Kitabı oku: «The Guarded Heights», sayfa 22

VII

The awakening of the house to its most momentous day aroused George early, hurried him from his bed, sent him downstairs in a depressed, self-censorious mood, as if he and not Dalrymple had finished the caraffe. That necessary battle behind a locked door continued to fill his mind like the memory of a vivid and revolting nightmare. He fled from the increasing turmoil of an exceptional agitation, but he could not escape his own evil temper. Even the flowering lanes where Goodhue and he had run so frequently during their undergraduate days mocked his limping steps, his heavy cane; seemed asking him what there was in common between that eager youth and the man who had come back to share a definite farewell with Betty; to stand, stripped of his veneer, against a wall to avoid a more difficult parting from Sylvia. There was one thing: the determination of the boy lived in the man, become greater, more headstrong, more relentless.

He paused and, chin in hand, rested against a gate. What about Wandel, who had admired the original George Morton? Would he approve of his threats to Dalrymple, of his probable course with the Planters? If he were consistent he would have to; yet people were so seldom consistent. It was even likely that George's repetition of Dalrymple's shocking insults would be frowned upon more blackly than the original, unforgiveable wrong. George straightened and walked back toward the house. It made no difference what people thought. He was George Morton. Even at the cost of his own future he would keep Sylvia from joining her life to Dalrymple's, and certainly Lambert could be made to understand why that had to be.

The warm sun cheered him a little. Dalrymple was scared. He wouldn't make George take any further steps. It was going to be all right. But why didn't women see through Dalrymple, or rather why didn't he more thoroughly give himself away to them? Because, George decided, guarded women from their little windows failed to see the real world.

Dalrymple obsessed him even when, after luncheon, he sat with Lambert upstairs, discussing business chiefly. He wanted to burst out with:

"Why don't you wake up? How can you approve of this intimacy between your sister and a man like that?"

He didn't believe the other knew that intimacy had progressed; and when Lambert spoke of Dalrymple, calling attention again to his apparent reformation, George cleansed his mind a trifle, placing, as it were, the foundation for a possible announcement of a more active enmity.

"Don't see why you admire anything he does, Lambert. It isn't particularly pleasant for me to have you, for I've been watching him, and I've quite made up my mind. You asked me when I first got home if I wouldn't meet him halfway. I don't fancy he'd ever start in my direction, but if he did I wouldn't meet him. Sorry. That's definite. I must use my own judgment even where it clashes with your admirations."

Lambert stared at him.

"You'll never cease being headstrong," he said. "It's rather safer to have any man for a friend."

George had an uncomfortable sense of having received a warning, but Blodgett blundered in just then with news from the feminine side of the house.

"Some people downstairs already, and I've just had word – from one of those little angels that talk like the devil – that Betty's got all her war-paint on."

"You have the ring?" Lambert asked George.

George laughed.

"Yes, I have the ring, and I shan't lose it, or drop it; and I'll keep you out of people's way, and tell you what to answer, and see generally you don't make an idiot of yourself. Josiah, if he faints, help me pick him up."

Blodgett's gardenia bobbed.

"Weddings make Josiah feel old. Say, George, you're no spring chicken yourself. I know lots of little girls who cry their eyes out for you."

"Shut up," George said. "How about a reconnaissance, Lambert?"

But they were summoned then, and crept down a side staircase, and heard music, and found themselves involved in Betty's great moment.

At first George could only think of Betty as she had stood long ago in the doorway of Bailly's study, and it was difficult to find in this white-clothed, veiled, and stately woman the girl he had seen first of all that night. This, after a fashion, was his last glimpse of her. She appeared to share that conception, for she carried to the improvised altar in the drawing-room an air of facing far places, divided by boundaries she couldn't possibly define from all that she had ever known. After the ceremony she smiled wonderingly at George while she absorbed the vapid and pattered remarks of, perhaps, a hundred old friends of the family. George, who knew most of them, resented their sympathy and curiosity.

"If they don't stop asking me about the war," he whispered to Blodgett during a lull, "I'm going to call for help."

Some, however, managed to interest him with remarks about the rebirth of football. Green had been at Princeton all along, Stringham was coming back in the fall, and there were brilliant team prospects. Would George be able to help with the coaching? He indicated his injured leg. He hadn't the time, anyway. He was going to stick closer than ever to Wall Street. He fancied that Sylvia, who stood near him, resented the lively interest of these people. She spoke to him only when she couldn't possibly avoid it, glancing, George noticed, at Dalrymple who rather pointedly kept away from her. So far so good. Then Dalrymple did realize George would have his way. George looked at Sylvia, thinking whimsically:

"I shan't let anybody put you where you wouldn't bother to hate me any more."

He spoke to her aloud.

"I believe we're to have a bite to eat."

She followed him reluctantly, and during the supper yielded of herself nothing whatever to him, chatting by preference with any one convenient, even with Blodgett whom she had treated so shabbily. Very early she left the room with Betty and Mrs. Alston, and George experienced a strong desire to escape also, to flee anywhere away from this house and the bitter dissatisfactions he had found within its familiar walls. He saw Mrs. Bailly and took her hand.

"I want to go home with you and Squibs to-night."

Mrs. Bailly smiled her gratitude, but as he was about to move away she stopped him with a curiosity he had not expected from her.

"Isn't Sylvia Planter beautiful? Why do you suppose she doesn't marry?"

George laughed shortly, shook his head, and hurried upstairs to Lambert's room; yet Mrs. Bailly had increased his uneasiness. Perhaps it was the too-frequent repetition of that question that had made Sylvia turn temporarily to Blodgett; that was, possibly, focussing her eyes on Dalrymple now; yet why, from such a field, did she choose these men? What was one to make of her mind and its unexpected reactions? The matter of marriage was, not unnaturally, in the air here. Lambert faced him with it.

"Josiah's right. When are you going to make a home, Apollo Morton?"

George turned on him angrily, not bothering to choose his words.

"Such a question from you is ridiculous. You've not forgotten the dark ages either."

Lambert looked at him for a moment affectionately, not without sympathy.

"Don't be an ass, George."

George's laughter was impatient.

"Don't forget, Lambert, your old friends, Corporal Sol Roseberg, and Bugler Ignatius Chronos. No men better! Chairs at the club! Legs under the table at Oakmont – "

Lambert put his hands on George's shoulders.

"It isn't that at all. You know it very well."

"What is it then?" George asked, sharply.

"Don't pretend ignorance," Lambert answered, "and it must be your own fault. Whose else could it possibly be? And I'm sorry, have been for years."

"It isn't my fault," George said. "The situation exists. I'm glad you recognize it. You'll understand it's a subject I can't let you joke about."

"All right," Lambert said, "but I wonder why you're always asking for trouble."

VIII

Betty had plenty of colour to-night. As she passed George, her head bent against the confetti, he managed to touch her hand, felt a quick responsive pressure, heard her say:

"Good-bye, George."

The whispered farewell was like a curtain, too heavy ever to be lifted again, abruptly let down between two fond people.

IX

Unexpectedly the companionships of the little house in Dickinson Street failed to lighten George's discontented humour. Mrs. Bailly's question lingered in his mind, coupling itself there with her disappointment that he, instead of Lambert, hadn't married Betty; and, when she retired, the tutor went back to his unwelcome demands of the day before. Hadn't George made anything of his great experience? Was it possible it had left him quite unchanged? What were his immediate plans, anyway?

"You may as well understand, sir," George broke in, impatiently, "that I am going to stay right in Wall Street and make as much money and get as much power as I can."

"Why? In the name of heaven, why?" Bailly asked, irritably. "You are already a very rich man. You've dug for treasure and found it, but can you tell me you've kept your hands clean? Money is merely a conception – a false one. Capitalism will pass from the world."

George grunted.

"With the last two surviving human beings."

"Mockery won't keep you blind always," Bailly said, "to the strivings of men in the mines and the factories – "

"And in the Senate and the House," George jeered, "and in Russia and Germany, and in little, ambitious corners. If you're against the League of Nations it's because, like all those people, you're willing Rome should burn as long as personal causes can be fostered and selfish schemes forwarded. No agitator, naturally, wants the suffering world given a sedative – "

Bailly smiled.

"Even if you're wrong-headed, I'm glad to hear you talk that way. At last you're thinking of humanity."

"I'm thinking of myself," George snapped.

Bailly shook his head.

"I believe you're talking from your heart."

"I'm talking from a smashed leg," George cried, "and I'm sleepy and tired and cross, and I guess I'd better go to bed."

"It all runs back to the beginning," Bailly said in a discouraged voice. "I'm afraid you'll never learn the meaning of service."

George sprang up, wincing. Bailly's wrinkled face softened; his young eyes filled with sympathy.

"Does that wound still bother you, George?"

"Yes, sir," George answered, softly. "I guess it bothers as much as it ever did."

X

One virtue of the restlessness of which Bailly had reminded him was its power to swing George's mind for a time from his unpleasant understanding with Dalrymple. It had got even into Blodgett's blood.

"About the honestest man I can think of these days," he complained to George one morning, "is the operator of a crooked racing stable. All the cards are marked. All the dice are loaded. If they didn't have to let us in on some of the tricks, we'd go bust, George, my boy."

"You mean we're crooked, too?" George asked.

"Only by infection," Blodgett defended himself, "but honest, George, I'd sell out if I could. I'm disgusted."

George couldn't hide a smile.

"In the old days when you were coming up, you never did anything the least bit out of line yourself?"

Blodgett mopped his face with one of his brilliant handkerchiefs. His eyes twinkled.

"I've been shrewd at times, George, but isn't that legitimate? I may have made some crowds pretty sick by cutting under them, but that's business. I won't say I haven't played some cute little tricks with stocks, but that's finesse, and the other fellow had the same chance. I'm not aware that I ever busted a bank, or held a loaded gun to a man's head and asked him to hand over his clothes as well as his cash. That's the spirit we're up against now. That's why Papa Blodgett advises selling out those mill stocks we kept big blocks of at the time of the armistice."

"They're making money," George said.

Blodgett tapped a file of reports.

"Have you read the opinions of the directors?"

"Yes," George answered, "and at a pinch they might have to go into coöperation, but they'd still pay some dividends."

Blodgett puffed out his cheeks.

"You're sure the unions would want a share in the business?"

"Why not?" George asked. "Isn't that practical communism?"

"Hay! Here's a fellow believes there's something practical in the world nowadays! Sell out, son."

"Then who would run our mills?"

"Maybe some philanthropist with more money than brains."

"You mean," George asked, "that our products, unless conditions improve, will disappear from the world, because no one will be able to afford to manufacture them?"

Blodgett pursed his lips. George stared from the window at the forest of buildings which impressed him, indeed, as giant tree trunks from which all the foliage had been stripped. Had there been awakened in the world an illiberal individuality with the power to fell them every one, and to turn up the system out of which they had sprung as from a rich soil? Was that what he had helped fight the war for?

"You're talking about the dark ages," he said, feeling the necessity of faith and stability. "Sell your stocks if you want, I choose to keep mine."

Blodgett yawned.

"We'll go down together, George. I won't jump from a sinking ship as long as you cling to the bridge."

"The ship isn't sinking," George cried. "It's too buoyant."

XI

Wandel and Goodhue came home, suffering from this universal restlessness.

"Ah, mon brave!" Wandel greeted George. "Mon vieux Georges, grand et incomparable! So the country's dry! Jewels are cheaper than beefsteaks! Congress is building spite fences! None the less, I'm glad to be home."

"Glad enough to have you," George said. "I'm not sure we won't go back to our bargain pretty soon. I'm about ready for a pet politician."

"Let me get clean," Wandel laughed. "You must have a lot of money."

"I can control enough," George said, confidently.

"Bon! But don't send me to Washington at first. I don't want to put on skirts, use snuff, or practise gossiping."

For a time he refused to apply himself to anything that didn't lead to pleasure. Goodhue went at once to Rhode Island for a visit with his father and mother, while Wandel flitted from place to place, from house to house, as if driven by his restlessness to the play he had abandoned during five years. Once or twice George caught him with Rogers in town, and bluntly asked him why.

"An eye to the future, my dear George. Are you the most forgetful of class presidents? Perfect henchman type. When one goes into politics one must have henchmen."

But George had an unwelcome feeling that Rogers, eyes always open, was taking advantage, in his small way, of the world's unsettled condition. People were inclined to laugh at him, but they treated him well for Wandel's sake.

"Still in the bond business," he explained to George. "It isn't what it was befo' de war. I'm thinking of taking up oil stocks and corners in heaven, although I doubt if there are as many suckers as fell for P. T. B. Trouble nowadays is that the simplest of them are too busy trying to find somebody just a little simpler to sting. Darned if they don't usually hook one. Still bum securities are a great weakness with most people. Promise a man a hundred per cent. and he'll complain it isn't a hundred and fifty."

George reflected that Rogers was bound for disillusionment, then he wasn't so sure, for America seemed more than ever friendly to that brisk, insincere, back-bending type. Out of the sea of money formed by the war examples sprang up on nearly every side, scarcely troubled by racial, religious, or educational handicaps; loudly convinced that they could buy with money all at once every object of matter or spirit the centuries had painstakingly evolved. One night in the crowds of the theatre district, when with Wandel he had watched the hysterical competition for tickets, cabs, and tables in restaurants where the prices of indigestion had soared nearly beyond belief, he burst out angrily:

"The world is mad, Driggs. I wouldn't be surprised to hear these people cry for golden gondolas to float them home on rivers of money. Stark, raving mad, Driggs! The world's out of its head!"

Wandel smiled, twirling his cane.

"Just found it out, great man? Always has been; always will be – chronic! This happens to be a violent stage."

XII

It was Wandel, indeed, who drew George from his preoccupation, and reminded him that another world existed as yet scarcely more than threatened by the driving universal invaders. George had looked in at his apartment one night when Wandel was just back from a northern week-end.

"Saw Sylvia. You know, George, she's turning back the years and prancing like a débutante."

George sat down, uneasy, wondering what the other's unprepared announcement was designed to convey.

"I'll lay you what you want," Wandel went on, lighting a cigar, "that she forgets the Blodgett fiasco, and marries before snow falls."

Had it been designed as a warning? George studied Wandel, trying to read his expression, but the light was restricted by heavy, valuable, and smothering shades; and Wandel sat at some distance from the nearest, close to a window to catch what breezes stole through. Confound the man! What was he after? He hadn't mentioned Sylvia that self-revealing day in France; but George had guessed then that he must have known of his persistent ambition, and had wondered why his unexpected communicativeness hadn't included it. At least a lack of curiosity now was valueless, so George said:

"Who's the man?"

"I don't suggest a name," Wandel drawled. "I merely call attention to a possibility. Perhaps discussing the charming lady at all we're a trifle out of bounds; but we've known the Planters many years; years enough to wonder why Sylvia hasn't been caught before, why Blodgett failed at the last minute."

George stirred impatiently.

"It was inevitable he should. I once disliked Josiah, but that was because I was too young to see quite straight. Just the same, he wasn't up to her. Most of all, he was too old."

"I daresay. I daresay," Wandel said. "So much for jolly Josiah. But the others? It isn't exaggeration to suggest that she might have had about any man in this country or England. She hasn't had. She's still the loveliest thing about, and how many years since she was introduced – many, many, isn't it, George?"

"What odds?" George muttered. "She's still young."

He felt self-conscious and warm. Was Wandel trying to make him say too much?

"Why do you ask me?"

Wandel yawned.

"Gossiping, George. Poking about in the dark. Thought you might have some light."

"How should I have?" George demanded.

"Because," Wandel drawled, "you're the greatest and most penetrating of men."

George's discomfort grew. He tried to turn Wandel's attack.

"How does it happen you've never entered the ring?"

Wandel laughed quietly.

"I did, during my school days. She was quite splendid about it. I mean, she said very splendidly that she couldn't abide little men; but any time since I'd have fallen cheerfully at her feet if I'd ever become a big man, a great man, like you."

Before he had weighed those words, unquestionably pointed and significant, George had let slip an impulsive question.

"Can you picture her fancying a figure like Dalrymple?"

He was sorry as soon as it was out. Anxiously he watched Wandel through the dusk of the room. The little man spoke with a troubled hesitation, as if for once he wasn't quite sure what he ought to reply.

"You acknowledged a moment ago that you had failed to see Josiah straight. Hasn't your view of Dolly always been from a prejudiced angle?"

"I've always disliked him," George said, frankly. "He's given me reasons enough. You know some of them."

"I know," Wandel drawled, "that he isn't what even Sylvia would call a little man, and he has the faculty of making himself exceptionally pleasant to the ladies."

"Yet he couldn't marry any one of mine," George said under his breath. "If I had a sister, I mean, I'd somehow stop him."

Wandel laughed on a sharp note, caught himself, went on with an amused tone:

"Forgive me, George. Somewhere in your pockets you carry the Pilgrim Fathers. Most men are shaggy birds of evil habit, while most young women are delicately feathered nestlings, and quite helpless; yet the two must mate. Dolly, by the way, drains a pitcher of water every time he sees a violation of prohibition."

"He drinks in sly places," George said.

"After all," Wandel said, slowly, "why do we cling to the suggestion of Dolly? Although I fancy he does figure – somewhere in the odds."

For a time George said nothing. He was quite convinced that Wandel had meant to warn him, and he had received that warning, straight and hard and painfully. During several weeks he hadn't seen Dalrymple, had been lulled into a sense of security, perhaps through the turmoil down town; and Lambert and Betty had lingered beyond their announced month. Clearly Wandel had sounded George's chief aim, as he had once satisfied himself of his origin; and just now had meant to say that since his return he had witnessed enough to be convinced that Dalrymple was still after Sylvia, and with a chance of success. To George that meant that Dalrymple had broken the bargain. He felt himself drawn irresistibly back to his narrow, absorbing pursuit.

"You're becoming a hermit," Wandel was saying.

"You've become a butterfly," George countered.

"Ah," Wandel answered, "but the butterfly can touch with its wings the beautiful Sylvia Planter, and out of its eyes can watch her débutante frivolities. Why not come away with me Friday?"

"Whither?"

"To the Sinclairs."

George got up and wandered to the door.

"By by, Driggs. I think I might slip off Friday. I've a mind to renounce the veil."