Kitabı oku: «The Guarded Heights», sayfa 12

II

The last thing George did before leaving his dismantled room, which for so long had sheltered Sylvia's riding crop and her photograph, was to write this little note to Betty:

Dear Betty:

It's simpler to go without saying good-bye.

G. M.

Then he was hustled through the window of the railroad train, out of Princeton, and definitely into the market-place.

After the sentiment of the final days the crowding, unyielding buildings, and the men that shared astonishingly their qualities, offered him a useful restorative. He found he could approximate their essential hardness again.

The Street at times resembled the campus – it held so many of the men he had learned to know at Princeton. Lambert was installed in his father's marble temple. He caught George one day on the sidewalk and hustled him to a luncheon club.

"I suppose I really ought to put you up here."

"Why?" George asked.

"Because I'm always sure of a good scrap with you. I missed not playing against you in the Princeton game last fall. Now there's no more football for either of us. I like scraps."

Blodgett, he chanced to mention later, had spent the previous week-end at Oakmont. Blodgett had already bragged of that in George's presence. He forgot the excellent dishes Lambert had had placed before him.

"Have you put Blodgett up here, too?" he asked in his bluntest manner.

Lambert shook his head.

"That's different."

"Not very honestly different," George said, attempting a smile.

"You mean," Lambert laughed, "because I've never asked you to Oakmont? Under the circumstances – "

"I don't mean that," George said. "I mean Blodgett."

"I can only arrange my own likes and dislikes," Lambert answered, still amused.

Then who at Oakmont liked the fat financier?

Rogers was in the street, too, selling bonds with his old attitude toward the serious side of life, striving earnestly only to spy out the right crowd and to run with it.

"Buy my bonds! Buy my bonds!" he would cry, coming into George's office. "They're each and every one a bargain. Remember, what's a bargain to-day may be a dead loss to-morrow, so buy before it's too late."

Goodhue planned to enter a stock exchange firm in the fall, and a lot of other men from the class would come down then after a long rest between college and tackling the world on twenty dollars a month. Wandel alone of George's intimates rested irresolute. George, since he had taken two rooms and a bath in the apartment house in which Wandel lived, saw him frequently. He could easily afford that luxury, for each summer his balance had grown, and Blodgett, now that he had George for as long as he could keep him, was paying him handsomely, and flattering him by drawing on the store of special knowledge his extended and difficult application had hoarded.

To live in such a house, moreover, was necessary to his campaign, which, he admitted, had lagged alarmingly. Sylvia had continued to avoid him. She seemed to possess a special sense for the houses and the parties where he would be, and when, in spite of this, they did meet, she tried to impress him with a thorough indifference; or, if she couldn't avoid a dance, with a rigid repulsion that failed to harmonize with her warm colouring and her exquisite femininity.

Through some means he had to get on. His restless apprehension had grown. Her departure for Europe with her mother fed the rumours that from time to time had connected her name with eligible men. It was even hinted now that her mother's eyesight, which reached to social greatness across the Atlantic, was responsible for her celibacy.

"There'll be an announcement before she comes back," the gossip ran. "They'll land a museum piece of a title."

George didn't know about that, but he did realize that unless he could progress, one day a rumour would take body. He resented bitterly her absence this summer, but if things would carry on until the fall he would manage, he promised himself, to get ahead with Sylvia.

Wandel seemed to enjoy having George near, for, irresolute as he was, he spent practically the entire summer in town. George, one night when they had returned from two hours' suffering of a summer show, asked him the reason. They smoked in Wandel's library.

"I can look around better here," was all Wandel would say.

"But Driggs! Those precious talents!"

Wandel stretched himself in an easy chair.

"What would you suggest, great man?"

George laughed.

"Do you write poetry in secret – the big, wicked, and suffering city, seen from a tenth-story window overlooking a pretty park?"

Vehemently Wandel shook his head.

"You know what most of our modern American jinglers are up to – talking socialism or anarchy to get themselves talked about. If only they wouldn't apply such insincere and half-digested theories to their art! It's a little like modern popular music – criminal intervals and measures against all the rules. But crime, you see, is invariably arresting. My apologies to the fox-trot geniuses. They pretend to be nothing more than clever mutilators; but the jinglers! They are great reformers. Bah! They remind me of a naughty child who proudly displays the picture he has torn into grotesque pieces, saying: 'Come quick, mother, and see what smart little Aleck has done.' You'll have to try again, George."

George glanced up. His face was serious.

"Don't laugh at me. I mean it. Politics."

"At Princeton I wasn't bad at that," Wandel admitted, smiling reminiscently. "But politics mixes a man with an unlovely crowd – uncouth provincials, a lot of them, and some who are to all purposes foreigners. Do you know, my dear George, that ability to read and write is essential to occupying a seat in the United States Senate? I was amazed the other day to hear it was so. You see how simple it is to misjudge."

"Then there's room," George laughed, "for more honest, well-educated, well-bred Americans."

"Seems to me," Wandel drawled, "that a little broad-minded practicality in our politics would be more useful than bovine honesty. I could furnish that. How should I begin?"

"You might get a start in the State Department," George suggested, "diplomacy, a secretaryship – "

"For once you're wrong," Wandel objected. "In this country diplomacy is a destination rather than a route. The good jobs are frequently given for services rendered, or men pay enormous sums for the privilege of being taken for waiters at their own functions. To start at the bottom – Oh, no. I don't possess the cerebral vacuity, and you can only climb out of the service."

"Just the same," George laughed, "you'd make a tricky politician."

Wandel puffed thoughtfully.

"You're a far-seeing, a far-going person," he said. "You are bound to be a very rich man. You'll want a few practical politicians. Isn't it so? Never mind, but it's understood if I ever run for President or coroner you'll back me with your money bags."

George glanced about the room, as striking and costly in its French fashion as the green study had been.

"You have all the money you need," he said.

"But I'd be a rotten politician," Wandel answered, "if I spent any of my own money on my own campaigns. So we have an understanding if the occasion should arise – "

With a movement exceptionally quick for him, suggesting, indeed, an uncontrollable nervous reaction, Wandel sprang to his feet and went to the window where he leant out. George followed him, staring over the park's far-spread velvet, studded with the small but abundant yellow jewels of the lamps.

"What is it, little man? It's insufferable in town. Why don't you go play by the sea or in the hills?"

"Because," Wandel answered, softly, "I can't help the feeling that any occasion may arise. I don't mean our little politics, George. Time enough for them. I don't want to go. I am waiting."

George understood.

"You mean the murders at Sarajevo," he said. "You're over-sensitive. Run along and play. Nothing will come of that."

"Tell me," Wandel said, turning slowly, "that you mean what you say. Tell me you haven't figured on it already."

George shrugged his shoulders.

"You're discreet. All right. I have figured, because, if anything should come of it, it offers the chance of a lifetime for making money. Mundy's put me in touch with some useful people in London and Paris. I want to be ready if things should break. I hope they won't. Honestly, I very much doubt if they will. Even Germany will think twice before forcing a general war."

"But you're making ready," Wandel whispered, "on the off-chance."

George pressed a switch and got more light. It was as if a heavy shadow had filled the delightful room.

"We're growing fanciful," he said, "seeing things in the dark. By the way, you run into Dalrymple occasionally? I'm told he comes often to town."

Wandel left the window, nodding.

"How long can he keep it up?" George asked.

"I'm not a physician."

"No, no. I mean financially. I gather his family live up to what they have."

"I daresay it would pain them to settle Dolly's debts frequently," Wandel smiled.

"Then," George said, slowly, "he is fairly sure to come to you – that is, if this keeps up."

"Why," Wandel asked, "should I encourage Dolly to be charitable to rich wine agents and under-dressed females?"

George shook his head.

"If he asks you for help don't send him to the money lenders. Send him discreetly to me. If I didn't have what he'd want, I daresay I could get it."

Wandel stared, lighting another cigarette.

"I'd like to keep him from the money lenders," George said, easily.

He didn't care whether Wandel thought him a forgiving fool or a calculating scoundrel. Goodhue and Wandel had long since seen that he had been put up at a number of clubs. The two had fancied they could control Dalrymple's resentments. George, following his system, preferred a whip in his own hand. He harboured no thought of revenge, but he did want to be able to protect himself. He would use every possible means. This was one.

"We'll see," Wandel said. "It's too bad great men don't get along with little wasters."

III

More than once George was tempted to follow Sylvia, trusting to luck to find means of being near her. Such a trip might, indeed, lead to profit if the off chance should develop. Still that could be handled better from this side, and it was, after all, a chance. He must trust to her coming back as she had gone. His place for the present was with Blodgett and Mundy.

The chance, however, was at the back of his head when he encountered Allen late one hot night in a characteristic pose in Times Square. Allen still talked, but his audience of interested or tolerant college men had been replaced by hungry, ragged loafers and a few flushed, well-dressed males of the type that prefers any diversion to a sane return home. Allen stood in the centre of this group. His arms gestured broadly. His angular face was passionate. From the few words George caught his sympathy for these failures was beyond measure. He suggested to them the beauties of violence, the brilliancies of the social revolution. The loafers commented. The triflers laughed. Policemen edged near.

"Free liquor!" a voice shrilled.

Allen shook his fist, and continued. The proletariat would have to take matters into its own hands.

"Fine!" a hoarse and beery listener shouted, "but what'll the cops say about it?"

The edging policemen didn't bother to say anything at first. They quietly scattered the scarecrows and the laggards. They indicated the advisability of retreat for the orator. Then one burst out at Allen.

"God help the proletariat if I have to take it before McGloyne at the station house."

And George heard another sneer:

"Social revolution! They've been trying to throw Tammany out ever since I can remember."

George got Allen away. The angular man was glad to see him.

"You look overworked," George said. "Come have a modest supper with me."

Allen was hungry, but he managed to grumble discouragement over his food.

"They laugh. They'll stop listening for the price of a glass of beer."

"Maybe," George said, kindly, "they realize it's no good trying to help them."

"They've got to be helped," Allen muttered.

"Then," George suggested, "put them in institutions, but don't expect me nor any one else to approve when you urge them to grab the leadership of the world. You must have enough sense to see it would mean ruin. I know they're not all like this lot, but they're all a little wrong or they wouldn't need help."

"It's because they've never had a chance," Allen protested.

It came to George that Allen had never had a chance either, and he wondered if he, too, could be led aside by the price of a glass of beer.

"You all want what the other fellow's got," he said. "From that one motive these social movements draw the bulk of their force. A lot for nothing is a perfect poor man's creed."

"You're a heathen, Morton."

"That is, a human being," George said, good naturedly. "You're another, Allen, but you won't acknowledge it."

Because he believed that, George took the other's address. Allen was loyal, aggressive, and extraordinarily bright, as he had proved at Princeton. It might be convenient to help him. Besides, he hated to see a man he knew so well waste his time and look like a fool.

IV

By late July the off chance had pretty thoroughly defined itself except to the blind. Blodgett, however, was still skeptical. He thought George's plans were sound, provided a war should come. But there wouldn't be any war. His correspondents were optimistic.

"Have I your permission to use Mundy in his off time?" George asked.

"As far as I'm concerned," Blodgett said, "Mundy can play parchesi in his off time."

George telephoned Lambert Planter and sent a telegram to Goodhue. He took them to luncheon and had Mundy there, too. He outlined his plans for the formation of the firm of Morton, Planter, and Goodhue.

"He's called the turn of the cards," Mundy offered.

Such cards as he possessed George placed on the table. He furnished the idea, and the preliminary organization, and what money he had. He took, therefore, the major share of the profits. The others would give what time to the business they could, but it was their money he wanted, and the credit their names would give the firm. Mundy and he had made lists of buyers and sellers. No man in the Street was better equipped than Mundy to pick such a force. If Lambert and Goodhue agreed, these men could be collected within a week. Some would go to Europe. Others would scatter over the United States. It would cost a lot, but it meant an immeasurable amount in return, for the war was inevitable.

Goodhue and Lambert were as skeptical as Blodgett, but they agreed to give him what he needed to get his organization started. By that time, he promised them, they would see how right he was, and then he could use more of their money.

"It's the nearest I've ever come to gambling," he thought as he left them. "Gambling on a war!"

Because of his confidence, before a frontier had been crossed he had bought or contracted for large quantities of shoes and cloths and waterproofing. He had taken options on stock in small and wavering automobile concerns, and outlying machine shops and foundries, some of them already closed down, some struggling along without hope.

"If the war lasts a month," he told his partners, "those stocks will come from the bottom of nothing to the sky."

Goodhue became thoroughly interested at last. He cancelled his vacation and installed himself in the offices George had rented in Blodgett's building. With the men Mundy had picked, and under Mundy's tutelage, he took charge of the routine. George went to Blodgett the first of August.

"I want to quit," he said. "I've got a big thing. I want to give it all my time."

Blodgett mopped his face. His grin was a little sheepish.

"I want to invest some money in your firm," he jerked out.

"I can use it," George said.

"You've got Goodhue there," Blodgett went on in a complaining way, "and Mundy's working nights for you. Don't desert an old man without notice. I'll give you plenty of time upstairs. Other things may come off here. I can use you."

"If you want to pay me when you know my chief interest is somewhere else," George said, "it's up to you."

"When I think I'm getting stung I'll let you know," Blodgett roared.

George sent for Allen, and urged him to go to London to open an office with an expert Lambert had got from his father's marble temple. Allen would be a check on the more experienced men whose scruples might not stand the temptations of this vast opportunity. Allen said he couldn't do it; couldn't abandon the work he had already commenced.

"There'll be precious little talk of socialism," George said, "until this thing is over. It's a great chance for a man to study close up the biggest change the world has ever undergone. Those fellows will want everything, and I'll give them everything I can lay my hands on. I'm ahead of a lot of jobbers here. I'll pay you well to see I don't get robbed on that side. Come on. Take a shot at hard facts for a change."

Allen gasped at the salary George mentioned. He hesitated. He went. George was glad to have helped him. He experienced also an ugly sense of triumph. He felt that he wanted to tell Squibs Bailly right away.

Sylvia and her mother, he heard later, had come home out of the turmoil, unacquainted with the discomforts of people who had travelled without the Planter prestige. Whether the war was to blame or not, she had returned without a single rumour touching fact. He didn't see her right away, because she clung to Oakmont. More and more, as his success multiplied, keeping pace with the agony in Europe, he longed to see her. All at once a return to Oakmont was, in a sense, forced upon him, but he went without any thought of encountering Sylvia, hoping, indeed, to avoid her.

It was like his mother to express her letter with telegraphic bluntness without, however, going to the expense of actually wiring. Where he had expected her customary stiff gratitude for money sent he found a scrawled announcement of his father's death, and her plans for the funeral the following afternoon.

"Of course you won't come," she ended.

Yet it seemed to him that he should go, to arrange her future. This was the moment to snap the last enslaving tie between the Mortons and Oakmont. There was, of course, the chance of running into Sylvia, or some visitor who might connect him with the little house. Suppose Dalrymple, for example, should be staying with the Planters as he often did? George shrugged his shoulders. Things were coming rather rapidly to him. Besides, it was extremely unlikely that any one from the great house would see the Morton ceremony. The instincts of those people would be to avoid such sights.

V

About his return there was a compelling thrill. He drove from the station in one of the cheap automobiles that had made his father practically a pensioner of the Planters. With an incredulous appreciation that he had once accepted its horizon as the boundary of his life, he examined the familiar landscape and the scar made upon it by the village. Curtly he refused to satisfy the driver's curiosity. He had some business at the little house on the Planter estate.

There, through the nearly stripped trees, it showed, almost audibly confessing its debt to the Planter carpenters, painters, and gardeners. In a clouded light late fall flowers waved from masses of dead leaves. Their gay colours gave them an appearance melancholy and apprehensive.

Here he was back at last, and he wasn't going in at the great gate.

He walked around the shuttered house and crossed the porch where his father had liked to sit on warm evenings. He rapped at the door. Feet shuffled inside. The door swayed open, and his mother stood on the threshold. Most of the changes had come to him, but in her red eyes sparkled a momentary and mournful importance. At first she didn't recognize her son.

"What is it?"

George stooped and kissed her cheek.

"I'm sorry, Mother."

Instead of holding out her arms she drew away, staring with fascination, a species of terror, at his straight figure, at his clothing, at his face that wouldn't coarsen now. When she spoke her voice suggested a placating of this stranger who was her son.

"I didn't think you'd come. I can't believe you're George – my Georgie."

Over her shoulders in the shadowed house he saw the inquisitive faces of women. It was clear that for them such an arrival was more divertive than the sharing of a sorrow that scarcely touched their hearts.

George went in. He remembered most of the faces that disclosed excitement while fawning upon his prosperity. He received an unpleasant impression that these poor and ignorant people concealed a dangerous envy, that they would be glad to grasp in one moment, even of violence, all that it had taken him years of difficult struggle to acquire. Whether that was so or not they ought not to stand before him as if his success were a crown. He tried to keep contempt from his voice.

"Please sit down. I want to talk to my mother. Where – "

With slow steps she crossed the kitchen and opened the door of the parlour, beckoning. He followed, knowing what he would find in that uncomfortable, gala room of the poor.

He closed the door. In the half light he saw standing on trestles an oblong box altogether too large for the walls that seemed to crowd it. He had no feeling that anything of his father was there. He realized with a sense of helpless regret that all that remained to him of that unhappy man were the ghosts of such emotions as avarice, fear, and the instinct to sacrifice one's own flesh and blood for a competence.

"Why don't you look at him, George?"

"I don't think he'd care to have me looking at him now."

She wiped her eyes.

"You are too bitter against your father. After all, he was a good man."

"Why should death," he asked her, musingly, "make people seem better than they were in life? It isn't so."

"That's wicked. If your father could rise – "

His attention was caught by an air of pointing the oblong box had, as if to something infinitely farther than ambition and success, yet so close it angered him he couldn't see or touch it. His father had gone there, beyond the farthest horizon of all. Old Planter couldn't make trouble for him now. He was quite safe.

Over in Europe, he reflected, they didn't have enough coffins.

The oblong box for the first time made him think of that war, that was making him rich, in terms of life instead of dollars and cents. He felt dissatisfied.

"There should be more light here," he said, defensively.

But his mother shook her head.

He arranged a chair for her and sat near by while they discussed the details of her departure. She let him see that she shrank from leaving the house, against which, nevertheless, she had bitterly complained ever since Old Planter had got it. Evidently she wanted to linger in her familiar rut, awaiting with the attitude of a martyr whatever fate might offer. That was the reason people had to be helped, because they preferred vicious inertia to the efforts and risks of change. Then why did they want the prizes of those who had had the courage to go forth and fight? Why couldn't Squibs see that?

Patiently George told her she needn't worry about money again. She had a sister who years ago had married and moved West to a farm that was not particularly flourishing. Undoubtedly her sister would be glad to have her and her generous allowance. So his will overcame his mother's reluctance to help herself. She glanced up.

"Who is that?"

He listened. The women in the kitchen were standing again. Light feet crossed the floor.

"Maybe somebody from the big house," his mother whispered. "They sent Simpson last night."

For a moment the entire building was as silent as the oblong box. Then the door opened.

Sylvia Planter slipped in and closed the door.

George caught his breath, studying her as she hesitated, accustoming herself to the insufficient light. She wore a broad-brimmed hat that gave her the charm and the grace of a portrait by Gainsborough. When she recognized him, indeed, she seemed as permanently caught as a portrait.

"Miss Sylvia!" his mother worshipped.

"They told me I would find you here," Sylvia said, uncertainly. "I didn't know – "

She broke off, biting her lip. George strolled around the oblong box to the window, turning there with a slow bow. Even across that desolate, dead shell, the obstinate distaste and the challenge were lively in her glance.

"It was very kind of you to come," he said.

But he was sorry she had come. To see him in such surroundings was a stimulation of the ugly memories he had struggled to destroy. He read her instinct to hurt him now as she had hurt the impertinent man, Morton, who had lived in this house.

"When one of our people is in trouble – " she began, deliberately. "I thought I might be of some help to your mother."

Even over the feeling of security George had just tried to give her the old menace reached the uneasy woman.

"You – you remember him, Miss Sylvia?"

"Very well," Sylvia answered. "He used to be my groom."

"The title comes from you," George said, dryly.

His mother's glance fluttered from one to the other. What did she expect – Old Planter stalking in to carry out his threats?

"After all these years I scarcely knew him myself."

Sylvia's colour heightened. He appraised her rising temper.

"Bad servants," he said, "linger in good employers' memories."

"I know, Miss Sylvia," his mother burst out, "that he wasn't to come back here, but – "

She unclasped her nervous hands. One indicated the silent cause of his disobedience. George moved toward the door. Sylvia stepped quickly aside. He felt, like a physical wave, her desire to hurt.

"At such a time," she said, "it's natural he should come back to his home. I think my father would be glad to have him with his mother."

George shrugged his shoulders, slipped out, navigated the shoals of whispering women, and reached the clean air. He buttoned his overcoat and shuffled through the dead leaves beneath the trees until he found himself at the spot where Lambert and he had fought. He recalled his hot boasts of that day. Fulfilment had seemed simple enough then. The scene just submitted reminded him how short a distance he had actually travelled.

He knew she would pass that way on her return to the big house, so he waited, and when he heard her feet disturbing the dead leaves he didn't turn. She came closer than he had expected, and he heard her contralto voice, quick and defiant:

"I hadn't expected to see you. I didn't quite realize what I was saying. I should have had more respect for any one's grief."

Having said that, she was going on, but he turned and stopped her. As he looked at her he reflected that everything had altered since that day – she most of all. Then the woman had been a little visible in the child. Now, he fancied, the child survived in the woman only through the persistence of this old quarrel. He stared at her lips, recalling his boast that no man should touch them unless it were George Morton. He was no nearer them than he had been that day. Unless he got nearer some man would. It was incredible that she hadn't married. She would marry.

"In the sense you mean, I have no grief," he said.

"Then I needn't have bothered. I once said you were a – a – "

"Something melodramatic. A beast, I think it was," he answered. "If you don't mind I'll walk on with you for a little way."

"No," she said.

"If you please."

"You've no perception," she cried, angrily.

"Don't you think it time," he suggested, "that you ceased treating me like a groom? It isn't very convincing to me. I doubt if it is to you. I fancy it's really only your pride. I don't see why you should have so much where I am concerned."

Her hand made a quick gesture of repulsion.

"You've not changed. You may walk on with me while I tell you this: If you were like the men I know and can be friends with you'd leave me alone. Will you stop this persecution? It comes down to that. Will you stop forcing me to dance with you, to listen to you?"

He smiled, shaking his head.

"I'll make you dance with me more than ever. I've seen very little of you lately. I hope this winter – "

She stopped, facing him, her cheeks flaming.

"You see! You remind me every time I meet you of just what you are, just what you came from, just what you said and did that day."

"That is my aim," he smiled.

He moved his hand in the direction of the little house.

"When we're all like that will it make much difference who our fathers and mothers were?"

She shivered. She started swiftly away.

"Miss Planter!"

The unexpectedness of the naked command may have brought her around. He walked to her.

"When will you realize," he asked, "that it is unforgivable to turn your back on life?"

Had he really meant to suggest that she could possess life only through him? Doubtless the sublime effrontery of that interpretation reached her. She commenced to laugh, her colour rising. She glanced away, and her laughter died.

"You may as well understand," he said, "that I am never going to leave you alone."

She started across the leaf-strewn grass. He kept pace with her.

"Are you going to force me to make a scene?" she asked.

"Except with your father," he said, "I don't think it would make much difference."

He felt that if she had had anything in her hands then she would have struck at him.

"It's not because I'm a beast," he said, quietly, "that I have no grief for my father. He was through. Life had nothing to offer him. He had nothing to offer life. Don't think I'm incapable of grief. I experienced it the day I thought you might be dead. That was because you had so much to offer life – rather more than life had to offer you."

He saw her shrink from him but she walked on, repressing her pain and her anger.

"Since I've known intimately girls of your class," he said, "I've realized that not all of them would have turned and tried to wound as you did that day. Some would have laughed. Some would have been sorry and sympathetic. I don't think many would have made such a scene."