The double apartment in Dragon Court, swept by such vagrant July
breezes as wandered into the heated city, had become lively with
preparations for departure.
Barres fussed about, collecting sketching paraphernalia, choosing
brushes, colours, canvases, field kits, and costumes from his
accumulated store, and boxing them for transportation to Foreland
Farms, with the languid assistance of Aristocrates.
Westmore had only to ship a modelling stand, a handful of sculptors'
tools, and a ton or two of Plasteline, an evil-smelling composite
clay, very useful to work with.
But the storm centre of preparation revolved around Dulcie. And
Thessalie, enchanted with her new role as adviser, bargainer, and
purchaser, and always attaching either Westmore or Barres to her
skirts when she and Dulcie sallied forth, was selecting and
accumulating a charming and useful little impedimenta. For the young
girl had never before owned a single pretty thing, except those first
unpremeditated gifts of Barres', and her happiness in these
expeditions was alloyed with trepidation at Thessalie's extravagance,
and deep misgivings concerning her ultimate ability to repay out of
the salary allowed her as a private model.
Intoxicated by ownership, she watched Thessalie and Selinda laying
away in her brand-new trunk the lovely things which had been
selected. And one day, thrilled but bewildered, she went into the
studio, where Barres sat opening his mail, and confessed her fear that
only lifelong devotion in his service could ever liquidate her
overwhelming financial obligations to him.
He had begun to laugh when she opened the subject:
"Thessa is managing it," he said. "It looks like a lot of expense, but
it isn't. Don't worry about it, Sweetness."
"I _do_ worry----"
"Now, what a ridiculous thing to do!" he interrupted. "It's merely
advanced salary--your own money. I told you to blow it; I'm
responsible. And I shall arrange it so you won't notice that you are
repaying the loan. All I want you to do is to have a good time about
it."
"I am having a good time--when it doesn't scare me to spend so much
for----"
"Can't you trust Thessa and me?"
The girl dropped to her knees beside his chair in a swift passion of
gratitude:
"Oh, I trust you--I do----" But she could not utter another word, and
only pressed her face against his arm in the tense silence of emotions
which were too powerful to express, too deep and keen to comprehend or
to endure.
And she sprang to her feet, flushed, confused, turning from him as he
retained one hand and drew her back:
"Dear child," he said, in his pleasant voice, "this is really a
very little thing I do for you, compared to the help you have
given me by hard, unremitting, uncomplaining physical labour and
endurance. There is no harder work than holding a pose for painter
or sculptor--nothing more cruelly fatiguing. Add to that your
cheerfulness, your willingness, your quiet, loyal, unobtrusive
companionship--and the freshness and inspiration and interest ever
new which you always awake in me--tell me, Sweetness, are you really
in my debt, or am I in yours?"
"I am in yours. You made me."
"You always say that. It's foolish. You made yourself, Dulcie. You are
making yourself all the while. Why, good heavens!--if you hadn't had
it in you, somehow, to ignore your surroundings--take the school
opportunities offered you--close your eyes and ears to the sights and
sounds and habits of what was supposed to be your home----"
He checked himself, thinking of Soane, and his brogue, and his
ignorance and his habits.
"How the devil you escaped it all I can't understand," he muttered to
himself. "Even when I first knew you, there was nothing resembling
your--your father about you--even if you were almost in rags!"
"I had been with the Sisters until I went to high school," she
murmured. "It makes a difference in a child's mind what is said and
thought by those around her."
"Of course. But, Dulcie, it is usually the unfortunate rule that the
lower subtly contaminates the higher, even in casual association--that
the weaker gradually undermines the stronger until it sinks to lesser
levels. It has not been so with you. Your clear mind remained
untarnished, your aspiration uncontaminated. Somewhere within you had
been born the quality of recognition; and when your eyes opened on
better things you recognised them and did not forget after they
disappeared----"
Again he ceased speaking, aware, suddenly, that for the first time he
was making the effort to analyse this girl for his own information.
Heretofore, he had accepted her, sometimes curious, sometimes amused,
puzzled, doubtful, even uneasy as her mind revealed itself by degrees
and her character glimmered through in little fitful gleams from that
still hidden thing, herself.
He began to speak again, before he knew he was speaking--indeed, as
though within him somewhere another man were using his lips and voice
as vehicles:
"You know, Dulcie, it's not going to end--our companionship. Your real
life is all ahead of you; it's already beginning--the life which is
properly yours to shape and direct and make the most of.
"I don't know what kind of life yours is going to be; I know, merely,
that your career doesn't lie down stairs in the superintendent's
lodgings. And this life of ours here in the studio is only temporary,
only a phase of your development toward clearer aims, higher
aspiration, nobler effort.
"Tranquillity, self-respect, intelligent responsibility, the
happiness of personal independence are the prizes: the path on which
you have started leads to the only pleasure man has ever really
known--labour."
He looked down at her hand lying within his own, stroked the slender
fingers thoughtfully, noticing the whiteness and fineness of them, now
that they had rested for three months from their patient martyrdom in
Soane's service.
"I'll talk to my mother and sister about it," he concluded. "All you
need is a start in whatever you're going to do in life. And you bet
you're going to get it, Sweetness!"
He patted her hand, laughed, and released it. She couldn't speak just
then--she tried to as she stood there, head averted and grey eyes
brilliant with tears--but she could not utter a sound.
Perhaps aware that her overcharged heart was meddling with her voice,
he merely smiled as he watched her moving slowly back to Thessalie's
room, where the magic trunk was being packed. Then he turned to his
letters again. One was from his mother:
"Garry darling, anybody you bring to Foreland is always welcome,
as you know. Your family never inquires of its members concerning
any guests they may see fit to invite. Bring Miss Dunois and
Dulcie Soane, your little model, if you like. There's a world of
room here; nobody ever interferes with anybody else. You and your
guests have two thousand acres to roam about in, ride over, fish
over, paint over. There's plenty for everybody to do, alone or in
company.
"Your father is well. He looks little older than you. He's fishing
most of the time, or busy reforesting that sandy region beyond the
Foreland hills.
"Your sister and I ride as usual and continue to improve the
breeds of the various domestic creatures in which we are
interested and you are not.
"The pheasants are doing well this year, and we're beginning to
turn them out with their foster-mothers.
"Your father wishes me to tell you and Jim Westmore that the trout
fishing is still fairly good, although it was better, of course,
in May and June.
"The usual parties and social amenities continue in Northbrook.
Everybody included in that colony seems to have arrived, also the
usual influx of guests, and there is much entertaining, tennis,
golf, dances--the invariable card always offered there.
"Claire and I go enough to keep from being too completely
forgotten. Your father seldom bothers himself.
"Also, the war in Europe has made us, at Foreland, disinclined to
frivolity. Others, too, of the older society in Northbrook are
more subdued than usual, devote themselves to quieter pursuits.
And those among us who have sons of military age are prone to
take life soberly in these strange, oppressive days when even
under sunny skies in this land aloof from war, all are conscious
of the tension, the vague foreboding, the brooding stillness that
sometimes heralds storms.
"But all north-country folk do not feel this way. The Gerhardts,
for example, are very gay with a house full of guests and
overflowing week-ends. The German Embassy, as always, is well
represented at Hohenlinden. Your father won't go there at all now.
As for Claire and myself, we await political ruptures before we
indulge in social ones. And it doesn't look like war, now that Von
Tirpitz has been sent to Coventry.
"This, Garry darling, is my budget of news. Bring your guests
whenever you please. You wouldn't bring anybody you oughtn't to;
your family is liberal, informal, pleasantly indifferent, and
always delightfully busy with its individual manias and fads; so
come as soon as you please--sooner, please--because, strange as it
may seem, your mother would like to see you."
The letter was what he had expected. But, as always, it made him very
grateful.
"Wonderful mother I have," he murmured, opening another letter from
his father:
"DEAR GARRET:
"Why the devil don't you come up? You've missed the cream of the
fishing. There's nothing doing in the streams now, but at sunrise
and toward evening they're breaking nicely in the lake.
"I've put in sixty thousand three-year transplants this year on
that sandy stretch. They are white, Scotch and Austrian. Your
children will enjoy them.
"The dogs are doing well. There's one youngster, the litter-tyrant
of Goldenrod's brood, who ought to make a field winner. But
there's no telling. You and I'll have 'em out on native woodcock.
"There are some grouse, but we ought to let them alone for the
next few years. As for the pheasants, they're everywhere now, in
the brake, silver-grass, and weeds, peeping, scurrying,
creeping--cunning little beggars and growing wild as quail.
"The horses are all right. The crops promise well. Labour is
devilish scarce, and unsatisfactory when induced to accept
preposterous wages. What we need are coolies, if these lazy,
native slackers continue to handicap the farmers who have to
employ them. The American 'hired man'! He makes me sick. With few
exceptions, he is incredibly stupid, ignorant, unwilling, lazy.
"He's sometimes a crook, too; he takes pay for what he doesn't do;
he steals your time; he cares absolutely nothing about your
interests or convenience; he will leave you stranded in harvest
time, without any notice at all; decent treatment he does not
appreciate; he'll go without a warning even, leaving your horses
unfed, your cattle unwatered, your crops rotting!
"He's a degenerate relic of those real men who broke up the
primaeval wilderness. He is the reason for high prices, the cause
of agricultural and industrial distress, the inert, sodden,
fermenting, indigestible mass in the belly of the body-politic!
"The American hired man! If the country doesn't spew him up, he'll
kill it!
"Perhaps you've heard me before on this subject, Garret. I'm
likely to air my views, you know.
"Well, my son, I look forward to your arrival. I am glad that
Westmore is coming with you. As for your other guests, they are
welcome, of course.
"Your father,
"REGINALD BARRES."
He laughed; this letter so perfectly revealed his father.
"Dad and his trout and his birds and his pines and his eternally
accursed hired help," he said to himself, "Dad and his monocle and his
immaculate attire--the finest man who ever fussed!" And he laughed
tenderly to himself as he broke the seal of his sister's brief note:
"Garry dear, I've been so busy schooling horses and dancing that
I've had no time for letter writing. So glad you're coming at
last. Bring along any good novels you see. My best to Jim. Your
guests can be well mounted, if they ride. Father is wild because
there are more foxes than usual, but he's promised not to treat
them as vermin, and the Northbrook pack is to hunt our territory
this season, after all. Poor Dad! He is a brick, isn't he?"
"Affectionately,
"LEE."
Barres pocketed his sheaf of letters and began to stroll about the
studio, whistling the air of some recent musical atrocity.
Westmore, in his own room, composing verses--a secret vice unsuspected
by Barres--bade him "Shut up!"--the whistling no doubt ruining his
metre.
But Barres, with politest intentions, forgot himself so many times
that the other man locked up his "Lines to Thessalie when she was
sewing on a button for me," and came into the studio.
"Where is she?" he inquired naively.
"Where's who?" demanded Barres, still sensitive over the increasing
intimacy of this headlong young man and Thessalie Dunois.
"Thessa."
"In there fussing with Dulcie's togs. Go ahead in, if you care to."
"Is your stuff packed up?"
Barres nodded:
"Is yours?"
"Most of it. How many trunks is Thessa taking?"
"How do I know?" said Barres, with a trace of irritation. "She's at
liberty to take as many as she likes."
Westmore didn't notice the irritation; his mind was entirely occupied
by Thessalie--an intellectual condition which had recently become
rather painfully apparent to Barres, and, doubtless, equally if not
painfully apparent to Thessalie herself.
Probably Dulcie noticed it, too, but gave no sign, except when the
serious grey eyes stole toward Barres at times, as though vaguely
apprehensive that he might not be entirely in sympathy with Westmore's
enchanted state of mind.
As for Thessalie, though Westmore's naive and increasing devotion
could scarcely escape her notice, it was utterly impossible to tell
how it affected her--whether, indeed, it made any impression at all.
For there seemed to be no difference in her attitude toward these two
men; it was plain enough that she liked them both--that she believed
in them implicitly, was happy with them, tranquil now in her new
security, and deeply penetrated with gratitude for their kindness to
her in her hour of need.
* * * * *
"Come on in," coaxed Westmore, linking his arm in Barres', and
counting on the latter to give him countenance.
The arm of Barres remained rigid and unresponsive, but his legs were
reluctantly obliging and carried him along with Westmore to what had
been his own room before Thessalie had installed herself there.
And there she was on her knees, amid a riot of lingerie and feminine
effects, while Dulcie lovingly smoothed out and folded object after
object which Selinda placed between layers of pale blue tissue paper
in the trunks.
"How are things going, Thessa?" inquired Westmore, in the hearty,
cheerful voice of the intruder who hopes to be made welcome. But her
attitude was discouraging.
"You know you are only in the way," she said. "Drive him out,
Dulcie!"
Dulcie laughed and looked at them both with shyly friendly eyes:
"Is my trousseau not beautiful?" she asked. "If you'll step outside
I'll put on a hat and gown for you----"
"Oh, Dulcie!" protested Thessalie, "I want you to dawn upon them, and
a dress rehearsal would spoil it all!"
Westmore tiptoed around amid lovely, frail mounds of fabrics, until
ordered to an empty chair and forbidden further motion. It was all the
same to him, so long as his fascinated gaze could rest on Thessalie.
Which further annoyed Barres, and he backed out and walked to the
studio, considerably disturbed in his mind.
"That man," he thought, "is making an ass of himself, hanging around
Thessa like a half-witted child. She can't help noticing it, but she
doesn't seem to do anything about it. I don't know why she doesn't
squelch him--unless she likes it----" But the idea was so unpleasant
to Barres that he instantly abandoned that train of thought and
prepared for himself a comfortable nest on the lounge, a pipe, and an
uncut volume of flimsy summer fiction.
In the middle of these somewhat sullen preparations, there came a ring
at his studio door. Only the superintendent or strangers rang that
bell as a rule, and Barres went to his desk, slipped his loaded pistol
into his coat pocket, then walked to the door and opened it.
Soane stood there, his face a shiny-red from drink, his legs steady
enough. As usual when drunk, he was inclined to be garrulous.
"What's the matter?" inquired Barres in a low voice.
"Wisha, Misther Barres, sorr, av ye're not too busy f'r to----"
"S-h-h! Don't bellow at the top of your voice. Wait a moment!"
He picked up his hat and came out into the corridor, closing the
studio door behind him so that Dulcie, if she appeared on the scene,
should not be humiliated before the others.
Soane began again, but the other cut him short:
"Don't start talking here," he said. "Come down to your own quarters
if you're going to yell your head off!" And he led the way,
impatiently, down the stairs, past the desk where Miss Kurtz sat
stolid and mottled-faced as a lump of uncooked sausage, and into
Soane's quarters.
"Now, you listen to me first!" he said when Soane had entered and he
had closed the door behind them. "You keep out of my apartment and out
of Dulcie's way, too, when you're drunk! You're not going to last very
long on this job; I can see that plainly----"
"Faith, sorr, you're right! I'm fired out entirely this blessed
minute!"
"You've been discharged?"
"I have that, sorr!"
"What for? Drunkenness?"
"Th' divil do I know phwat for! Wisha, then, Misther Barres, is there
anny harrm av a man----"
"Yes, there is! I told you Grogan's would do the trick for you. Now
you're discharged without a reference, I suppose."
Soane smiled airily:
"Misther Barres, dear, don't lave that worrit ye! I want no riference
from anny landlord. Sure, landlords is tyrants, too! An' phwat the
divil should I be wantin'----"
"What are you going to do then?"
Soane hooked both thumbs into the armholes of his vest, and swaggered
about the room:
"God bless yer kind heart, sorr, I've a-plenty to do and more for good
measure!" He came up to confront Barres, and laid a mysterious finger
alongside his over-red nose and began to brag:
"There's thim in high places as looks afther the likes o' me, sorr.
There's thim that thrusts me, thim that depinds on me----"
"Have you another job?"
Soane's scorn was superb:
"A job is ut? Misther Barres, dear, I was injuced f'r to accept a
_position_ of grave importance!"
"Here in town?"
"Somewhere around tin thousand miles away or thereabouts," remarked
Soane airily.
"Do you mean to take Dulcie with you?"
"Musha, then, Misther Barres, 'tis why I come to ye above f'r to ax ye
will ye look afther Dulcie av I go away on me thravels?"
"Yes, I will!... Where are you going? What is all this stuff you're
talking, anyway----"
"Shtuff? God be good to you, it's no shtuff I talk, Misther Barres!
Sure, can't a decent man thravel f'r to see the wurruld as God made it
an' no harrm in----"
"Be careful what company you travel in," said Barres, looking at him
intently. "You have been travelling around New York in very suspicious
company, Soane. I know more about it than you think I do. And it
wouldn't surprise me if you have a run-in with the police some day."
"The po-lice, sorr! Arrah, then, me fut in me hand an' me tongue in me
cheek to the likes o' thim! An' lave them go hoppin' afther me av
they like. The po-lice is ut! Open y'r two ears, asthore, an' listen
here!--there'll be nary po-lice, no nor constabulary, nor excise, nor
landlords the day that Ireland flies her flag on Dublin Castle! Sure,
that will be the grand sight, with all the rats a-runnin', an' all the
hurryin' and scurryin' an' the futther and mutther----"
"_What_ are you gabbling about, Soane? What's all this boasting
about?"
"Gabble is ut? Is it boastin' I am? Sorra the day! An' there do be
grand gintlemen and gay ladies to-day that shall look for a roof an' a
sup o' tay this day three weeks, when th' fut o' the tyrant is lifted
from the neck of Ireland an' the landlords is runnin' for their
lives----"
"I thought so!" exclaimed Barres, disgusted.
"An' phwat was ye thinkin', sorr?"
"That your German friends at Grogan's are stirring up trouble among
the Irish. What's all this nonsense, anyway? Are they trying to
persuade you to follow the old Fenian tactics and raid Canada? Or is
it an armed expedition to the Irish coast? You'd better be careful;
they'll only lock you up here, but it's a hanging matter over there!"
"Is it so?" grinned Soane.
"It surely is."
"Well, then, be aisy, Misther Barres, dear. Av there's hangin' to be
done this time, 'twill not be thim as wears the green that hangs!"
Barres slowly shook his head:
"This is German work. You're sticking your neck into the noose."
"Lave the noose for the Clan-na-Gael to pull, sorr, an' 'twill
shqueeze no Irish neck!"
"You're a fool, Soane! These Germans are exploiting such men as you.
Where's your common sense? Can't you see you're playing a German game?
What do they care what becomes of you or of Ireland? All they want is
for you to annoy England at any cost. And the cost is death! Do you
dream for an instant that you and your friends stand a ghost of a
chance if you are crazy enough to invade Canada? Do you suppose it
possible to land an expedition on the Irish coast?"
Soane deliberately winked at him. Then he burst into laughter and
stood rocking there on heel and toe while his mirth lasted.
But the inevitable Celtic reaction presently sobered him and switched
him into a sombre recapitulation of Erin's wrongs. And this tragic
inventory brought the inevitable tears in time. And Woe awoke in him
the memory of the personal and pathetic.
The world had dealt him a wretched hand. He had sat in a crooked game
from the beginning. The cards had been stacked; the dice were cogged.
And now he meant to make the world disgorge--pay up the living that it
owed him.
Barres attempted to stem the flow of volubility, but it instantly
became a torrent.
Nobody knew the sorrows of Ireland or of the Irish. Tyranny had marked
them for its own. As for himself--once a broth of a boy--he had been
torn from the sacred precincts of his native shanty and consigned to a
loveless, unhappy marriage.
Then Barres listened without interrupting. But the woes of Soane
became vague at that point. Veiled references to being "thrampled on,"
to "th' big house," to "thim that was high an' shtiff-necked,"
abounded in an unconnected way. There was something about being a
servant at the fireside of his own wife--a footstool on the hearth of
his own home--other incomprehensible plaints and mutterings, many
scalding tears, a blub or two, and a sort of whining silence.
Then Barres said:
"Who is Dulcie, Soane?"
The man, seated now on his bed, lifted a congested and stupid visage
as though he had not comprehended.
"Is Dulcie your daughter?" demanded Barres.
Soane's blue eyes wandered wildly in an agony of recollection:
"Did I say she was _not_, sorr?" he faltered. "Av I told ye that, may
the saints forgive me----"
"Is it true?"
"Ah, what was I afther sayin', Misther----"
"Never mind what you said or left unsaid! I want to ask you another
question. Who was Eileen Fane?"
Soane bounded to his feet, his blue eyes ablaze:
"Holy Mother o' God! What have I said!"
"Was Eileen Fane your wife?"
"Did I say her blessed name!" shouted Soane. "Sorra the sup I tuk that
loosed the tongue o' me this cursed day! 'Twas the dommed whishkey
inside o' me that told ye that--not me--not Larry Soane! Wurra the day
I said it! An' listen, now, f'r the love o' God! Take pride to
yourself, sorr, for all the goodness ye done to Dulcie.
"An' av I go, and I come no more to vex her, I thank God 'tis in a
gintleman's hands the child do be----" He choked; his marred hands
dropped by his side, and he stared dumbly at Barres for a moment.
Then:
"Av I come no more, will ye guard her?"
"Yes."
"Will ye do fair by her, Misther Barres?"
"Yes."
"Call God to hear ye say ut!"
"So--help me--God."
Soane dropped on to the bed and took his battered face and curly head
between his hands.
"I'll say no more," he said thickly. "Nor you nor she shall know no
more. An' av ye have guessed it out, kape it locked in. I'll say no
more.... I was good to her--in me own way. But ye cud see--anny wan
with half a cock-eye cud see.... I was--honest--with her mother....
She made the bargain.... I tuk me pay an' held me tongue.... 'Tis
whishkey talks, not me.... I tuk me pay an' I kept to the bargain....
Wan year.... Then--she was dead of it--like a flower, sorr--like the
rose ye pull an' lave lyin' in the sun.... Like that, sorr--in a
year.... An' I done me best be Dulcie.... I done me best. An' held to
the bargain.... An' done me best be Dulcie--little Dulcie--the wee
baby that had come at last--_her_ baby--Dulcie Fane!..."