I saw Byng's wife some three years later. I had heard disquieting news
of Byng & Potter, now incorporated, but having confidence in Howard's
ability to pull through almost anything, I dismissed the matter from
my mind, for I was immersed with intensely interesting responsibilities
of my own. Eight years' successful work in the Counterfeit Division had
laid the foundation. I was now going to Europe in a more confidential
capacity even than ambassadors might enjoy! The evening before sailing
I was entering my hotel, much preoccupied, when I was plucked anxiously
by the sleeve. It took more than a glance to recognize Norma Byng.
"I have been looking for you a long time," she began, suppressing her
intense excitement. "You--you--I want to see you so badly----"
She actually clung to me as I led her to a secluded spot in the
ladies' parlor. Her excitement was unfeigned and I was anxious to
learn what had happened to Howard Byng's beautiful wife. Manifestly
she was in distress. Firm of step and courageous, she was still
comely, but in severely plain attire. There was an absence of deep red
in her lips, but the upward curves at the corners of her pretty mouth
were there, contradicting the sadness and evident weariness of soul
that showed in her eyes.
"Mr. Wood," she began, still struggling for calmness after we were
seated, "I have fruitlessly used every means to find you, and to come
upon you so unexpectedly quite upsets me. Perhaps--perhaps I was rude.
I believe--I know you are big enough to understand," she said, her
eyes now devouringly aflame.
I must have looked greatly perplexed, and, before I could formulate a
reply, she exclaimed:
"You are the one man Howard trusted implicitly--don't you
know--haven't you heard?"
"No, I have heard nothing authentic of him since our dinner party at
the Waldorf three years ago," I managed to say.
"Oh, most terrible things have happened since then. Will you--have you
time for me to tell you?" she pleaded, her hands clasped imploringly.
"Can't we," she added, anxiously glancing over to a spooning couple by
the window, "can't we go to some less public place?"
"It is time for dinner; if you will join me I will find a place where
we will not be disturbed."
"Oh, I will be so glad! I _must_ tell someone who will understand
and--and maybe you can do something," she added, searching my eyes
with a quick glance.
It was early evening and I was able to get my favorite waiter and
alcove seat in the dining-room.
"Now, Mrs. Byng----"
"Call me Norma--please do," she interrupted, "I like the way you
pronounce it, and I crave--I--I want some one to be fatherly to me--do
you know, I have lost both my parents in the last three years? I--I am
quite alone."
"Well, then, Norma, food both quiets and stimulates. First, let us
eat, and while we do, forget yourself, and all of your troubles.
Afterward you can tell me your story--I am anxious to hear it. While
we dine please relate some of the pleasant, delightful things, those
for which you are thankful, that happened since I last saw you." I
urged all this solicitously. I could not keep my eyes off the
beautiful woman, beautiful indeed, though it was evident she had been
through some terrible ordeal--the melting fires which refine, and make
perfect.
"I do think your idea is more appropriate," she replied with a faint
smile at my evident purpose. "It was like you to suggest it. Howard
often told me you did things differently. But isn't it strange I was
never asked that before?--and how sensible. Let me see--I will have to
think. Perhaps, ungratefully I have never tried to enumerate them,
and I might have done so with pleasure to myself." I didn't interrupt,
for she was smiling now. "First of all--well, I should be truly
thankful that I have good health."
"Fine!" I exclaimed, "that's worth a million, and there's a hundred
thousand women who would pay that for health and another million for
your wonderful hair!"
"Perhaps so--then I have gainful employment compelling attention to
others' problems which has taught me values in useful effort, brought
me a few friends, uninfluenced by mere money. I should have perished
without them," she added, yet inclined to revert.
"That's splendid, go ahead," I encouraged, trying to fathom the nature
of Byng's disaster.
"And--I have not lost faith in human kind, and still believe the world
mostly good."
"That's still greater; you will make yourself happy yet. Nothing beats
invoicing our blessings occasionally."
"Then you know, a short time after your visit there came a little girl
and the year that followed I could not have been happier, but----" and
her lips began to quiver and she looked at me imploringly.
"There you go: remember only pleasant things yet," I cautioned.
"That's so--that's so--well, she was christened Norma, but Howard
always called her 'Little Jim'; said that was the kind of a name you
would like. At the christening you were named her godfather."
"He honored me----" And recovering from the surprise I continued,
"Reproducing our kind is of the greatest use, and naturally yields the
greatest pleasure. Of course, you were happy? Does that end your list
of benefactions?"
She struggled hard for composure. She was still delightfully
unconscious of her physical charms.
"That's all I can think of now, unless, perhaps, that I still love my
husband so much that the lure of men, to a lone, and, in a sense,
deposed woman, is transparent and childishly laughable. This has
enabled me to keep my womanhood as it should be," she added quietly, a
soft glow spreading over her face. I was mystified.
"You have some big items on the credit side of the ledger; now for red
ink--but, remember, no tears. You are brave and I don't like to see a
brave woman cry. Tell me about everything as though it happened to
another, and you a mere witness. Something has happened that was a
part of your destiny. You will come to look at it that way later."
"Mr. Wood, you are encouraging and helpful. I will try to be brave but
you will not think badly of me if I fail--will you?" she pleaded
across the table, full, honest, fearless, glorious, but after all, a
woman. No one could have resisted her appeal.
"I have thought of my situation so much I hardly know where to begin
to make the fearful enormity of it intelligible to you. It involves
business of which I know so little I have never tried to tell it
before. No one would understand. I have no confidants. But I knew I
would find you some time and somehow I thought it would be such a
relief to tell you. I know you will understand!"
"Begin at the middle, anywhere--I'll understand. Take your time; but
recollect, this happened to someone else." I insisted, to keep her
confident and resolute.
"It appears," she began slowly, "you advised Howard against the bond
issue to build the railroad. He took a strong stand against it at
first, but father and Mr. Potter finally wore him down and won him
over. It was done. This compelled his being in Georgia for almost a
year." I nodded.
"A Mr. Ramund was introduced by the bank to take the bonds and he
finally came into our homes, welcomed especially by my sister, Mrs.
Potter, who was attracted by the glitter of his high position in the
financial world. He spoke several languages and was what many would
call handsome and polished. To me he was a male person whose
sincerity I doubted, but my sister bowed low and endeavored constantly
to throw him in my way. I tolerated him, but soon began to look upon
him as a possible source of serious trouble."
"The railroad was built, I take it?" I queried.
"The railroad was built and cost more than expected. Howard was barely
at home again when there were ominous signs in the business world that
upset him. He was not the same man. Then came fearful and dreadful
times. I shudder when I recall them. With the change of administration
came the crashing panic. Once, during the negotiations with the bank,
he told me you had warned him against large borrowing. You were right.
Heavy loans from the bank were called seemingly as though part of a
plan to get the property. I believe it was. Through it all Howard was
kind and affectionate, except when wild, savage moods came on. He
would sometimes look the way he did that morning when he carried me
away from that terrible island in Georgia. In an incredibly short time
the bonds were foreclosed and the bank took the plant and
all--everything Howard owned. We were absolutely penniless and had to
sacrifice our beautiful home for ready funds. I went to mother. Father
lost everything also. It killed him, and mother soon followed."
I was shocked at this news but silently awaited her effort to compose
herself.
"Howard went to Georgia. At least, he said he was going there," she
continued with an effort. "Then the serpent in this Ramund was
unmasked. He became boldly insistent."
Norma hesitated. I could see that the real crux of her story was at
hand. "Yes?" said I, gently.
"Urged by my sister, I went to his hotel on the representation that he
could and would do something to enable Howard to regain control and
finally save his property--the result of his life's labors. You can
understand how I wanted to help Howard. Mr. Ramund said the hotel
parlor was too public, and asked me to his suite. Obsessed by such
intense desire to save my husband, and having so little worldly
knowledge, I indiscreetly went. After a little talk on the business
matter, this man began to offer protestations of love for me, and told
me, brazenly, how much more he could do for me than a bankrupt,
discredited husband. Insulted, shocked, and stunned into sheer
numbness, which he mistook for silent consent, he grasped me bodily,
embraced me and kissed me violently before I could recover. Then the
door opened and Howard entered--quiet, fierce, determined. It seems in
retrospect a part of a play. With wonderfully polite self-control he,
as though requesting an ordinary favor, asked me to please run on
home.
"What happened after I left I never knew. Fearful of a great tragedy,
and with a sense of injury and mortification, I walked all the way. I
was actually afraid to go home. When I finally plucked up sufficient
courage to do so, I found he had been there and taken little Jim. I
have not heard of them since." It was some moments before she could
quiet down, after her painful recital.
"The bank is running the plant now?" I asked, turning away from the
subject she had voluntarily introduced. I was through with it. I could
see the villainy and perfidy behind Ramund's action. I knew what I
would have done were I in Howard Byng's place and I afterward learned
that he did that very thing.
"Yes--but there is something wrong," she replied. "It does not
prosper. My father's entire fortune went along with the crash. Mr.
Potter returned to a bank clerkship where he was when he married
sister. She blames me, attributing the disaster to my attitude toward
Mr. Ramund, raved about my senseless scruples, and still resists all
my attempts at reconciliation. She apparently loves only money. So,
you see, I am quite alone. Do you--do you think of any possible way to
find my husband and child?" she asked in whispered agony. "You know he
took little Jim, then only a year old, because--because--he thought me
unfit. I am terribly depressed at times for fear they may be dead. I
would have found them if living. He may have done something terrible
and had to go. I have tried every way within my meager means to find
them. Do you think you can help me?" she implored, reaching out her
hands toward me.
"I might, but I sail for Europe to-morrow. I am compelled to go." My
words sounded brutal to my own ears after such an appeal.
"Isn't there--isn't there something you can suggest?"
I meditated for some minutes. Howard Byng, if not desperate enough to
destroy himself and child, would go back to the pine woods of his
birth, I reasoned. Finally I said, "I will give you a letter to a
friend of mine in the Excise Department, who travels the turpentine
country constantly. He might get trace of him. Howard would return
there if living."
"That's so. I never thought of that before. As lowly as was his start
in life, he never ceased loving the woods," she recalled,
brightening. "How long will you be away?"
Knowing the disappointment the truth would bring to her, I answered
ambiguously. "I hardly know. One never can tell, but I hope not very
long. Meanwhile keep up a stout heart. Everything straightens out in
time. Keep busy, don't brood, be brave." I will never forget how
forlorn she looked as she bade me good-bye. If she had known I would
be away for several years she would have broken down completely. She
felt that I could help her.
I gave her a letter to Charlie Haines, and that was the last I saw of
Norma Byng for eight or nine years. Charlie told me that he spent
three or four years beating every pine bush in the South without
results, and, moreover, that he had somehow lost track of Mrs. Byng.
He decided she had married again, as she was too attractive to stay
single. Eight or nine years work wonderful changes in any life. It
appeared to me that Charlie might be right.