Stanhope is in
Hunston?"
"_Mr. Stanhope_!" said Henry with an insufferable contemptuousness for
which he at once apologized. "Harskin' your pardon, sir--I thought you
inquired for my master. Mr. Stanhope, I 'ave 'eard, sir, has sailed for
Europe."
"Well, who's your master, then?"
"Mr. Maginnis is my master, sir."
Varney deliberated on this, and slowly smiled. "Well, you've got a good
one, Henry."
"Thank you, sir. That's 'im now, sir. I 'ear 'is motor in the road. If
you'll excuse me, sir--I'll go and let 'im in."
And he bowed and went away, only pausing in the entry to attend a moment
to his blurred eyes with the back of a supple hand.
Peter stepped out into the porch with a cheery greeting and dropped into
a rocking-chair, looking worn and tired. The instant his heavy anxiety
over Varney was relieved, he had thrown himself back into the fight for
reform with a desperate vigor which entirely eclipsed all his previous
efforts.
"We-ell," he said in answer to Varney's question, "we're humping
along--just humping along. Time's so confoundedly short, though. You
know, Larry, this business the other night is proving the best card
we've got. Fact. I haven't tried to tell you how worked up the people
have been about your--accident, and how most of them don't stand for it
for a minute. It's pretty well understood around town that politics was
back of it all in some way, though nobody can state a single fact, and
I've scoured the town for evidence without finding a scrap. Anyway, it's
the solemn fact, and the committee can prove it, that that feeling is
bringing over a lot of votes that we never could have reached otherwise
with a long distance 'phone."
"Praise be that they're coming over, anyhow."
"This fight," continued Peter, absorbedly, "is confoundedly interesting
because it is typical of what's going on all over the country. Hunston
is just a dingy little microcosm of the whole United States of America.
You can't blame these poor beggars here much, afraid of their jobs as
they are. It takes courage to make a break for virtue when the devil's
holding you by your bread and meat. But--well, I'd hate like the
mischief to lose, particularly since we've managed to come in for such a
beautiful lot of lime-light. You know this fight is being watched all
over the country, since that trouble? And hang it, it does make a
difference when the Associated Press carries half a column about you
every night. Do you remember that first night in Hunston, Larry," he
continued, "when you said that our part in the town's affairs must be
that of quiet onlookers only? Quiet onlookers! And now everybody in the
country is playing quiet onlookers on us. Our names are household words
in California, and I'm credibly informed that they're naming babies
after you all through the middle West. Funny, isn't it?"
Varney assented with a laugh. Presently he said rather constrainedly:
"Peter--I want you to tell me a little about that night. Who was
caught?"
Peter named the two. "They wouldn't testify," he explained, "and I
couldn't. Old Orrick was the only man I spotted. He will get punished
for assault. I don't see that they've got a case against British. He was
knocked out when the porch fell, and he hadn't done a thing then, except
yell probably. You can't hang a man for yelling in this State."
"No. Did you--you--was anybody killed?"
"Bless your heart, no!" cried Peter. "Why, it was only a little old
kicking-match and hair-pulling, you know, hardly worse than a college
rush."
Varney looked suddenly and strangely relieved.
"I'm mighty glad to hear that," he said, and presently added: "Have you
seen--Smith?"
"Smith! He went to New York some days ago. I remember--it was the very
day you pulled up and got well. Why, what about him?"
"Didn't you know? He was there that night," said Varney. "Right in the
thick of it, helping me."
"Helping _you_! Smith!"
Varney nodded. "The minute they closed in on me," he said after a
moment, "and we all bunched together, I felt that there was somebody in
there fighting on my side. Pretty soon I heard a voice in my ear, it
said: '_Keep on your pins as long as you can: these dogs'll trample you
if they get you down_.' I said, 'Is that you, Smith?' and he laughed
and said, '_Still on my studies_.' Then somebody hit me over the head
with something, and I went down and he went with me. He had one arm
around me, I remember. I've been thinking, ever since I could think at
all, that they might--might have finished him. I believe he saved my
life, Smith did."
"Well--bully for him!" said Peter slowly, much impressed. "What on earth
struck him to do that, do you suppose? Well, well! I'll certainly look
that old boy up in New York and shake him by the hand."
There was a considerable silence. At just the moment when Varney was
about to put another question, Peter opened his mouth and answered it.
"However," he said, an irrepressible note of irritation creeping into
his honest voice, "even that was not the strangest thing that happened
that night. Not by a long shot."
Varney's gaze fixed with sudden interest. "Higginson? You don't mean to
say that he turned up?"
"I do. And got away with it again--confound his soul!"
"What happened? Any more dirty work? Did anything get into the papers?"
"No--oh, no! You've got that sized up wrong, Larry. He's no yellow
journalist or anything like that. He's only the slickest underground
worker this town ever saw--with his confounded apologetic,
worried-looking mask of a face. As for more dirty work--well, I guess
the bloodshed the other night scared him up so--"
"But go on and tell me! Where'd you see him? What did you say and--"
"Sitting in our front parlor, if you please, like a dear old friend of
the family."
The remembrance of the way he had been affronted and outwitted chafed
Peter's spirit uncontrollably. He rose and began pacing up and down the
little porch, hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets.
"About an hour after we put you to bed," he exploded, "I slipped
downstairs to tell Hare to keep everybody off the place. However, a lot
of people had already come in. I glanced in at the parlor and it seemed
full of them--Mrs. Carstairs and Mrs. Marne--they were the first to get
here after Hare's delegation--Hammerton and another man from the
_Gazette_, the committeemen, and several I'd never laid eyes on before.
Well, there in a corner, looking like a hired mourner at a nigger
funeral, sat that fellow Higginson. You could have knocked me flat with
a pin feather. I'm as sure as I stand here that it was he who worked up
that mob for Ryan, and the whole dirty scheme--and then coming around
with his tongue in his cheek to inquire after the victim! Can you beat
that gall?"
"Not easily. What happened?"
"They asked me how you were. I told'em. Then I said before the
room-full: 'I was very sorry to find you out this afternoon, Mr.
Higginson, when I called at your hotel.' The fellow looked white as a
sheet and mumbled something I couldn't catch. Well--I couldn't smash him
there before all the women, so I said: 'Please don't go away this time
until I see you. I'm most anxious to have a little private conversation
with you.' Oh, of course that was a mistake--I hate to think about it!
But--well, I was a good deal worried just then," he explained, rather
sheepishly, "and fact is, for the minute I wasn't thinking very much
about Higginson. I needn't add that he had sneaked when I came down
again. Had the cheek to leave behind a message with Hare saying he
regretted to miss me, but felt it his duty to escort the ladies home."
Varney, though he had grounds for animosity which Peter never even
guessed, laughed aloud. But it was a brief laugh, which quickly faded.
"And he's never been seen or heard of from that day to this? Well, for
my part," he went on, rather constrainedly, "I'm almost ready to believe
the man's a myth--a mere personification of evil--an allegorical name
for the powers of darkness--"
"Myth!" cried Peter. "You'll see! Why, he's certain to turn up again,
Larry--absolutely certain. You couldn't keep him away with a flock of
cannon. If he doesn't come before, it's dead sure that he'll appear
among us again on election day--four days from now--just to see the
results of his pretty work. And when he does--"
"Well?" said Varney, amused through his own heartsoreness by Peter's
vehemence. "When he does?"
"I've got two men watching every train, day and night," said Peter.
"When Higginson sets foot in this town again, one man trails him, and
the other runs for me.... Well, I'm a generous and forbearing man,
Larry, and I recall that you havn't had much fun here. I'll--yes, hang
it all!--I'll bring the old rogue to you, dead or alive, and stand by in
silence while you speak him your little piece."