His feeling of mingled tenderness and pity increased as he grew toward manhood. He wished his Uncle Jacob could be made fully aware of his affection, but he was always conscious that there was something in the lawyer's manner that repelled any emotional display; that beneath his kindly dignity, the fibre of his nature was cold and hard. The utter barrenness of his life, as the boy imagined it, explained this. It was the awkwardness of one who had lived much in solitude, with few intimates and fewer friends.
He had been away at school ten years, when something occurred which took him back to the very limits at which his memory was active, and which showed him that Benson might have intimacies of which he did not know. He had written for money, and instead of the usual letter from Benson, there came one in a strange hand. Mr. Benson was absorbed in important litigation, the writer said, and had requested him to see to the mailing of the enclosed draft; the writer also ventured the hope that his young friend had not altogether forgotten him, in spite of the years that had intervened since their last meeting. The letter was signed with a flourish, Nathan Gibbs.
Stephen remembered vaguely that there was such a man, but whether he really remembered him, or only remembered having been told of him, he could not have said. He wondered though how long Gibbs had been in Benson, and why his Uncle Jacob had never mentioned him.
Gibbs, once started on the down grade, had gone from bad to worse. There had been ten doleful years during which he had sunk lower and lower. Now and again he had made a manful rally to recover his lost estate, but it was no use. Finally such a point was reached that his Julia took matters into her own hands. She had written Benson, and her letter had been an urgent appeal for assistance. The lawyer had heeded it, but he had no intention of helping Gibbs at arm's length. If he was to make himself responsible for the general's future, he would have to be close at hand where he could keep him under some sort of surveillance.
He had made his arrangement with Julia—the general appeared quiescent and was not considered—and Julia, with the memory of those ten hard years eating into her soul, was now only too glad to return to Ohio.
As Benson had desired it, the pair came direct to him. He was rather dubious as to what the outcome would be, and when he met them at the station one cold November afternoon, he owned sadly to himself that the general's appearance was not calculated to inspire one with confidence.
After dinner Mrs. Pope and Julia retired to the drawing-room, leaving the two men to their cigars. It was then that Gibbs grew confidential, he had been merely garrulous before.
“This was right handsome of you, Jake,” he said feelingly. “But that letter of Julia's was her own inspiration. I didn't know about it until she had yours in reply; I guess she wanted to spare me if you said no. Now how are you going to use me? I want to be useful. Put me to work, Jake; no matter what it is, I'm your man!” He stepped jauntily to the fireplace, and spreading his legs far apart, entrenched himself on the hearth rug.
The lawyer watched him over the tip of his cigar. He saw that in spite of the gay show of spirit, his hands twitched, that his puffy face was scarlet, while what hair time had left him was snow white. He had aged, too, in those years, so that Benson would scarce have known him. Yet Julia had done what she could for him. His clothes were new, his linen fresh, and the lawyer correctly surmised that he had himself met the cost of this excellent outfit. It was a long glance back to Gibbs of the True Whig; florid, good-looking, good-natured, aggressive Nathan Gibbs, who had made love to Levi Tucker's wife, under Levi Tucker's very nose, in Levi Tucker's own Red Brick Tavern on the square. He had not withheld his hand; he had taken ruthlessly what he had desired—Tucker's wife, Tucker's life, and he had spent Tucker's fortune.
Benson's lips parted in a slight smile. If ever a man had gone swiftly to his desires, Gibbs was that man. Chance had been more than generous—as generous as it had been to him—the smile left his lips. He frowned; surely he had nothing in common with Gibbs—no analogy was possible!
“What are you going to do for me, Jake?” insisted Gibbs. An inner sense of things told him that he must have at least a semblance of occupation, that idleness would be his ruin. “Make a place for me somewhere, Jake, I don't care what it is,” he pleaded. “Give me something that will keep me busy.” He was silent for a minute and puffed greedily at his cigar, with coarse protruding lips. “I been brought down to hell, Jake, I've seen the sides of the pit.” He said at last. “I never could do anything after Grant City busted. You can't see where it was now. I been away from there for seven or eight years, in Kansas City and back in St. Louis, but I never got a grip on things; and when I began to hear people talking about old Gibbs, I got the notion that I was counted past my prime. Well, I couldn't pull up; a man's luck and a man's habits generally travel in company when he's sixty odd. But you've put stiffening in my backbone. My Julia will have no cause to complain from now on. A woman of remarkable force of character, Jake—you'll recognize that when you come to know her better. Now how are you going to use me? We ain't settled that yet.”
“I don't know yet; I can't tell,” said Benson slowly.
Gibbs's face clouded.
“Look here, Jake, don't you take up with any snap judgment that I'm past my usefulness; just give me a chance. Because a man's no longer of much account to himself, it don't necessarily follow that he's no good to any one else.”
Yet when Benson found work for him in his office, where Gibbs made himself useful in the collecting of rents, the overlooking of repairs, and the drawing up of leases, this meekness of his changed somewhat. While Benson was able for the most part to keep him within reasonable bounds, there were periods when he relapsed; when he swiftly sounded the depths of his degradation; and from these periods he emerged with much contrition and a multitude of promises as to his future behaviour. He accepted Benson's severity, which was often bitter and unsparing, with wonderful gentleness, acquiescing in all the hard things Benson found to say of him.
“I don't defend myself, Jake,” in a tone of miserable despondency. “Ain't it just hell, the beast a man will make of himself; and an old man like me who ought to have some pride to keep him up! It ain't as if I'd been bred to the gutter. If I do say it, I been something of a man in my day. I've worn Uncle Sam's uniform and I've carried his commission, but here I am making a spectacle of myself for people to point at. You can't trust me, and I can't trust myself—I wonder I don't end it; but it's harder on Julia, Jake—I pity myself, but I pity her more;” and his bloodshot eyes would fill with ready tears.
He was not an agreeable sight at such times, but the next day he would be himself again; the man of the world; the man who had mingled in large affairs, and to whom other men had deferred and conceded, paying court; and he was ready to criticise his patron's business methods, his exactness in matters of detail; inferring plainly that his own methods had been suited to bigger things, bigger stakes, and a wider outlook.
Benson's attitude was one of mingled tyranny and kindness. For days together he limited his intercourse with the general to sharp commands, indicating unmistakably that he preferred to see just as little of him as possible; but Gibbs always met his severity with an air of large and genial tolerance. Again Benson's mood would be one of studied consideration and friendship, when he would seem to invite the intimacy Gibbs was always anxious to thrust upon him. To Gibbs's expansive temperament, affection was as much a part of his life as the air he breathed; and since he could no longer glorify himself, he ended by glorifying the friend who had shouldered his burdens for him. He showed a tactful consideration for Benson's habits and prejudices, he was tirelessly useful, he dealt in pleasant flatteries, and he boasted privately to his Julia that he could wind Jake Benson around his little finger.
In the very first stages of their relation Benson had merely tolerated the shabby old man; he rebelled against the anxiety he always felt when Gibbs was not promptly at the office each morning, and there were times when he would have been glad to be rid of him on any terms; but in the end he succumbed to Gibbs. There was no resisting him. He had lived alone all his life, and the general's willingness to fit into his rather empty existence, to be silent or talkative as his mood was, to share his feelings and adopt his point of view, made him more dependent than he realized; but above all he felt the glow of Gibbs's affection, and understood that it was as sincere as any emotion he had ever known, as sincere in its way as his love for himself.
From seeing him only at the office, and limiting their intercourse largely to matters of business, he came by degrees to depend more and more upon him for society. Day after day he took him home to dine with him; and this intimacy, as it strengthened, was the very breath of life to Gibbs. The luxury of Benson's well-appointed house and table, the rich wines he was allowed to use in moderation, these, to his pagan soul were the very end and aim of existence. At the office, where only petty concerns were entrusted to him, he was on the whole unobtrusive enough; but in Benson's house, the great man's chosen guest and boon companion, he relaxed and was at home, too. .
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
STEPHEN had not been able to believe in the reality of his home going until he was settled in the cab that bore him swiftly across the city. He had made so many trips into New York, that his journey of the night before had not been at all convincing; but the squat ferry-house which he now approached from a tangle of crowded streets was new to him, and with the salt breeze blowing full in his face, and the Jersey river-front brilliant in the sunlight beyond, he could feel that he was really going home, that his college days were over, and belonged to a phase of his experience that he had definitely put behind him.
As he hurried aboard the ferry, trim, well built, and more than commonly blessed in the way of good looks, he was jostled by a young fellow carrying a large yellow leather satchel, conspicuously new, who turned with a muttered apology; and Stephen saw a tanned face, the lips partly concealed by a small moustache several shades darker than the shock of bushy red hair inclined to curl, that almost reached the low turned-down linen collar he wore. There was something oddly familiar in the face, which without being in any way handsome, was not unattractive. It might have been merely some trick of expression, but while Stephen was struggling vainly to remember where they could have met before, the crowd separated them. Yet later when he took his place in the line that had formed at the gate, the yellow satchel was just ahead of him.
He followed it down the long platform, and when he went aboard his car, he found it on one of the seats of the section he was to occupy. He settled himself with his newspaper and was absorbed in its perusal, when the owner of the satchel emerged from the smoking compartment at the other end of the car. Stockily built and very muscular, he came swinging down the aisle to drop loosely into the seat opposite him.
Stephen glanced over the top of his paper and caught his eye, shrewd, inquiring, with the least suggestion of a squint, fixed upon him. His first feeling was still so strong, that he was impelled to say, putting aside his paper:
“I beg your pardon, but haven't I met you somewhere before?”
“No, sir, I guess not,” rejoined the stranger, and his clear blue eye narrowed.
“Probably I was mistaken after all,” said Stephen apologetically. He would have stopped with this, but the other now asked abruptly.
“You ever been West, my friend?”
“What do you call the West?”
“Well, not Jersey;” and he grinned, and jerked his thumb in the direction of the flat landscape beyond the car-window. “Say Colorado.”
Stephen shook his head. The other slid deeper into his seat and extended his legs. He was apparently grateful for the opportunity Stephen had given him for speech.
“Give me Denver or Kansas City; those are what I call towns, and Omaha's a right bustling little burg, too; but I'm coming back here when I make a million. It ain't in my class now; it's no place for yearlings.”
Then he became communicative. Colorado was his State; he was in cattle; he had been in mines, but cattle suited him better, and he had been lucky. This luck of his was evidently such a recent matter that it was plain to Stephen he had not yet fully accustomed himself to it.
“You fooled me, too, for a fact. I had the same notion you had,” he said, suddenly renewing the conversation which after a little time they had permitted to lapse.
“What notion was that?” asked Stephen pleasantly.
“Why the notion that we'd met somewhere. These resemblances are mighty curious; ain't they? You look like a fellow I've seen, but to save my life I can't say where.”
There was another pause. He stared at Stephen, and Stephen stared back with a puzzled expression on his face.
“Did you say you were going through to Chicago?” the young fellow asked.
“No, no further than Ohio. The central part of the State, to a place—” suddenly it flashed upon Stephen who he was. He leaned forward and smilingly held out his hand. “Why, you're Reddy!” he exclaimed.
The other started. He shot Stephen a quick glance.
“You're dead sure about that, my friend?” he demanded. “You ain't just chancing it on the colour of my hair?”
“Yes, I am dead sure. Don't you remember me? I'm Stephen—. Stephen Landray.”
“Well, of course! I'd been almost willing to bet money I knew you!” cried Reddy. “But I wasn't looking to meet you here. Say, where you going anyhow?” and he wrung the hand Stephen had extended, with visible feeling.
“I am going home—home to Benson. I have not been back in twelve years.”
“What you been doing anyhow, in business somewhere?”
“No, college,” said Stephen.
“Well, you took your time to it,” commented Reddy, in quite evident surprise.
“I am afraid I did,” and Stephen laughed. He was aware that he had not distinguished himself. “But of course you have been back?” he added.
“Oh, yes, once, to see the old lady. I expect I was a good deal of bother before I got sense; but I'm going to make it up to her right here and now.” He kicked the yellow satchel, which he had displaced when he took his seat. “I got it full of truck for her. I tell you, Landray, I've had my eyes opened. There's a girl—” he blushed under his tan—“she made me feel cheap, the way I'd always acted; never thinking much of any one but myself. She's got me committed to a programme that'll astonish the old lady. I'm going to give her the time of her life regardless of expense.” He slapped his knees, and laughed aloud. “She”—Stephen understood that he was speaking of the young lady who had been the instrument of his regeneration—“went for me so my eyes stuck out. I expect you could have snared 'em off with inch rope—but I was a made man, my friend, when she got through with me. I saw a whole heap of things as plain as day, and I'm going to blow myself in making it up to the old lady. I'm going to take her to Colorado with me.”
“When were you at Benson last, Reddy?” asked Stephen.
“Let me see—about three years ago. I did the wild West for 'em. Say, Landray, I was an awful chump; I was the cowboy every minute, and don't you forget it; wore a sombrero and all that sort of rotten nonsense; but this trip—well, that girl said it would have to be a derby, and what she says, goes here. It's got to, my friend, for you see she's been to Vassar, and knows lot a more than I ever expect to.”
Stephen laughed.
“Well, Reddy, her instruction don't seem to have been wasted on you.”
“I hope it ain't, for I want to get next the right thing. I'll take a hunch off most any one, and say thank you for it.”
“What's become of Benjamin Wade, and Spike?” asked Stephen.
“Well, I guess no one knows anything about Spike. You see his folks moved away from Benson years ago; but Wade's there yet, he's a lawyer. You'll like him, Landray, everyone's got a good word for Ben.”
Then Reddy began to question Stephen, and after he had made himself familiar with the salient points in his career, he spoke of himself more freely than he had yet done, and incidentally told many strange tales of the West. But to Stephen the strangest of all was the story of his luck. He had gone to Colorado with a cattle dealer the year after Stephen left Benson; in short, he fulfilled his early promise, and ran away. He had helped the cattle dealer West with a load of registered stock, and had reached Denver with only the few dollars saved from his wages, in his pocket. From there, he had drifted into the Black Hills, where after years of varying fortune he struck it rich in a modest way, and had found himself possessed of the sum of ten thousand dollars. This he had put in cattle, and had prospered exceedingly. But this was not all—there was a girl; the same girl who had pointed out to him his duty in the case of his mother; her name was Margaret Rogers, and to her, Reddy had given his soul.
“I wish you could know her, Landray,” he said. “Maybe you think it's against her that it's settled between us; that's about how I'd look at it, for I can't see what she finds in a proposition like me to tie up to. It ain't that I've made my little pile, for Colonel Rogers is worth a cool million.”
It was plain to Stephen that Reddy had drunk deep of the spirit of the West. That night they sat in the smoker, under the dim lamps, and talked until it was almost day, and through the next day; and as nightfall came again, they rolled into Benson, with Reddy “dry tongued and plumb talked out.”
Here they separated. Reddy was keen, as he expressed it, to hit the trial for the old lady's shack, and Stephen watched him disappear, tugging at the yellow satchel, heavy with his peace offering, the truck he was taking to her; then as the crowd thinned out from about him, he glanced around. He had more than half-expected that Benson would be there to welcome him.
As he stared about him for a sight of the familiar figure, some one touched him on the arm. He turned, and saw a shabby old gentleman, with a red puffy face and a fringe of white hair showing beneath the rim of his dingy silk hat.
“Steve”—the old man spoke in a husky tremor, as if his emotions were about to master him—“Steve, my dear boy, how are you?”
Landray owned to a feeling of mystification, but since the stranger appeared on terms of such intimacy with him, he gave him his hand.
“'You don't know me; well, it was hardly to be expected you would.”
“Oh, yes, I do!” cried Stephen quickly, a light breaking in on him. “You are General Gibbs.” But he had pictured the general as erect, grizzled, of military aspect; hale and vigorous, with the righteous years he had lived. This grossly fat old man, was a distinct shock; the touch of his clammy hands, the pressure of his tremulous fingers, for Gibbs now held the hand he had given him in both his own, was almost repulsive.
“Surely, it ain't possible that you remember me, Steve?” cried Gibbs. “I reckon you knew Jake wouldn't send any one but me to meet you. Here, let me carry your satchel—no? Well, come this way then to the carriage. Your Uncle Jake wasn't feeling just himself to-night. Oh, nothing serious. Odd, though, ain't it—I'm a good ten years his senior, and I say it without pride, Steve, I've lived a faster life than he has, and I don't know what sickness is. My dear boy, I'm glad to see you, I've been the friend, the intimate associate, of two generations of Landrays, and you're to make the third; for we'll keep up the ancient custom, trust me for that. Are you quite comfortable?”
They were seated in the carriage now.
“Oh, quite,” said Stephen. His first impression of the general was distinctly and unqualifiedly unfavourable. Gibbs was speaking again.
“It's quite a coincidence that I should meet you, Steve; of course you don't remember it, but I brought you here after your poor father's death. He was my very dear friend, we were like brothers. We had been comrades-in-arms, and we were in business together almost up to the time of his death.” Gibbs was industriously swabbing his face with his handkerchief as he spoke. Stephen was silent. He did not know just how to take this old friend of his father's, the wealth of whose emotions embarrassed him, and he was greatly relieved when the carriage turned from the paved street into a gravelled drive, and he knew his journey's end was reached.
The house door opened, and Benson appeared on the threshold. Stephen sprang from the carriage and ran quickly up the steps. Gibbs followed more slowly, with the coachman and the luggage.
“Right up to his room, Andrew—the front room over the library,” Gibbs ordered. He turned to Benson. “I suppose Steve will want to go up-stairs too, Jake. Hadn't I better show him the way?”
Benson gave Stephen a quiet smile.
“I am quite in Gibbs's hands,” he said. “He has been in consultation with the cook for over a week, preparing the dinner we shall sit down to presently.”
“Good Heavens, Jake, I didn't want the lad to starve,” said the general, as, bustling and eager, he led the way up-stairs. While Stephen was busy removing the signs of travel from his face and hands, he established himself in an easy-chair from which he beamed affectionately upon the young fellow.
“Jake's in the hands of his servants. They never do anything for him if it puts them to the least trouble, but they stand about for me! Damn 'em, I give 'em a taste of army discipline now and then, and a good rousing cussing when I think they need it. I don't know what he'd do if it wasn't for me, since Mrs. Pope went away. I reckon you remember her, Steve?”
“Oh, yes.”
In the fuller light, Gibbs seemed more unprepossessing than ever, and there was that about him which explained as fully as spoken words could have done, the cause and nature of his dependence on Benson. Stephen saw in their relation, as he now understood it, only a manifestation of the lawyer's charity and goodness.
It was Gibbs who kept the conversation alive during dinner. He called upon Stephen to admire each course as it was served, it was all his idea, he had battered sense into their heads in the kitchen. They slouched for Jake, but they knew a whole lot better than to try that on him; he made 'em stand around. But presently this topic was exhausted. Stephen turned to Benson.
“Do you remember a boy called Reddy, Uncle Jake, a little fellow I used to play with before I went away to school?” he asked.
“Riley Crittendon, you mean, he was back here some years ago. He is doing very well in the West,” said the lawyer.
“I made the trip from New York with him. Yes, he says he is very successful.”
“His mother rents one of Jake's houses—nice little old lady—not so very old either,” said Gibbs.
“He told me about another of my friends, Benjamin Wade,” said Stephen. “Reddy says he's a lawyer.”
“A very clever one, too, which I suppose he didn't tell you,” said Benson.
“And a young fellow who is going to travel far and fast, if some one don't stop him,” said Gibbs grumpily.
“Gibbs don't like him any too well,” said Benson.
“Humph! He never courted my approval; I reckon he'll flourish like a green bay tree without it. I saw Mrs. Landray to-day, Steve—your Aunt Virginia.” added Gibbs abruptly. “I told her you were expected home. I reckon she'll look to see you to-morrow.”
Benson frowned slightly at this.
“I have a vivid recollection of Aunt Virginia,” said Stephen.
“You ought to,” said Gibbs, turning a sudden purple. “I fetched you here to her, and you lived with her for a while; but you were only a little fellow then, Steve. It ain't to be wondered that your memory don't travel back into the past as freely as mine does. She was a second mother to your father.”