banquet is moving to the inn-keeper's taste.
The electric lights swing on long wires. The glass in the windows is
full of imperfections and sooty. The phantasmagoria on the wall
distracts the suffering man. Why not have a light? He rises and turns
on the gas. Perhaps there will be a paper or a book in the room. That
will help.
Poverty of hotel life! There is only the card of rules hung on the
door. Lockwin reads the rules and is thankful. He studies the lock
history of the door, as represented in the marks of old locks and
staples. Here a burglar has bored. Here a chisel has penetrated to
push back the bolt. Yes, it was a burglar, for there is now a brass
sheath to prevent another entry. Most of these breakages, however,
have been made by the hotel people, as can be seen by the transom locks.
That brings up suicides. David Lockwin has committed suicide once.
The subject is odious.
The laughter below resounds. The man above will read from the lining
of some bureau drawer.
He goes to that piece of furniture. The dressing-case is completely
empty excepting a laundry bill on pink paper.
He clutches that. He examines the printer's mark. He strives to
recall the particular printing-office.
He has not the courage to go forth into the street. He does not want
to read, except as it shall ease him from the cruel torment which he
feels.
The glasses jingle and chime. The stores across the street close their
doors and darken their show windows. Why not go below and buy the
latest novel?
The suggestion fairly sickens the man. He did not know he was so
nervous. To read ror pastime while a great city is filled with his
obsequies--he cannot do it!
There is but one course--to read the rules, to study the history of the
door until it reaches the stage of suicide--ah! to feel in one's
pockets! That is it! That is it!
David Lockwin cons his bank-book. He opens his worn letters---letters
to the Hon. David Lockwin. He grows timid as he descends into the vale
of despair.
Why did he do it? These details of the electoral campaign seem trivial
now. Easy difficulties!
He reaches the last letter of the packet. Marvelous that he should
wait to unseal it until an hour so fraught with need!
It is Esther's letter--probably some cold missive such as she wrote
during their courtship and engagement.
David Lockwin is beginning to love his wife as a dog worships its
master. He looks to her for safety. He wants to think of her as she
is now--a sincere mourner for a dead friend, husband and protector; a
superior being, capable of pity for David Lockwin.
"Is it wise to read it?" he asks in a dread. "But why should I not be
generous? Why should I not love her--as I do love her? God forgive
me! I do love her! I love her though she smite me now--cold, cold
Esther!"
The man is crying. He cannot hear the banqueters. He has at last
escaped from their world. His hands shake and he unseals the letter,
careful to the last that no part of the envelope be torn.
He will read the cold letter. Cold, cold Esther! He kisses the
envelope again and again. The sheets are drawn from the inclosure.
She never wrote at such length before. He scans the first page. His
face grows cold with the old look of disappointment. He wishes he had
not read. He turns to the next page. The text changes in tone. There
succeeds a warmth that heats the heart aglow.
David Lockwin passes his hands across his eyes. He is dazed. He reads
on:
"Come back to me, my darling, and see how happy we shall be! Let the
politics go--that killed Davy and makes us all so unhappy. You were
created for something nobler. Let us go to Europe once more. Let's
seek the places where we have met in the past."
How much more of this can David Lockwin endure?
His temples rise and grow blood-red. The gas seems to give no light.
He reads like a man of short sight. His eyes kiss the sacred sheet.
"I love you! I love you! I shall die without you! Come home to me,
and save me! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love--!"
David Lockwin has fainted.
The glasses chink, and heavy feet tramp on soft carpets, making a
muffled sound.
"'Scuse me!" says a thick-voiced banqueter in the hall. "I thought it
was my hat! Hooray! 'Scuse me! I know it's pretty late. Whoop!
'Scuse me!"
The waiters bicker hotly; the counting-room bell rings afar off. There
is a smothered cry of "Front!"
"All trains for the East--" comes a monotonous announcement in the
corridors.
"Sixty-six! Number sixty-six!" screeches the carriage-crier.
A drunken refrain floats on the air from Wabash avenue:
"We won't go home till morn-i-n-g,
T-i-l-l daylight doth appear."
CHAPTER V
LETTERS OF CONSOLATION
On the Africa David Lockwin loved but one person, and that was David
Lockwin.
On this morning after the banquet David Lockwin hates but one person, and
that is David Lockwin.
He had lately hungered for somebody more charitable to himself than he
himself could be. He had experienced a mean, spiritless happiness in
noting the honors which the widow was heaping on his memory. Now he is
furiously in love with that widow. He sallies from the hotel in haste to
her residence.
Three blocks away from his goal, with the old home in sight, he awakens
to his danger. A moment more and the whole shameful truth had been known!
"No, base as I am, I cannot do that," he shudders.
Besides, he is a true lover, and what one ever dared to take the great
risk?
Here she lives! And between her and her lover, her husband, yawns the
chasm of death! Was it not a black act that could so enrobe a woman? He
recalls her garb as she appeared at the dedication yesterday--solemn,
solemn!
It is unsafe to stay in this neighborhood, yet let this man creep nearer
and gaze on the house where Davy died.
The balcony--it seems to him, dimly, that he made a speech from that
balcony. But Davy's death is not now the calamity it was yesterday. It
seems more like a pleasant memory--a small memory. The gigantic thought
is Esther, Esther--Esther the beautiful, the noble, the generous, the
faithful. She shall be the wife of Ulysses, waiting for his return, and
he shall return!
The husband again starts for Esther's door. There are two men within
him--one is David Lockwin dead, the other is David Lockwin living. Once
more the eminent man who is dead seizes the maddened lover who is living
and prevents a disaster.
Love this house as he may, therefore, David Lockwin must avoid it until
he can control himself. It is true his books are in there, his
manuscripts, his chronicles, "Josephus," and a thousand things without
which he cannot lay hold on the true dignity of life. It is true he is
slipping down the declivity that invites the easy descent of the obscure
and powerless citizen. If he have true hope--and what lover has it
not--he must hurry away. He is not safe in Chicago just at present,
because the abstraction of a lover, joined with the self-forgetfulness of
a man in the second life, will assuredly lead him to ruin.
His eyes leave that house with utter regret. He makes the long ride to
Davy's tomb and finds it covered with fresh flowers. The tenderest of
care is visible. The lawn is perfect--not a leaf of plantain, not a
spear of dandelion. Money will not produce such stewardship of the
sepulcher. It is Esther's own devotion.
He goes to the site of the cenotaph. Is it not a difficulty for a lover?
Yet love sustains him. His invention suggests method after method by
which he may undo the past.
He visits the foundations of the David Lockwin Annex. He notes the
character of the materials that are strewn over three streets. His love
for Esther only increases.
Thence to the Art Institute he hastens. They said it was a poor likeness
of Lockwin. He vows it is good. It is good because Esther has done it!
He has seen all--all but Esther. He starts blindly for Esther's house
once more. As he walks rapidly southward, his own team comes up the
avenue. It is Esther within the carriage. She looks at a man in gray
business dress, with colored nose and a drunkard's complexion. She notes
the large watch-chain. She finds him no different from all other living
men. She is looking for David. "Come back, my noble husband," she sobs,
"come back from the grave, or let me join you."
A moment afterward she fears she may die before her work shall be done.
That was a sharp sting at her heart just then.
David Lockwin is frozen with that cold look. The carriage is past. He
was on his way to Esther's to tell her all. If he had not risen out of
his abstraction ere it should be too late, he would have confronted this
cold lady--this mature builder of cenotaph and hospital.
He is terrified--a lover's panic. She does not love him, or she would
have called to him as they passed.
So thinks David Lockwin, for he cannot see himself except as he once was.
People call him Chalmers when they address him, which is not more than
once a day, but it is like the salutation to Judge Wandrell. He does not
call himself "Judge" nor sign himself "Judge." "My dear judge," writes a
friend. "Your friend, H. M. H. Wandrell," answers the same man.
It is easy for David Lockwin to answer to the name of Robert Chalmers.
He has found it totally impossible to become Robert Chalmers in fact. He
is David Lockwin, disinherited--a picture of the prodigal son---but David
Lockwin in every bone and muscle--no one else.
Esther Lockwin has refused to know David Lockwin.
Sharp as may be his hurt at this event, he is, nevertheless, once more
recalled to the expediencies. If he shall be in hope of Esther, it would
be well to escape from a situation so dangerous.
"And I am poor! Why did I not think of that? It was easy to marry her,
because I was wealthy. I am a poor man now." He repeats it over and
over.
It would be well to hurry to New York and attend to that matter of the
Coal and Oil Trust Company institution. He could not go but for the
lover's hope of preparing something for the reunion.
Between Chicago and New York one may fall into a wide abyss of despair.
The late Honorable David Lockwin has tarried in Chicago, has assisted at
the public dedication of his own cenotaph, has visited the David Lockwin
Annex, has looked his own widow in the face. His pride is torn out by
the roots. A man once exalted is now humbled. And, added to the horrors
of his situation, every fiber of his body, every aspiration of his
spirit, proclaims his love of the woman who once wearied him.
His dilemma is dreadful without this catastrophe of love. He thanks the
fates that he is in love. It gives him business. He will not sell his
claim against the ruined bank. He will work as book-keeper. He will
wait and collect all. Patience shall be his motto. He will communicate
with Esther through a spiritual medium. He will--better yet--write to
her anonymously. Every day a type-written missive shall be sent to her.
He will have her! It is all possible!
"It is all easy!" David Lockwin says, and goes resolutely at work to save
the remnants of his fortune.
For a year he turns the inertia of his love into his daily business.
Esther is building at Chicago, David will build at New York--a fabric of
love, airy, it may be, but graceful and beautiful.
Each night he indites in type-writer and addresses to Esther Lockwin an
essay on the value of hope in great afflictions. The tone grows
familiar, as the weeks pass by. "My dear madam" becomes "my dear Mrs.
Lockwin," and at last "my dear friend." To-night, far into the small
hours, he pours out his advice and comfort:
"Be brave, my dear friend," he proceeds. "Undreamed-of happiness may
still be yours, if you can but come to place confidence in your faithful
correspondent. There are things more strange than anything which the
books give us. As a matter of fact, dear friend, the writers do not dare
to make life as it is, for fear of outrunning the bounds of fiction. Let
me give you comfort, and at the proper time I shall be able, not to
reveal myself, perhaps, but to offer you opportunity to give me a signal
that my services are valuable to you.
"Preserve your health. This admonition has been iterated in the hundreds
of different treatises I have placed before you. My diligence and
patience must recommend themselves. My hope must reinspire your drooping
energies. Until to-morrow at eventide, adieu!"
The time is ripe to learn the effect of these courteous ministrations.
David Lockwin dares not intrust his secret to a chance acquaintance like
Corkey, who is completely devoted to Mrs. Lockwin. What man can now be
found who will support a possible relation of mutual friend in this
singular case?
The thought of Dr. Tarpion comes again and again.
Clearly a lover cannot wait forever. And he must know whether or not
Esther reads the letters. But, of course, she reads them!
"And they comfort her, God bless her!" cries the happy lover. But he
must not wait too long. She needs him. She must be rescued from Chicago.
Why not write to Dr. Tarpion? He is a dear old friend.
He seems very dear, now that Lockwin needs him. The doctor is the
administrator of the estate, if we come to recollect. Certainly!
Now, therefore, let David undertake an interrogatory, and tremblingly
mail it to Dr. Tarpion. To be sure, this is better. Suppose David
Lockwin the unknown monitor, had invited Esther to advertise in a
newspaper, and the advertisement had been left out! Or, suppose he had
suggested a certain signal at her house, or in New York--anywhere! It
would be a chance too great to take. No lover should leave anything to
fortune. Dr. Tarpion will give the information. He shall be the mutual
friend--the go-between to unravel this tangled web of deception.
If David Lockwin shall in future discover himself to Esther, he must have
the aid of a discreet and loving friend. Dr. Tarpion is the man. This
letter will open the way for further disclosures. It is as follows:
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL.
DEAR SIR:--For about a year I have seen fit to offer to Mrs. Lockwin such
consolation as I thought might lessen her grief. Will you kindly inform
me if my suggestions have at any time mitigated her sorrow? I shall be
happy to know that an earnest and faithful labor has done some little
good. You may inclose a letter to the care of Robert Chalmers, New York
City, who will deliver it to me.
The reply is prompt:
CHICAGO, May 1.--I am in receipt of a type-written communication from an
unknown party, and am not unwilling to inform the writer that Mrs.
Lockwin's mail all comes to me. I have for a year burned every one of
the consolatory letters alluded to, in common with thousands of other
screeds, which I have considered as so many assaults on the charity of an
unhappy lady.
The series of letters from New York have, however, been the most
persistent of these demonstrations. I have expected that at the proper
time we should have a claimant, like the Tichborne estate. Some
experience in administrative affairs, together with the timely
suggestions of a friend, lead me to note the opportunity for a claimant
in our case. David Lockwin's body was not found. I have, therefore,
kept a sharp eye out for claimants, and will say to the writer of the
"consolatory letters" that our proofs of Lockwin's death are ample. Two
persons saw him die. Mrs. Lockwin is a sagacious woman, keenly aware of
the covetousness aroused by the public mention of her great wealth.
The writer will therefore, if wise, abandon his attentions and
intentions. If I receive any more of his "consolatory letters" I shall
look up Robert Chalmers with detectives. Respectfully,
IRENAEUS TARPION, M. D.
CHAPTER VI
THE YAWL
It is about 10 o'clock at night in the office of the great newspaper.
The night editor sits at his desk reading the latest exchanges. The
telegraph editor labors under a bright yellow light, secured by the use
of a vast expanse of yellow paper.
The assistant telegraph editor is groaning over a fraudulent dispatch
from a correspondent whose repute is the worst.
A place is still vacant at the tables. The marine dispatches are
piling high.
"Where is the sea-dog?" asks the night editor, who is in command of the
paper.
"Good evening, Corkey," says the telegraph editor. "I trust we are
spared for another day of usefulness," says the night editor, with an
unction which is famous in the office.
"How is the ooze of the salt deep, commodore?" asks the night editor.
"How is the coral and green amber?" asks the telegraph editor.
"Green nothing!" mutters Corkey. He feels weary.
"How did you leave great Neptune?" asks the assistant telegraph editor.
These questions are wholly perfunctory. The telegraph editor has
dedicated five minutes to the history and diary of the triple alliance.
When Corkey is happy this inquisition flatters him. When he is black
in the face there is an inclination to deal harshly with these wits. A
thousand clever things flash into his black eyes but escape his tongue.
He struggles to say something that will put the laugh on the telegraph
editor, and begins choking. The head vibrates, the little tongue plays
about the black tobacco, the mouth grows square.
"Run for your lives, gentlemen," cries the assistant telegraph editor,
making believe to hold down his shears. There is an explosion. It is
accompanied with many distinguishable noises--the hissing of steam, the
routing of hogs from their wallow, the screech of tug whistles and the
yell of Indians.
The door stands open to the great composing-room, where eighty
typesetters--eighty cynics--eighty nervous, high-strung, well-paid
workmen--stand at their intellectual toil. They are all in a hurry,
but each rasps his iron type-stick across a thin partition of his type
case. It is a small horse-fiddle. The combined effect is impressive,
chaotic.
The night foreman rages internally. He stalks about with baleful eye.
"Buck in, you fellows," he says. "The paper is behind."
"I wish it would kill him," the night foreman says of Corkey.
There is silence in the telegraph-room. The tinkle of the horse-cars
comes up audibly from the street. The night editor knows what has
happened, to the slightest detail. He mentally sees the night foreman
standing in the shadows of the parlor (wash-place) laughing to kill.
The night editor grows still more unctuous.
"From earthquakes, hailstorms and early frosts," he prays, "good Lord,
deliver us."
"Good Lord, deliver us!" comes the solemn antiphone of the telegraph
editor, the assistant telegraph editor, Corkey and the copy boy.
The chinchilla coat is off. This is manifestly a hard way to earn a
living for a candidate for Congress, a dark horse for the legislature
and a marine editor who has run his legs off all day.
"He's been moving," the boy whispers to the night editor.
The night editor scans the dark face. It is serious enough. It is the
night editor's method to rule his people by the moderation of his
speech. In this way they do all the work and thank him for keeping his
nose out of affairs.
"We hear, commodore, that you have moved your household gods."
"Yes," grunts Corkey. To the jam-jorum Corkey must be civil, as he
will tell you.
"Where to?"
"Top flat, across the alley from the Grand Pacific."
"That's a five-story building, isn't it?"
"That's what it is."
Corkey is busy fixing his telegrams for the printer. He is trying to
learn what the current date is, and is unwilling to ask.
The night editor is thinking of Mrs. Corkey, a handsome little woman,
for whom the "boys in the office" have a pleasant regard.
"Is there an elevator?"
"I didn't see no elevator when I was carrying the kitchen stove in."
"How will Mrs. Corkey get up?"
This is too much. Corkey has made a hundred trips to the new abode,
each time laden with some heavy piece of furniture or package of goods.
How will Mrs. Corkey get there, when Corkey has been up and down the
docks from the north pier to the lumber district on Ashland avenue, and
all since supper?
The marine editor sits back rigidly in his chair. The head quakes, the
tongue plays, he looks defiantly at the night editor.
"She's coming," says the assistant telegraph editor, holding down his
shears and paste-pot.
The head quakes, but it is not a sneeze. It is a deliverance, _ex
cathedra_. The night editor wants to hear it.
"You bet your sweet life, Mrs. Corkey," says the commodore, "screw her
nut up four flight of stairs. That's what Mrs. Corkey do!"
The compliments of the evening are over. It is a straining of every
nerve now to get a good first edition for the fast train.
"Gale to-night, Corkey," says the telegraph editor. "We've taken most
of your stuff for the front page. The display head isn't long enough.
Write me another line for it."
"Hain't got nothing to write," Corkey doesn't like to have his report
taken out of its customary place. When there are blood-curdling wrecks
he wants the news in small type along with his port list.
"Hain't got nothing to write," he repeats sullenly. He gapes and
stretches. He knows he must obey the telegraph editor.
"Hurry! Give it to me. Give me the idea." Corkey's eye brightens.
He is a man of ideas, not of words. He has an idea. His head quakes.
The tongue begins its whirring like the fan-wheel before the clock
strikes.
"You can say that the life-saving service display a great act," says
the marine editor, relieved of a grievous duty.
His pile of telegrams grows smaller. The dreaded work will soon be
over.
"How's your rich widow?"
Corkey has not failed to plume himself on his aristocratic and familiar
acquaintance. His associates are themselves flattered. Corkey is to
take the telegraph editor to call on Mrs. Lockwin. The night editor is
jealously regarded as too smooth with the ladies. He will be left to
his own devices.
"How's your rich widow?" is repeated. But Corkey cannot hear. He is
reading a telegram that astonishes, electrifies and confuses him.
"COLLINGWOOD, 14.--After wading ten miles along shore found yawl Africa
sunk in three feet water, filled with sand and hundreds stone. Can
take you to spot. What reward? What shall we do?"
Corkey seizes the dispatch, puts on his coat, and rides downstairs. On
the street he finds it is midnight. He looks for a carriage. He sets
his watch by a jeweler's chronometer, over which a feeble gas flame
burns all night.
He changes his mind and rides back upstairs. He enters the telegraph
operators' room, where five men are at work receiving special
intelligence.
"Get Collingwood, boys."
"That drops off at Detroit. Collingwood's a day job."
The instrument is clicking. The operator takes each word as the
laborious Corkey, with short pencil, presses it into the buff-colored
paper.
CHICAGO, 14.--Let it be! Will be at Collingwood to-morrow.
CORKEY.
CHAPTER VII
A RASH ACT
David Lockwin reads the letter of Dr. Tarpion with horror.
"Heavens and earth!" he cries, and pulls at his hair, rubs his eyes and
stamps on the floor. "Heavens and earth!" This, an edifice built with
the patience and cunning of a lover, must fall to nothing.
He is as dead to Esther as on the day the yawl danced on the shining
sands of Georgian Bay.
He is terrified to know his loss. To believe that he was in daily
communication with Esther, and that she must ache to know him, has
sustained David Lockwin in his penance.
The crime he committed, he feels, has been atoned in this year of
lover's agony. That agony was necessary--in order that Esther might be
gradually prepared for the revelation.
She has not been prepared. The labor must begin again, and on new
lines.
The receiver of the Coal and Oil Trust Company's Institution this day
declares a dividend of 10 per cent. The lover may draw over $7,000--a
magnificent estate. It seems greater to him than the wealth of the
Indies or the Peruvians seemed to the early navigators.
He sells his belongings to a second-hand dealer. He hastens his
departure. The folks at Walker street can get another book-keeper.
Robert Chalmers is going to San Francisco. Easy to lie now after the
practice of nearly two years.
But to think that Esther has not read a word of all he has written!
David Lockwin hisses the name of Dr. Tarpion. Many is the time they
have tented together. But how did the doctor know? He had only a
type-written anonymous communication.
Nevertheless this lover curses the administrator as the cause of the
fiasco.
"But for him my path would be easy."
David Lockwin thinks of Tarpion's threat about a claimant. It grows
clear to him that there is a Chicagoan alive who can view his own
cenotaph, his own memorial hospital, his own home--who can proclaim
himself to be the husband, and yet there will be men like Tarpion who
will deny all.
Lockwin's face annoys him. "Why was I such a fool to go without the
proper treatment in that outlandish region! Why was I so anxious to be
disguised?"
Oh, it is all on account of the letters. That busybody of an
administrator and censor has undone all! Better he had never been
born. Why should a doctor neglect his patients to separate husband and
wife? The wise way will be to march to the house at Chicago and take
possession.
"That I will do!" the man at last declares. He is maddened. He cares
nothing for reputation. He cannot bear the thought that Dr. Tarpion,
an old friend, should day by day burn the epistles that evinced so much
scholarship, charity and sympathy. The lover is not poor. No man with
$7,000 in his pocket is poor. He is not driven back to Esther by want,
as it was before. That stings the man to recall it. No, he has means.
But if he were poor, he would work for the dear lady who loved him so
secretly. He gloats over the letter of Esther. It is worn in pieces
now, like so many cards. The train from New York enters the city of
Chicago.
"That is the new David Lockwin Hospital," says a passenger.
"Why did I blunder in on this road?" the lover asks. He had not
thought his situation so terrible as it seemed just now.
"I am doubtless the sorriest knave that ever lived here," he mourns,
but it only increases his determination to go directly to Esther.
"I guess Dr. Tarpion will not throw _me_ in the waste-basket! Seven
thousand dollars!"
David Lockwin feels as rich as Corkey.
It is a mad thing he is doing, this pulling of the door-bell at the old
home. The balcony is overhead. Never mind little Davy! We can live
without him, but we cannot live without Esther. Ah that Tarpion! that
base Tarpion! Probably he intends to marry her! It is none too soon
to pull this bell. Now David Lockwin will enter, never to be driven
forth. He will enter among his books. Never mind his books. It is
she, SHE, SHE! Till death part them SHE is his. It is the seven
thousand dollars that gives him this lion-like courage. Esther needs
him. He has come.
The door opens. A pleasant-faced lady appears.
"Call Mrs. Lockwin, please."
"Mrs. Lockwin? Oh, yes. I believe she did live here. I do not know
where she lives now, but it is on Prairie avenue. After her father
died she went home to live."
Is Judge Wandrell dead? The caller is adding together the mills,
pineries, elevators, hotels, steamers, steel mills, quarries and
railroads that Judge Wandrell owned on the great lakes.
The pleasant-faced lady thinks her caller ought to go.
He is angry at her. He shows it. He blames her as much as he does
Tarpion. He retreats reluctantly. A stranger is in possession of the
home of David Lockwin.
He was foolhardy a moment before. He is timid now.
He was rich. He has seven thousand. Esther is rich. She has five
millions.
CHAPTER VIII
A GOOD SCHEME
The absence of love ruined David Lockwin. Love built Chicago. Love
erected the David Lockwin Hospital. Love supports David Lockwin. He
is a man to be pitied from the depths of the heart. Love makes him
happy.
He reads the revised scriptures. To love's empire has been added the
whole realm of charity. "Love," says the sacred word, "covereth a
multitude of sins."
"Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things."
Love has become prudent. Love has whispered in David Lockwin's ear
that while it might be brave to knock at the door of one's own home, it
would be rash to present one's self to Esther Lockwin, on Prairie
avenue--Esther Lockwin, worth five millions!
Yet this lover, in order to bear, to believe, to hope and to endure,
must enter the charmed circle of her daily life. He haunts the
vicinity, he grows fertile in his plans. He discovers an admirable
method of coming in correspondence with the Prairie avenue mansion.
Dr. Floddin has recently died, and a new proprietor is in possession of
the drug store. It is a matter of a week's time to install David
Lockwin. It could have been done in a minute, but a week's time seemed
more in order and pleased the seller. You look in and you see a square
stove. Rising behind it you see a white prescription counter, with
bottles of blue copper water at each corner. Rising still higher
behind is a partition. Peer to the right and you may see a curtain,
drawn aside. A little room contains a bed, an Argand lamp, a table
with a small clock, druggist's books and the revised New Testament.
You may see David Lockwin, almost any day, sitting near and under that
curtain; his clothes are strangely of the color of the drapery; his
legs are stretched out one ankle over the other; his hands are deep in
pockets; his head is far down on his breast. Or you may see him
washing his windows. He keeps the cleanest windows on lower State
street.
In this coigne of vantage it turns out that David Lockwin eventually
comes to know the family life at the mansion. The servants at the
Wandrell home have long stood behind the prescription counter while
their orders were in course of serving.
The confinement of the business--the eternal hours of vigil--these
matters feed the hungry love of the husband.
"Without this I should have died," he vows. The months go by without
event.
Corkey has been the earliest caller. "Saw your sign," he says;
"recollected the name. Been in New York all the time? I say, old man,
want a pardner? I got a clean thousand cases in gold to put in."
The druggist has difficulty in withstanding Corkey's offers of capital.
Corkey is struck with the idea of business. He has taken a strong
fancy to Chalmers. Day by day the two men grow more intimate.
"Thought I'd never see you again, old man. I suppose I ought to start
a saloon, but somehow I hate to do it, now I know some good people.
Bet your life I'm solid over there!"
He points with his thumb toward Prairie avenue.
"I'm a good friend of the richest woman, I guess, there is in the
world!" His tongue pops like a champagne cork. "I don't like to keep
no saloon."
"I shall sell as little liquor as possible," the druggist says,
conceiving the drift of Corkey's ideas.
"Pardner, you must have been a hard drinker yourself. How did your
voice get so husky?"
"It was so always."
"It was so the first day I met you. Remember the dedication?"
"Yes; do you remember the bank?"
"Yep. Don't you know I tell you I was going to find that yawl?"
"I do."
"Well, I find it."
Does David Lockwin color? Or are those features forever crimson?
"You do look like a man as has been a red-hot sport in his day. Ever
do anything in the ring? Let me try that red liquor of yours. Let's
see if it tears. Oh, yes, about the yawl. I just go to the widow the
other day and ask her for three hundred cases on the search. Well, she
give me the three hundred and want me to take more, and I go right to
Collingwood. The duck he show me the boat, and you bet your sweet life
I hid her where she never will be seen. What's the use of tearing up
the widow's feelings again?"
"You did right!" says the husky voice, the lover all the time wishing
the discovery had been published. He feels like a claimant. He is not
sure the world would believe David Lockwin to be alive if he could
prove it.
"Chalmers, I'm going to tell you something that I haven't said to
nobody. I hid that boat, and I threw away big money--I know I did.
But I could get all the money I wanted of her--a free graft. Give me
another slug of that budge."
The druggist is filling a small graduate with whisky for Corkey. What
is Corkey about to say?
"They're having high old times in Russia. That was a great bomb they
git in on his nobs last winter."
"The czar? Yes."
"I reckon they're going to git the feller they've got on top there now,
too, don't you? They say he put on ten crowns yesterday. What do they
call it? The coronation, yes. What's the name of the place? Moscow,
yes."
The druggist is less confused.
"Wouldn't it be funny if the czar wasn't dead. But say, pardner, what
would you say if I went over there and told my widow I didn't believe
her old man was dead at all? Would she give me the gaff? Would she
git mad?"
The druggist is busy finding a cork for a bottle. At last he comes to
the light to try the cork. He is behind a show-case. Corkey is in
front of the, case holding a newspaper in hand, out of which he has
been reading of the coronation. His black eyes seem to pierce David
Lockwin's face. David Lockwin looks back--in hope, if any feeling can
show itself in that veiled countenance.
"He ain't dead! Not much! Can't tell me! I don't bury boats for
nothing. I tell you I think a heap of her, and she slung herself so on
that hospital and on that other thing there, out north, that I'd hate
to give her away. What was that yawl buried for? Nobody see it and it
was worth money, too. What was it buried for? Now I never tell you
the story of the night on the old tub. He sit just so."
Corkey takes a seat behind the stove and imitates David Lockwin.
The druggist gazes as in a stupor. He steps to his little room and
removes the chair. He must not sit and cogitate.
"Something ail him. I guess he was crazy."
"He must have been," says the druggist, "if he wasn't killed."
"Oh, he wasn't killed. Can't tell me. Now, suppose he want to come
back to Chicago--ain't he in a sweet box? And his wife over there
crying her eyes out--with more money--with more money--well--"
Corkey's head vibrates, his tongue whirs, he sneezes. Children,
romping on the sidewalk, troop to the door of the druggist to learn
what has happened.
Corkey looks at the prescription booth. He notes the blue copper water
at each corner. His eyes rise to the white partition which separates
the rear room from the store.
"Sleep in there?"
"Yes," says the druggist, huskily.
"Get out of here!" cries Corkey to the last of the merry throng. "I
used to play just that same way right here in this street. Cozy place
in there. Well, I ain't so smart, but I've had a scheme on ever since
I found that yawl. She's crying her eyes out over there--you can't
tell me, for I know. Mebbe his nobs would like to come back. I'm
going to sound her, and if she's favorable I'm going to advertise--see?"
"Do you see her often?"
"Yes, oftener than I want to. You see she makes me go over that last
night on the old tub and on the yawl. Now I'm getting tired of telling
how he died. He ain't dead. But she seems to harp on that. You just
ought to hear her cap him up. He's the greatest and goodest man you
ever see. Well, now. I'm going to change the play a little. Oh,
she's no use. She even wants me to bring the coon, and I let the
ball-players take him. He can't be going down there. I don't want him
along nohow. I tell you I'm going to change the box. I'm going to
bring her round to the idea that he's alive."
Corkey is earnest. His eyes are sparkling. He is chewing hard on his
tobacco. His head is quaking.
"He's alive, and so he's a--well, he's a no-gooder."
"Yes," says the druggist huskily.
"But I hate to see her pining away, and I'm going to steer her against
the idea that she can get him if she wants him. She's so rich she can
do anything she wants to. I guess if she wants him she can clear out
with him and live in--where is it?--in Moscow. That's about the place
for ducks like him."
"Yes," says the druggist.
Corkey takes the glass graduate in hand. He turns sideways and puts
his arm heavily on the frail show-case. He lifts his foot to place it
on the customary iron railing of a whisky shop. He ruminates.
"The David Lockwin Annex--that means a wing, doesn't it? Yes, I
thought so. Well, the wing is bigger than the--than the--than the--the
wing is bigger than the bird."
It is an observation that Corkey believes would be applauded among the
sharp blades of the telegraph room. He drinks in a well-pleased mood.
"The David Lockwin Annex! The monument! They've given that a stiff
name, too. I've seen some gay things in this town, but that beats me.
It takes a woman to make a fool of herself. And there she is over
there crying for her great hero. Fill this jim-crack with the budge
again. Let her draw as much water as she will--put it to the top
notch!"
The druggist trembles as he fills the graduate.
"Won't you have a bigger one?" he suggests.
"No, I ain't drinking much between campaigns. Did you know I was going
to run for the Illinois house? Yes, that's nearer to my size than a
whole congressional district. I'm in for it. But that's not now. My
mind is over there, on the avenue. Say, old man, is the scheme any
good? He dassen't come back. Do you think she'd pull out and go to
him, wherever he is?"
The druggist carries the empty graduate to the water sink. He rinses
it. His heart beats with the greatest joy it has ever known. He
returns the graduate to the prescription counter.
"It is a good scheme, Corkey."
[Illustration: "It is a good scheme, Corkey."]
"You bet it _is_. Chalmers, just fill that thimble-rig once more. It
don't hold three fingers, nohow. Hurry, for I got to go to the north
pier right off. That's your little clock striking 6 in there now,
ain't it?"
CHAPTER IX
A HEROIC ACT
David Lockwin is losing ground. He daily grows less likely to attract
the favorable notice of Esther Lockwin, or any other woman of
consequence. His face has not only lost comeliness, but character. It
would seem that the carmen fimbrications just under the skin of his
cheeks flame forth with renewed anger. The difficulty in his throat
increases. He relies nowadays entirely on Corkey.
"And Corkey does not know how rapidly this anxiety is killing me!"
The druggist plans every day to confess all to Corkey. Every day, too,
there is a plan to meet Esther. But as David Lockwin grows small,
Esther grows grand. Talking with the servants of her mother's home has
degraded, declassed, the husband. He has hungered to meet her, yet
months intervene without that bitter joy.
It is a bitter joy. Yesterday, when Lockwin carried a prescription to
the house of a very sick widow, he suddenly came face to face with
Esther. It had been long apparent to the man that the woman was
repelled by his face. This, yesterday, she did not conceal.
The husband trembled with a thousand pleasures as the sacred form
passed by. He struggled with ten thousand despairs as he was robbed of
her company and left to bemoan her disdain.
He worshiped her the more. He read last night, more eagerly, how love
endureth all things. It must fast come to this, that David Lockwin
shall love her at a distance, and that she shall be true to the memory
of the great and good David Lockwin.
Or, he must approach Corkey on the subject of his scheme of reunion.
This morning, washing the windows of the drug-store, the proprietor
revolves the problems of his existence.
"Time is passing," he groans; "too much time."
The gossip of the store deals often with Dr. Tarpion. Dr. Tarpion is
gradually arousing the jealousy of the husband. The burning of the
consolatory letters was a dreadful repulse of the lover's siege.
The druggist has scrubbed the windows with the brush. He is drying
them with the rubber wiper. He stamps the pole on the sidewalk. He
does not want to be jealous, but time is going by--time is going by.
That Tarpion! It would be hard! It would be hard!
A new thought comes. The disfigured face grows malicious.
"It would be bigamy! Ha!"
David Lockwin has fallen upon a low place. But he would perish if
jealousy must be added.
"Corkey's plan is a good one, but why does he not push it faster? And
Corkey has not spoken of the matter for three weeks. One night he said
he would soon be 'where he could talk.'"
The prescription clerk is very busy. A customer wants a cigar. The
druggist goes in to make a profit of three and a half cents. He
returns to his window, wets it once more, begins the wiping, and is
frightened by the thought of five millions of money.
"Davy's tonsils swelled, and Tarpion was to cut them off. I wonder if
it is my tonsils. I wonder if my nose could be straightened. I have
no doubt my skin could be cleared."
Once more the supporting forces of nature have come to the rescue of
David Lockwin. It is clear that he must be rejuvenated. He must
exercise and regain an appetite. He must recover twenty-five pounds of
flesh that have left him since that cursed night of the Africa.
"Strange fate!" he ejaculates, remembering the almost comatose
condition in which he walked on deck, and was saved.
His eyes grow sightless. The dull, little, trivial street has palled
upon his view. He sees a crowd gathering at a corner and making
demonstrations in a cross street.
The next moment his own horses dash around the corner into State
street, driverless and running away.
A lady's head protrudes from the window. Yes, it is Esther!
The druggist grasps his long pole lightly. He takes the middle of the
street. He holds his pole like a fence before the team.
"Whoa, Pete! Whoa, Coley!" he cries.
The horses believe they must turn. They lose momentum. They shy. The
man is at their bits.
They drag him along the curb. One horse slips down. The pole cracks
in two. A hundred men are on hand now.
David Lockwin flies to the carriage. He unlocks the door. He gathers
his wife in his arms. Oh! happy day! He carries her into his drug
store. He applies restoratives to the fainting woman. She slowly
revives.
"Please take me home and send for Dr. Tarpion," she says, relapsing
into lethargy.
Men seize David Lockwin, for he is bleeding profusely.
"He terrifies her!" they exclaim. They wash his forehead. He has a
long cut over the brow.
Work fast as he may with court-plaster Esther is carried forth before
the druggist can be in front to aid. People are full of praise for the
heroic man.
"But he won't be no prettier for it," say the gossips of the
neighborhood.
CHAPTER X
ESTHER AS A LIBERAL PATRON
Esther Lockwin has been confined to her room for a month by Dr.
Tarpion's orders. The servants say she will not enter a carriage again.
David Lockwin has hired an extra clerk, and is daily under a surgeon's
hands. After six months of suffering he is promised a removal of the
red fimbrications; his nose shall be re-erected; his throat shall be
reasonably cleared.
He lies on his cot, and Corkey is a frequent visitor.
"You wa'n't no prize beauty, that's a fact," says the candid Corkey.
"I think you're wise, but I'd never a did it. You've got as much grit
as a tattooed man. Them fellers, the doctors, picks you with electric
needles, don't they? Yes, I thought so. Well, I suppose that's
nothing side of setting up your nose. But she sets up there like a
hired man--you've got a good nob now! Yes, I'm deep in politics again.
I'm a fool--I know it, but I don't spend more'n five hundred cases, and
I go to the legislature sure. If I get there some of these
corporations that knocked me out afore will squeal--you hear me! No,
you don't spend no money on me. I wish you could git out and hustle,
though. But you ain't no hustler, nohow. Want any drug laws passed?"
Corkey must do the greater part of the talking. He sits beside the bed
carrying an atmosphere of sympathy that the feverish lover needs.
Gradually the thoughts of the sympathizer fix on the glass graduate.
It tickles his membranes. His head quakes, his tongue whirs, he jars
the great bottles outside with his sneeze.
The tears start from his eyes, his throat rebels at its misusage, his
big red handkerchief comes out. It makes a sharp contrast with his jet
black hair and mustache.
"Old man," he said, "do you suppose your bone-sawers could cut that out
of me? It makes me forgit things sometimes. Oh, yes, yes! That puts
me in mind! I came to tell you this morning that Mrs. Lockwin was
coming over to thank you!"
"It's time," whispers the lover, bravely.
"I told her to come on. She needn't be afraid of you. I tell you she
was mighty glad when I tell her you was a friend of mine."
There is a click at the door-latch. The patient starts. Corkey looks
out into the store.
"Here she is!" whispers Corkey, smoothing the coverlet. "How d'ye do,
Mrs. Lockwin? Just step in here. Mr. Chalmers is not able to sit up."
"I heard he was hurt," says Esther. "Poor man! I owe him so much!"
It is perhaps well that David Lockwin has had no warning of this
supreme event. It seems to him like the last day. It is the Second
Coming. A hundred little wounds set up their stings, for which the
husband is ever thankful. He can hear her out there in the store. He
can feel her presence. She appears at his door! She stands at the
foot of his couch! She, the ineffable!
"Oh!" she exclaims, not expecting to see a man so badly wounded, so
highly bandaged.
"Nothing at all serious, Mrs. Lockwin," explains Corkey.
"Oh, I am so very sorry," says the lady. "Mr. Chalmers, you find me
unable to express my feelings. I cannot tell you how many things I
should like to explain, and how seriously I am embarrassed by the evils
I have brought on you. I dare say only that I am a person of large
means, and am sensible that I cannot repay you. I owe my life to your
noble act. If I can ever be of service to you, please to command me.
I shall certainly testify my regard for you in some proper way, but it
afflicts me to feel that you are so much worse hurt than I was by the
runaway. I lost a noble husband. If he had been alive you would not
have been left unthanked and unserved for so long a time."
It distresses Corkey.
"That's what he was--a white man!"
David Lockwin is dumb. But he thinks he is saying: "I am David
Lockwin! I am David Lockwin!"
"It is a sweet remembrance, now." Her voice grows clearer. "They tell
me I did wrong to mourn so bitterly. I suppose I did. Mr. Chalmers, I
should like to entertain you on your recovery. How singular! This is
our old family drug store! Didn't Dr. Floddin keep here? Poor Dr.
Floddin! Oh! David! David! Good-bye, Mr. Chalmers."
"He's not badly hurt at all," says Corkey, "you mustn't worry over
that."
"I'm so glad, Mr. Corkey."
It is the autumn of a great misery. The woman is righting herself.
She is trying to listen to the advice of society. Lockwin, by dying,
committed a crime against the first circles. "A failure to live is a
gigantic failure," says Mrs. Grundy.
David Lockwin listens to every movement. The widow tarries.
"Send me a dozen large bottles of that extract," she says, choosing a
variety of odors. She orders a munificent bill of fancy goods. The
clerk moves with astonishing celerity.
The patient suppresses his groans.
"Oh! Chalmers is well off," says Corkey.
"I'm glad," says Esther, "poor man! Good-bye, Mr. Corkey. You are
neglecting me lately. I hope you will be elected. I wish I could
vote. Oh, yes, I guess the clerk may give me a stock of white
notepaper. Do you believe it, Mr. Corkey, I haven't a scrap about the
house that isn't mourning paper! Yes, that will do. Send plenty.
Good-bye. Come over and tell me about politics. Tell me something
that will make life seem pleasant. I'm tired of my troubles. I think
I'm forgetting David. Good-bye."
BOOK IV
GEORGE HARPWOOD
CHAPTER I
CORKEY'S GOOD SCHEME
The courtly and affable George Harpwood has fought the good fight and
is finishing the course. It is he who has labored with the prominent
citizens. It is he who has moved the great editors to place David
Lockwin in the western pantheon--to pay him the honors due to Lincoln
and Douglas. It is Harpwood who has carried the banquet to success.
It is he who, in the midnight of Esther Lockwin's grief, prepared for
her confidential reading those long and scholarly essays of consolation
which she studied so gratefully. Mr. Harpwood did not put his
lucubrations in the care of Dr. Tarpion. Each and every one was
written for no other eye but Esther's.
While Dr. Tarpion was holding the husband at bay, Dr. Tarpion was
rapidly overcoming a prejudice against Harpwood.
"Really, the man has been invaluable to me," the administrator now
vows. "No one could deliberately and selfishly enter the grief-life of
such a widow."
For Harpwood, smarting with a double defeat, in the loss of Esther and
the election of Lockwin, has at once devoted himself to the saddest
offices. He has been diligent in all kinds of weather. He has
discreetly avoided the outer appearance of personal service. But he
has filled the place of spiritual comforter to Esther Lockwin, and has
filled it well.
If you ask what friends Mrs. Lockwin has, the servants will speak of
Dr. Tarpion first, of the architects, and of Corkey. Harpwood they do
not mention. He may have called--so have a thousand other gentlemen.
They have rarely seen Mrs. Lockwin, for she has been at the cenotaph,
the hospital, and the grave of little Davy.
So long as Harpwood's suit has flourished by letter, why should the
less cautious method of speech be interposed? To-day, Esther could not
sustain the intermission of the usual consolatory epistle.
George Harpwood is one of those characters who have many friends and
are friends to few. Others need him--not he them. He can please if he
attempt the task, and if the task be exceedingly difficult, he will
become infatuated with it. He will then grow sincere. At least he
believes he is sincere. Thus his patience is superb.
His manners are widely praised. If he have served Esther Lockwin with
rare personal devotion, it cannot be denied that it has piqued many
other beautiful, eligible and desirable women.
He can well support the air of a disinterested friend. The ladies
generally bewail his absence from their society. Esther Lockwin must
soon be warm in the praise of a gentleman who, divining the needs of a
widow, has so chivalrously taken up her woes as his own.
Tenderly--like a mother--he has touched upon her projects. Gladly he
has accepted the mission she has given to him. At last when he brings
Dr. Tarpion to the special censorship of Esther's mail, and to the fear
of claimants, George Harpwood is in command of the situation.
When a man cultured in all the arts that please, gives himself to the
fascinating of a particular person, male or female, that man does not
often fail. Where the prize is five millions he ought to play his
highest trumps.
This is what George Harpwood has done. Sometimes he has paused to
admire his own unselfishness. Sometimes, after a drenching on account
of the David Lockwin Annex--a costly fabric--Mr. Harpwood marvels that
men should be created so for the solace of widows! The other ladies
show their discontent. Fortunes are on every hand, and Esther is like
Niobe, all tears. Why does Harpwood turn all tears, weeping for
Lockwin? This causes Harpwood to be himself astonished.
It is only genius that can adapt itself to an environment so
lugubrious. It is only genius that can unhorse suspicion itself,
leaving even the would-be detractor to admit that Mr. Harpwood is a
kind man--as he certainly is.
"Who would not be kind for five millions?" he asks, yet he the next
moment may deny that he wants the five millions.
It is a fine fortitude that George Harpwood can show upon occasion. It
was he who, lost in the opium habit, went to his room for two weeks,
and kept the pieces of opium and bottles of morphine within sight on
his mantel, touching none of the drug--curing himself.
He could serve Esther as long as Jacob served Laban. He could end by
the conquest of himself. While he shall be doubtful of his own
selfishness, all others must be glad that Esther is given into hands so
gentle and intelligent.
Mrs. Grundy knows little about this. Esther Lockwin has offended Mrs.
Grundy by a long absence from the world.
If Esther now feel a warm glow in her heart; if she pass a dreary day
while Mr. Harpwood is necessarily absent, nobody suspects it--except
Mr. Harpwood.
It has not displeased the disinterested friend of Esther Lockwin to
note the upward drift of his political opportunities. It is silently
taken for granted that he is a coming man. Whenever he shall cease his
disinterested attentions to the widow it is clear he will be a paragon.
And the critics who might aver as much, did they know the case, would
be scandalized if he so mistreated the lady who has come to lean on him.
"In doing good to others," says George Harpwood, "we do the greatest
good to ourselves."
Yet one must not devote himself to a rich lady beyond a period of
reasonable length. One's own business must be rescued from neglect.
If this doctrine be taught skillfully Esther Lockwin will learn that
she must show her gratitude in a substantial manner.
Five millions, for instance.
After that crisis secrecy may be, less sternly imposed. If the lady,
in her illness--ah! that was a shock to Harpwood, that runaway--if the
lady, in her illness, demand personal calls, which must certainly let
loose the gossips--after all, it is her matter. If Esther Lockwin
desire to see George Harpwood in the day-time, in the evening--all the
time--so be it.
Is it the bright face of Esther Lockwin that spurs Corkey to his grand
enterprise? What has kept the short man so many months in silence?
Why is it he has never gotten beyond the matter of the lounge in the
fore-cabin of the Africa? This afternoon he will speak. It is a good
scheme. It can be fixed--especially by a woman.
"She can stand it if he can," says Corkey, who reckons on the
resurrection of David Lockwin.
So the face that was dark at State street becomes self-satisfied at
Prairie avenue. Corkey is picturesque as he raps his cane on the
marble stairs.
"Bet your sweet life none of this don't scare me!" he soliloquizes,
touching the stateliness of the premises.
He enters. He comes forth later, meeting another caller in the
vestibule. It is a dark face that the Commodore carries to the bedside
of David Lockwin, around on State street.
Corkey sits down. Then he stands up. He concludes he will not talk,
but it is a false conclusion. He will talk on the patient's case.
"How slow you git on, old man."
"Not at all. I am getting well," is the cheerful reply. Corkey is in
trouble. It is, therefore, time for Lockwin to give him sympathy.
"Corkey is a good fellow," thinks Lockwin, gazing contentedly on his
caller.
"I'm afraid it ain't no use," says Corkey, half to himself. "I ain't
had no luck since I let the mascot go to the league nine," he says,
more audibly.
"I am quite happy," Lockwin says. "It will be a sufficient reward to
look like other folks. Only a few weeks of this. But it is a trial."
"It's more of a trial, old man, than I like to see you undertake."
"Yet I am happy. It will be a success. Wonderful, isn't it?"
"Pretty wonderful!" Yet Corkey does not look it.
The man in the bandages thinks upon what he has suffered with his face.
He blesses the day he was permitted by Providence to stop that runaway.
All is coming about in good order. It needed the patience of love--of
love, the impatient. He is so sanguine to-day that he must push Corkey
a little regarding that scheme.
"Yes, it is wonderful!" says Corkey with affected animation, recovering
his presence of mind.
"Have you been over at our friend's lately?" The question comes with
the deepest excitement. The countenance of Corkey falls instantly.
"Yes, just come from there."
"Are things all smiling over there?"
"Yes. They're too smiling."
"Did you see Dr. Tarpion?"
"Oh, I never see him! Things are too smiling! You'll never catch me
there again."
Lockwin starts.
"She can't play none of her high games onto me. Bet your sweet life!
If she don't want to listen to reason, it's none of my funeral. I say
to her--and I ought to say it afore--I say to her how would she like to
see her old man."
The patient turns away from Corkey. The oldest wounds sting like a
hive of hornets.
"Well, you ought to see the office she give me! She rip and stave and
tear! She talk of political slander, and libel, and disgrace, and all
that. She rise up big right afore me, and come nigh swearing she would
kill such a David Lockwin on sight. There wasn't no such a David
Lockwin at all. Her husband was a nobleman. She wished I was fit to
black his boots--do you mind?--and you bet your sweet life I was
gitting pretty hot myself!"
The thought of it sets Corkey coughing. A thousand wounds are piercing
David Lockwin, yet he does not lose a word.
"Then she cool off a considerable, and ask me for to excuse her. 'Oh,
it is all right,' says I, a little tart. 'That will be all right.'
"Then she fall right on her knees, and pray to David Lockwin to forgive
her for even thinking he isn't dead.
"Now it was only Wednesday that a duck in this town knocked me out at
the primaries--played the identical West Side car-barn game on me!
Yes, sir, fetched over 500 street-sweepers to my primaries--machine
candidate and all that--oh! he's a jim-dandy!"
"I'm sorry for you, Corkey," the wretched husband says, and thus
escapes for a moment from his own terror.
"Yes, it was bad medicine. So I wasn't taking much off anybody. I
gets up pretty stiff--this way, and says: 'Good day, Mrs. Lockwin. I
guess I can't be no more use to you, nohow.' And just as I was pulling
my hat off the peg there comes the very duck that knocked me out--right
there! And she chipper to him as sweet as if David Lockwin had been
dead twenty years. And he as sweet on her, and right before me! Ugh!"
"Weren't you mistaken, Corkey!" feebly asks the man in the bandages.
"Wasn't I mistaken? Oh, yes! I suppose I can't tell a pair that wants
to bite each other! She that was a giving me the limit a minute before
was as cunning as a kitten to that rooster. Ugh! it makes me ill!"
"Who is he?" asks David Lockwin.
"He's Mister George Harpwood," cries Corkey bitterly, "and if he aint
no snooker, then you needn't tell me I ever see one!"
CHAPTER II
HAPPINESS AND PEACE
Esther Lockwin looks upon George Harpwood as her savior.
"I wanted to be happy," she smiles. "I did not believe I could exist
in that desolate state. You came to me! You came to me!"
"Emerson declares that all men honor love because it looks up, not
down; aspires, not despairs," says Harpwood. The friend of Esther's
widowhood has quoted to her nearly every consolatory remark of the
philosophers.
"Shall we live here?" she asks, willing to go to Sahara.
"Certainly. Here I have the best future. You are a helpful soul,
Esther. I shall rely upon you."
"We are too sad to be true lovers," she sighs. "Yet I could wish to
have you all to myself."
The man is flattered. He, too, is in love. "I will go with you if you
would be happier amid other scenes," he suggests.
"I have nothing to be ashamed of, have I?" she asks proudly, thinking
of her noble David and his fragrant memory.
"If I am to have a widow I should like such a widow," the man replies.
"I pray God you shall never have one," she vows.
Both are exquisitely happy. Neither can say aught that displeases or
hurts the other. For Esther it is the dawn--the glorious sun rising
out of a winter night. She never had a lover before.
With George Harpwood it is the crowning of an edifice built with
infinitely more pains than the David Lockwin Annex.
The noise of all this is abroad. "The wedding will be private," says
Mrs. Grundy with sorrow. "But the Mrs. Harpwood that is to be will
this winter entertain on a lavish scale. She is devoted to Harpwood's
political aspirations."
"That man Harpwood, if he gets to Congress this winter, will begin a
great career. I wouldn't be surprised to see him President," says one
bank cashier to another.
"Well, he's marrying the woman who can help him most. The labor people
are all on her side."
"When shall the day be, Esther?" the friend of her sorrows asks.
"Let it be the last Thursday of next month at 6 o'clock," she replies,
and is far more peaceful than when David Lockwin asked her to marry him
far on in the long ago, for on that night she cried.
"I suppose the number of guests should be small," he notes.
"Only our nearest friends. A Thursday, dear, at 6 o'clock."
The neighborhood is agog. The servants outdo each other in gossip.
There are household arrangements which are to turn a gloomy abode into
a merry dwelling-place.
The decorators must work night and day. The mansion is as brilliant
with gas as on the evening Esther Wandrell put her hands in David
Lockwin's and listened rapturously to his praise of the beautiful child.
Is that a shadow skulking about this corner! Probably it is some night
policeman employed by the widow.
Certainly it is a faithful watch the figure keeps on the great house
where the decorators toil.
"I'm glad I'm not rich," says one pedestrian to his companion.
"They're awfully afraid of burglary," says the companion.
CHAPTER III
AT 3 IN THE MORNING
"Where is Chalmers?" asks Corkey.
"Mr. Chalmers is not in," answers the clerk.
"I want to see him," says Corkey, authoritatively.
"He is not in," retorts the clerk with spirit.
"Has he sold out?"
"No."
"When will he be in?"
"I can't tell you. Excuse me." A customer waits.
"Yes, yes, yes!" growls Corkey. But he never was busier. He is trying
to do his work at the office and to get through election week.
"Where is Chalmers?" Again Corkey is at the drug store. "See here, my
friend, I don't take no street-car way down here to have you do no
cunning act. Is Chalmers in town?"
"I do not know."
The clerk is telling the truth, and is in turn offended. "I do not
know," he says, resolutely.
Corkey is convinced. "I'll bet it's true," he says, suddenly summing
up the situation.
He hurries away. The weather is wet and cold.
Corkey is drenched, and of all things he dreads a drenching. For that
he wears the thickest of clothes.
Three hours later he is known to be badly beaten at the polls. He is
denounced as a sore-head, a bolter, and a fool.
Corkey goes to his home. On the night of the fourth day he appears in
the yellow light of the telegraph-room.
"Commodore, we're sorry for you. Take it easy, and get back to work.
No man can live, doing as you've done. You were up all the time,
weren't you?"
Corkey's light is burning because the other editors need it. He sits
with his coat on, his face on his hands, his elbows on the table.
"I was up the last six days," he explains. "I just got out of bed now."
"Do you good to sleep," says the night editor.
"What day is it?"
"Saturday."
"Well, I go to sleep some time Wednesday. I sleep ever since."
There is a chorus of astonishment. "It will save your life, Corkey.
We thought the election would kill you."
"I'm sleepy yet."
"Go back and sleep more."
"Good-bye, boys. I'm much obliged to you all. I'm out of politics.
They got all my stuff. I'm worried over a friend, too."
"Too bad, Corkey, too bad."
These editors, whose very food is the human drama, have not lost sight
of the terrible chapter of Corkey's activity, anxiety and inevitable
disappointment.
"Too bad, isn't it!" the telegraph editor says. "Had any fires?"
"It makes me almost cry," answers the assistant telegraph editor.
"Fires? Yes, I've enough for a display head."
"We must go and look after Corkey if he isn't here to-morrow night,"
observes the night editor. "He's bad off."
A little after midnight there is a loud rattle at the door of the drug
store.
The prescription clerk at last opens the door.
"Is Chalmers home yet?"
The clerk is angry. "You have no right to call me up for that!" he
avers. "I need my sleep."
"You don't need sleep no worse than I do, young feller."
The door is shut, and Corkey must go home.
When the comrades next see Corkey he is down with pneumonia. His fever
rages. Sores break out about his mouth. "I have a friend I want to
find awful bad," he says, fretting and rolling. "Chalmers! He runs a
drug store at 803 State street, down beyond Eighteenth. But I'm afraid
he ain't to be found. I'm afraid he's disappeared. I couldn't find
him last week, nor last night, but it was pretty late when I git down
there."
The doctor is grave. "He must not worry. Find this Chalmers. Tell
him he must come at once if he wishes to make his friend easier."
"I must see Chalmers. I'm sicker than they think. I'm tired out. I
can't stand such a fever. That pillow's wet. That's better. It's
cold, though. I guess my fever's going. Now I'm getting hot again. I
do want to see Chalmers."
The patient tosses and fumes. The comrades hurry to Chalmers' drug
store, as others have done.
"The proprietor is out of the city," the clerk answers to all
inquirers. "He left no address."
"If he arrives, tell him to hasten to Mr. Corkey's. Mr. Corkey is
fatally ill with pneumonia. He must see Mr. Chalmers."
Twenty-four hours pass, with Corkey no better--moaning and asking for
Chalmers. All other affairs are as nothing.
Chalmers does not come.
Twenty-four hours more go by. The doctor now allows none of the
comrades to see the sick man.
He does not roll and toss so much. But he inquires feebly and
constantly for Chalmers.
At midnight he calls his wife. "You've heard me speak of Chalmers,
sissy," he says.
There is a ring on the door of the flat.
"That's him now."
But it is a neighbor, come to stay the night out.
"Lock the door. Open that drawer, sissy. Get out that big letter."
The trembling little woman obeys.
"Sissy, did you know we was broke?"
"Our gold?"
"Yes, it's all gone; every nickel. But I wouldn't bother you with that
if Chalmers would come. Now, don't cry, and listen, for I'm awful
sick. This letter here is to Mrs. Lockwin, and it will fix _you_.
And I want to see Chalmers, to see that he stands by her. See?"
The wife listens. She knows there is a letter to Mrs. Lockwin.
"Now I'm going to give something away. When I see Chalmers in his drug
store, he sits on his chair so I know it's a dead ringer on Lockwin.
Chalmers is Lockwin, sissy. Don't you blow it. I've never told a soul
till you. I've schemed and schemed to fix it up, but I never see a man
in such a hole. He don't know I'm onto him. But I've no use for this
Harpwood, that did me up when he had no need to. I wasn't in his way.
A week from Thursday night Harpwood is to marry Mrs. Lockwin. It isn't
no good. I want you to see Lockwin, and tell him for me that if his
story gets out it wasn't me, and I want you to tell him for me that he
mustn't let that poor widow commit no bigamy. It's an awful hole,
that's what it is! It is tough on him!"
He has worked on the problem for years.
The man groans. There is a rap on the door. "Hold up a minute. I
wouldn't mix in it, but I've done a good deal for the two of 'em, and
I've lost a good deal by Harpwood's play on me. I expect Harpwood will
set her against you, and I want her to do for you, pretty. So you tell
Lockwin he must act quick, and mustn't let her commit no bigamy. She's
too good a woman, and you need money bad, sissy. All my twenty-pieces!
All my twenty-pieces! My yellow stuff! Will you see Chalmers, sissy?
Call him Chalmers. He's Lockwin, just the same, but call him Chalmers."
The wife kisses her husband, and puts the letter back in the drawer.
"Sissy."
"Yes."
"I forgot one thing. Git a little mourning handkerchief out of my
hip-pocket. There ain't no gun there. You needn't be afraid."
The woman at last secures a handkerchief which looks the worse for
Corkey's long, though reverent, custody.
"Wash it, sissy, and show it up to Mrs. Lockwin. I reckon it will
steer her back to the day when she felt pretty good toward me. Be
careful of that Harpwood. He ain't no use. I know it. She give me
that wipe her own self--yes, she did! God bless her."
The woman once more kisses the sick man.
"The gold, sissy!"
"Never mind it," she says.
"You think it's some good--this letter--don't you, sissy?"
"Of course I do."
"I'm much obliged to you, sissy. Let in those people, now."
The doctor enters. Corkey is at ease. He sinks into the wet pillow.
He closes his eyes.
"Did Chalmers come?" asks the physician.
"Never mind him," says Corkey faintly.
The night goes on. The yellow lights still color the telegraph-room.
At 3 o'clock the copy boy enters hurriedly.
"Corkey just died," he says, electrifying the comrades. "He just gave
one of his most awful sneezes, and it killed him right off. The doctor
says he burst a vein."
Eighty lights are burning in the composing-room. Eighty
compositors--cross old dogs, most of them--are ending a long and weary
day's toil. There are bunches of heads rising over the cases in eager
inquiry.
"Corkey's sneeze killed him!" says Slug I.
"Glad of it," growls one cross dog.
"Glad of it," growls another cross dog
"Glad of it," goes from alley to alley about the broad floor.
"Who's got 48 X?" inquires the man with the last piece of copy. It is
the end of Corkey's obituary.
"This will be a scoop," says the copy-cutter.
The father of the chapel has written some handsome resolutions to make
the article longer.
"Come up here, all you fellows! Chapel meeting!"
The resolutions are passed with a mighty "Aye!" They are already in
type. A long subscription paper for the widow finds ready signers. No
one stands back.
The men wash their hands, standing like cattle at a manger.
"It's tough!" says Slug 1.
"You bet it's tough!" says Slug 10, the crossest old dog of the pack.
"They say he went broke at election," says Slug 50.
"If his widow could learn to distribute type she could do mighty well
over here. I'd give her 4,000 to throw in every day," says Slug 10.
"Oh, let go of that towel!"
The men return to their cases, put on their coats and wrap their white
throats. This pneumonia is a bad thing, anyhow.
Tramp, tramp, the small army goes down the long, iron stairways.
"Did you hear about Corkey?" they ask as they go. "Corkey had a heart
in him like an ox."
"Bet he had," echoes up from the nethermost iron stairway.
CHAPTER IV
THE BRIDEGROOM
Esther Lockwin's wedding day is at hand. Her mansion is this afternoon
a suite of odorous bowers. Happy the man who may be secure in her
affection!
Such a man is George Harpwood. Let the November mists roll in from
Lake Michigan. "It is no bed out there for me," thinks the bridegroom,
whose other days have often been gloomy enough in November.
Let the smoke of the tall chimneys tumble into the streets and
pirouette backward and forward in black eddies, giving to the city an
aspect forbidding to even the manner-born. George Harpwood feels no
mist. He sees no smoke. It is the tide of industry. It is the
earnest of Esther's five millions.
"My God, what a prize!" he exclaims. The marriage license is procured.
The minister is well and cannot fail. There is a bank-bill in the vest
pocket, convenient for the wedding fee.
It is wise to visit the hotel once more and inspect one's attire. This
city is undeniably sooty. A groom with a sooty shirt bosom would not
reflect credit on Esther Lockwin.
"Magnificent woman!" he cries, as he changes his linen once more. He
thinks he would marry her if she were poor.
It is getting well toward the event. Would it be correct to go early?
Where would he stay? Would he annoy the bride? What time is it? Let
us see. Four-thirty! Yes, now to keep this linen white. How would it
do to put a silk handkerchief over it--this way? Where are those silk
handkerchiefs? Must have one! Must have one! Not a one! Where is
that bell?
He touches the bell. He awaits the boy, who comes, and goes for a
handkerchief.
He sits upon the side of the bed and listens to the bickerings of the
waiters in the hall of the dining-room below. Dinner is now to be
served.
He studies the lock-history of the door.
"Lots of people have broken in here," he muses.
He passes over the rules--well he knows them!
The electric lights on the street throw dim shadows on the gas-lit
wall--factories, depots, vessels, docks, saw-mills. The phantasmagoria
pleases Mr. Harpwood.
"At 6 o'clock," he smiles, "I shall be the most powerful man in these
parts. I shall have the employment of nearly 15,000 men. I shall be
the husband of the woman who built the David Lockwin Annex--"
The man pauses.
"The David Lockwin Annex," he sneers, "No! No! No! It was a splendid
pile. It was a splendid pile."
The man grows sordid.
"But it cost a splendid pile. Pshaw, George Harpwood, will anything
ever satisfy you? How about that hospital? Didn't it give you your
opportunity?"
The boy returns. The man sits on his bed and muses:
"How differently things go in this world! See how easily Lockwin fell
into all this luck! See how I have hewn the wood and drawn the water!"
Something of disquiet takes possession of the bride-groom.
"I'm awfully tired of consolatory epistles. I must keep Esther from
being a hen. She's dreadfully in earnest."
As the goal is neared, this swift runner grows weary. The David
Lockwin Annex never seemed so unpleasant before.
It has taken longer to rearrange his linen and secure a faultless
appearance than he would have believed. He hastens to don his
overcoat. He smiles as he closes the door of his little bedroom at the
hotel. He goes to take the vast Wandrell mansion.
Why is his coachman so careless? After 5 o'clock already. The
bridegroom is late! He must bargain with a street jehu. But, pshaw!
where can he find a clean vehicle? He hurries along the pavement.
His own driver, approaches. "I went to the stables to put the last
touches on her. Come around to Wabash avenue and see how she shines."
It is not too late after all, and the groom will turn out of a
faultless equipage at the very moment. Ladies of experience, like Mrs.
Lockwin, notice all such things.
"In fact," says George Harpwood, "there is no other man in town whom
she could marry, even if she loved him. Might as well expect her to
marry Corkey. Poor dead Corkey!"
It is pleasant, this riding down Prairie avenue to one's wedding.
"Splendid! Splendid!" cries the ardent soldier of fortune, as the
blaze of the Wandrell mansion flashes through the plate-glass windows,
of his carriage. It is the largest private residence in the city.
"Splendid!" he repeats, and leaps out on the curb. A messenger is
hurrying away.
"Is that Esther on the portico? What an impulsive woman."
His back is towards the carriage to close the silver-mounted door. He
turns.
It must be a mistake! Is he blind? The mansion, which was a moment
before ablaze, is now all dark! But the bride still stands under the
lamp on the portico, statuesque as Zenobia or Medea. The statue grasps
a paper. Like Galatea, she speaks:
"Is that you, George?"
[Illustration: But the bride still stands under the lamp on the
portico, statuesque as Zenobia or Medea.]
"I have come, my love. What has happened?"
"Listen!" she commands, and reads by the portico light:
Thursday Afternoon, Nov. 30.
ESTHER, MY WIFE AND WIDOW:
It is absolutely necessary that you should come at once to the drug
store formerly kept by Dr. Floddin, at 803 State street.
Bring an escort.
This step must be taken in your own interest--certainly not in the
interest of your husband.
DAVID LOCKWIN.
"Come!" she says, taking her lover by the hand as a teacher might take
a child.
But George Harpwood is not at his wits' end.
"Get into my carriage, Esther," he suggests softly.
"No," she says sternly. "We will walk thither."
The pair go round the corner into a mist made azure by a vast building
which is lighted at every window to the seventh story. It rises three
blocks away like a storm-cloud over the lake.
It is the David Lockwin Annex. The bride hurries faster than the
bridegroom would have her walk. He seizes her arm.
"My dear," he whispers in those accents which seem to have lost their
magic power, "it is merely a claimant. I was expecting it, and I'll
put him in the penitentiary for it. Do not be alarmed by forgers. It
is only a forgery."
CHAPTER V
AT SIX O'CLOCK
Through the mist and the smoke a red and a green light shine out on
State street.
The door of the little store is locked. The bride's hand has rattled
the latch.
A silver star can be seen in the store. It is an officer in charge of
the premises. He hurries to the door.
"Are you Mrs. Lockwin?"
"I am. Let him in, too." The officer has willed to exclude the
bridegroom.
"Hadn't he better wait outside?"
"Let him in!"
"Here is a packet addressed to you." The officer hands to the bride a
thick letter. "Take this chair, madam."
The bride sits down, her back toward the lights in the window. The
bridegroom stands close behind her.
"Be firm, Esther. I'll put him in the penitentiary. I'll put him in
the penitentiary!"
The bride opens the packet. Many folded documents fall to her lap.
She is quick to spread out the chief letter.
The bridegroom pulls the silk handkerchief off his white shirt-front
and wipes his perspiring forehead again and again. He leans over her
shoulder to read. The writing is large and distinct:
Thursday Afternoon, Nov. 30.
MY DEARLY BELOVED WIFE AND WIDOW:
It may be barely possible that I have lived these years of shame and
degradation to some good purpose, and for the following reasons: The
man whom you now love so well--the man whom you are about to
marry--George Harpwood--is an adventurer and a criminal.
I inclose documents which show that on Monday, the 4th of August, 1873,
this George Harpwood, described and photographed, married Mary Berners,
who now lives at Crescentville, a suburb of Philadelphia. She bears
the name of Mrs. Mary Harpwood, and has not been divorced to her
knowledge. Beside deserting her, Harpwood robbed her and reduced her
to penury.
I inclose documents showing that five years earlier, or on Wednesday,
the 8th of January, 1868, George Harpwood eloped with a child wife,
Eleanor Hastings, and basely deserted her within four weeks. She now
resides with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Moses Hastings, on Ox-Bow Prairie,
a few miles south of Sturgis, Michigan.
It is my request that the little store and its belongings, including
the bank account of Robert Chalmers, so-called, be given to the widow
of the late Walter B. Corkey.
The bitterness of life is yours. But the bitterness of death is mine.
Your husband, who loves you,
DAVID LOCKWIN.
There is a click at the door. The bride hears it not. The documents
fall to the floor. There are photographs of George Harpwood; there are
green seals; there are many attestations.
The bride must raise her eyes now. She sees the star of the officer.
She reads the number--803. Is that from David, too?
Ah, yes, she must turn her head. The bridegroom is gone!
A man enters, in hot haste and intense excitement. Is it the
bridegroom returning?
It is Dr. Tarpion. He seizes her by the hand.
"My dear friend!" he cries. "My dear friend!" he repeats, "I have just
now learned that your husband is still living."
But she does not hear it. She can only look gratefully toward the
administrator, clinging to his hand.
She gazes in a dazed way on the white prescription-booth beyond the
square stove; on the bottles of blue copper-water on each corner.
Higher, the partition rises into view.
She meets the eyes of the officer.
A patrol wagon clangs and clamors down State street. It will stop
before the door.
Officers enter from the patrol wagon. "Where is that suicide?" they
ask in a low voice, seeing a bride.
The officer in charge steps to the side of the bride. He speaks
tenderly--the tenderness of a rough man with a kind heart. "Madam," he
says, "you can go behind the partition and see the body. No one will
come in for a few moments."
The bride rises. She hurries toward the little room where Robert
Chalmers suffered and died.
"Oh, David!" she cries. "Oh, David! Oh, God!"
"I guess we will not need the wagon," the officers say among
themselves, and step out on the sidewalk.
The little clock behind the partition strikes 6.
A dozen factory whistles set up their dismal concert out in the blue
mist.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's David Lockwin--The People's Idol, by John McGovern