Kitabı oku: «The Fate of Felix Brand», sayfa 7
“I do not deny that my brother has faults, but is that any reason why I should discuss them with a stranger?”
“Don’t say that, Penelope!”
His cry came so straightly and so simply from his heart that its honest feeling and the look of pain upon his face moved her to quick contrition and to warmer confidence. Surely, she told herself, there could be no doubting his ardent friendliness toward her mother and herself, whatever might be his attitude toward Felix.
“I have known about you such a long time,” he was hurrying on in pleading speech, “that you are like an old friend – no, more than that, like a sister in my thought of you, and I want you to feel that way toward me. It may seem strange to you, Penelope, but it is true, that you and your mother are nearer and dearer to me than any one else in the world. That’s why it hurts when you call me a stranger, although I know I can hardly seem more than that to you, as yet.”
He sat down beside her and took one of her hands for a moment in both of his. “But we are going to change that, if you’ll let me,” he said, a smile lighting his serious face. “If you’ll let me I’m going to be a genuine sort of brother to you. I haven’t the genius that Felix has, I’ll never create anything beautiful or wonderful, but I have got a knack for business and I can make money. I don’t care anything about money for itself, but I do care a lot for all the things one can do with it.
“My head is full of ideas and plans for using the money I shall make as a lever for helping the world along. I know such things interest you, Penelope. You like to read and think about them and I’m sure you’d have done great work in that line if – if Felix – if there had been no accident. And if you will give me the benefit of your reading and thinking, it will help me in the working out of my plans.”
“I? Could I be of any use? When I am such a prisoner and have so little strength? I’ve only read and thought a little – I don’t know anything as people do who come face to face with actual conditions. But you don’t know,” and a sharp, indrawn breath and the wistfulness of her eyes told him how much she was moved by his proposal, “you don’t know what it would mean to me!”
“I can guess, Penelope – sister – you don’t mind if I call you that? I know a little, and your face tells me a good deal more, about how your spirit has rebelled and how you have battled with it and won the victory. You haven’t found it easy to be a prisoner in a wheel-chair!”
“Indeed, I have not!”
She bent her thin, humped and crooked body forward with fresh energy and a spark of the spirit she had conquered flashed out again in her dark eyes and tired face.
“My soul has longed so to do something, to be something, to be able to use my abilities and my energies as other people do! I have longed so fiercely to go about and see the beautiful and wonderful things in the world, to achieve something myself and to meet as an equal other people who have done things worth while! If there is hell anywhere it used to be in my heart! I fought it – it was the only thing there was to do – by myself, for I couldn’t add to mother’s troubles such a burden as that would have been. Father knew, a little, of how I felt, before he died. But afterwards I fought it out myself – it took years to do it – and at last forced myself into a sort of content, or resignation.
“I know I am some comfort to mother, although I have cost her so much care. But for a long time her chief pleasure, after her delight in Felix, has been in our companionship. So that is something, and I read a good deal and think all I can, and I try to do through others the little good in the outside world that is possible to me.”
She leaned back again feebly and closed her eyes for a moment in physical weariness. “And so at last,” she went on, meeting his compassionate look with a faint smile, “I come to be – not unhappy.”
“And now the opportunity is coming,” he assured her impulsively, “for you to make some use of your sweet, strong spirit and your capable brain. But I don’t know – Felix – I don’t know – ” he hesitated, casting at her a keen, inquiring glance, but continued in a confident tone: “But you’ll understand, you’ll see it’s for the best! Oh, I know you’ll agree that I’m doing the right thing!”
He saw the fatigue in her countenance and rose to go. “I’m afraid I’ve tired you, Penelope, but I hope you’ll forgive me when I tell you what pleasure our talk has given me. Before I go I want to ask you one more thing – about your mother. Did she – was she much grieved by what I did about – Felix and that bribery business?”
A look of gratification crossed Penelope’s face. “I hoped you wouldn’t go away without saying something about that,” she said frankly. “Of course, it grieved her. She was deeply hurt.”
“I knew she would be,” he interrupted sorrowfully. “But it was the best way I could see. I thought it would be a warning to Felix.”
“Of course she didn’t believe it was true. She thought you were acting under a conviction of public duty and that you were mistaken in your understanding of what had happened. You impressed her very much when you were here and she thought so much about you afterwards that it was hard for her to reconcile your action with your friendship for Felix. But she did and finally came to think it really noble in you to hold what you thought to be the public good above your personal feelings.”
“But it was Felix I was thinking of chiefly,” he protested. “Still, it was very sweet of her, and very like her, too, to look at it in that way. Would she – do you think she would be glad to see me if she were at home?”
“I am sure she would,” replied Penelope cordially. “She was so pleased with her fancy of your being her dream son and of your coming toward us out of the snow-storm like some one in a dream – dear mother! It all pleased her so much! And she talked much and tenderly about you afterwards. But there was something that disturbed her, and I must tell you about it, for she will want to know if I explained it to you.”
She stopped a moment and threw an observant glance upon her listener. Absorbed in what she was saying, he was looking at her with his keen eyes and serious face all soft and tender with emotion.
Penelope felt her heart yearn toward him with entire trust. “Felix has never cared for us as much as this man does already,” she thought.
“Mother was afraid,” she continued, “that you might think, from what she said about her hopes when Felix was a little boy, that she is dissatisfied with him now. Of course, you know that isn’t true. I’ve told you enough for you to see how she delights and glories in him. She would have liked, I think, to see him become a great preacher or a great reformer. But his bent wasn’t that way, and I don’t believe that if he had been either she could have been prouder of him than she is now.”
“Well, I can never be a great preacher, or a great reformer either, or, indeed, a great anything. But I hope I shall be able to do some good in the world, in little spots here and there, and I want very much to bring more happiness into her life and yours. I would like to be to her a son. But – I don’t know – ”
He hesitated again and Penelope saw doubt come into his face and his eyes grow wistful.
“No, I don’t know how it will be. I can do it – ” Again he stopped for a moment and, gazing into the distance as he went on, he seemed to Penelope to be speaking more to himself than to her. “I can do it only by giving to you and to her, to her especially, very great sorrow first. Sometimes, I’m not quite sure – ”
Then sudden resolution seemed to seize him. His lips shut and his figure stiffened with determination. “But it has to be – it has to be,” he declared abruptly. His air was forceful to the verge of aggressiveness as he turned to her again.
“Good-bye, Penelope. Give my love to your mother and tell her I was sorry not to see her. It has been good to see you once more and to have this talk with you. I shall come again some time if you will let me. But I shall not believe you unwilling to see me unless you yourself tell me so.”
“You are a strange man,” she replied, looking at him with frank curiosity but entire friendliness, “and you interest me very much. Whenever you wish to come again you may be sure that no matter what you may have been doing, I at least shall be glad to see you.”
His abrupt, aggressive manner softened, and a pleading note sounded in his voice as he replied:
“Anyway, you’ll try to think, won’t you, that I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that what I am doing and shall do concerning Felix is for the good of everybody, even for his good, too, extraordinary as that may seem. That’s the most I can say, until the time comes for me to tell you the whole story. But you shall know it sometime, Penelope. Good-bye.”
CHAPTER XII
Dr. Annister Has Doubts
Early in the second week of Brand’s absence his secretary had another call from Hugh Gordon. Henrietta was aware of a little thrill of pleasure when the office boy brought her his card, and quickly accounted for it to herself by thinking that perhaps he would have some news of her employer. But he had nothing to tell her and he made excuse for coming by asking if Brand had returned or if she had heard from him.
Henrietta was puzzled by his manner as he made this inquiry. For he showed no anxiety, and when she replied he received her answer with as little interest as if he had known beforehand what she would say.
“I hoped you would be able to tell me something about him,” she added.
“I do not know where he is,” he replied, “but I am positive that you have no occasion to feel anxious about him. I am quite sure he will return, perhaps before long. I assure you, if anything should happen to him, I should know it before any one else.”
He spoke with such sincerity that her lingering distrust faded away, while his abundant physical vigor, manifest alike in his appearance and his manner, made a strong appeal to her feminine nature. He seemed so full of energetic purpose, and he looked at her with such a self-assured, straightforward gaze that she could no longer withhold the confidence she felt him to be demanding. Nor did the fact that her woman’s instinct, quickly discovering the scarcely concealed admiration in his eyes and countenance, told her the reason for his visit lessen her inclination to give him the trust he desired.
“Do you think,” she anxiously asked, “that I ought to report Mr. Brand’s disappearance to the police?”
“No,” he said with abrupt positiveness, “I do not.”
Then he seemed to take second thought and purposely to soften his manner as he proceeded: “When he returns do you think he would be pleased to learn that another hullaballoo had been made over his absence, doubtless on necessary business?”
“Oh, no, I am sure he would not! He didn’t like it at all the other time. It was only – I feel so much responsibility – and I am so uncertain as to what I ought to do. I am not letting anybody know” – she hesitated and blushed – “except you, that I don’t really know where he is. I thought it was what he would wish if – if he is on a business trip – in West Virginia – or anywhere. But if anything has happened – should happen – to him – ”
“Don’t feel anxious on that score. I shall be the first one to know if any harm comes to him, and I give you my word that you shall be informed as soon as possible. I came in to give you this assurance, as I feared you would be worried by his long absence.”
Henrietta was surprised when her visitor left to find that their conversation had lasted for half an hour. “It didn’t seem so long,” she thought, smiling in the pleasant glow that still enveloped her consciousness.
“I hope I didn’t say anything I ought not,” her thought ran on, with just a tinge of anxiety. “He is such a compelling sort of man, you have to trust him, and he’s so blunt and direct himself that before you know it you are being just as frank as he is.”
She reviewed their talk and reassured herself, with much gratification, that nowhere had it touched what the most sensitive loyalty to her employer could have thought forbidden ground.
“It’s very curious,” she marvelled, “how he knows about Mr. Brand’s affairs. They must be the very closest friends or he could never know so much about Mr. Brand’s ambitions and how he feels about his art. And yet there was a flash in his eyes every time Mr. Brand’s name was mentioned, and he looked just as if he were trying to control an angry feeling. Still, they are surely friends… His mustache is very handsome. I wonder why he doesn’t let it grow longer.”
Toward the end of the week he came again and renewed his assurances of Brand’s safety, and again they talked happily together for a length of time that startled Henrietta when she looked at her watch after he left. Her confidence in him increased with each interview and so also did her puzzlement as to his relations with Felix Brand. For several days she debated with herself as to what she ought to do and at last, in her anxiety and doubt, she sought the counsel of Dr. Annister.
She told him the whole story, admitting that she did not herself believe the architect had taken the southern trip, giving her reasons for that suspicion, describing the three visits of Hugh Gordon and recounting the assurances he had made her of Brand’s safety and early return.
“I haven’t come to you before, Dr. Annister,” she said, “because I didn’t like to worry you about it. I know what a nervous condition Mildred is in, anyway, because she doesn’t hear from him and I thought that if she guessed the real state of affairs it would be ten times harder for her.”
“I fear Mildred will have a nervous collapse if he does not return soon,” said Dr. Annister gravely, “or we do not get some assurance that all is well with him. You say that this Hugh Gordon declares he doesn’t know where Felix is?”
“Yes, that is what he says, but at the same time he seems so confident there can be nothing wrong that when I talk with him I feel it will be all right. And then afterwards I wonder if I am doing the right thing in keeping it all so quiet. Do you think, Dr. Annister, that we ought to put the case into the hands of the detectives? You know, if we did that and then he should come back in a few days, as he did before, he would be dreadfully annoyed.”
Dr. Annister, in a shabby leather arm-chair, in whose roomy depths his undersized figure seemed smaller than ever, leaned forward with his elbows on its arms and thoughtfully struck together the ends of his fingers.
They were in his private office, where this chair had been for twenty years his favorite seat. It was his attitude and gesture of deepest abstraction. Many a time, sitting thus, and gazing with intent eyes on nothing at all, had he found light on difficult cases. And many a nervous wreck among his patients had marched back to health and vigor to the rhythmic tapping of those finger-ends.
Just now he was considering the possibility that Felix Brand, the famous young architect, his son-in-law to be, might have sunk out of sight intentionally in order to indulge in deeply hidden debauch. Although it had but recently become manifest, that suggestion of sensuality in the young man’s refined and handsome countenance, the physician’s only ground of objection to the early marriage for which his daughter and her lover had pleaded, had grown stronger of late. But if Brand should be found in some low dive it might get out and the carrion-loving sensational newspapers would make an ill-smelling scandal into which Mildred’s name would be dragged. No, if that were the explanation, it would be better to let him return in his own good time and then have a serious talk with him and try to get at the truth.
“No,” he said at last, taking down his arms and leaning back into the chair’s capacious embrace, “I don’t think we’d better take that extreme measure; at least, not yet. In my judgment you’ve acted prudently, my dear, in not letting anybody know his absence is other than an ordinary business matter. It is now about two weeks since he – went away?”
“Two weeks and a half.”
“Well, I think we’d better wait at least another week before we do anything. And, meantime, all that you’ve told me will be a secret between you and me.”
“Thank you, Dr. Annister. You’ve relieved my anxiety very much, indeed. And I’m so glad you think as you do, for I dreaded doing anything about it for fear it might get into the papers and there’d be all that horrid publicity and the reporters coming and catechizing me every day.”
“Wait a bit,” he said as she rose to go. “I want to ask you more about this Gordon. He seems to you an honest, straightforward sort of man?”
“Oh, entirely, Dr. Annister! He is so frank and sincere and direct that you can’t help believing in him. He seems to know Mr. Brand very, very intimately, too. And yet such an angry look crosses his face sometimes when we speak about Mr. Brand that I am very much puzzled. It doesn’t seem as if they could be such good friends as they would have to be for Mr. Gordon to know all he does.”
“I wish I could see him and talk with him myself. Do you know his address?”
“No, sir. And he’s not in either the telephone or the city directory.”
“Well, if he comes to your office again ask him to come up here with you. Explain how anxious we are – doubtless he knows that Felix and Mildred are engaged – and say that it would be a great relief to us if we could hear from his own lips that he is still sure of Mr. Brand’s safety. I’ll see him first and if he inspires my confidence as he does yours I’ll have Mildred come in and talk with him, too. Won’t you go up and see Mildred and Mrs. Annister?”
“I’d love to, Dr. Annister, but – Mildred will be so anxious for news, and I can’t tell her anything more than I have a dozen times already, and – ”
“I understand,” he interrupted. “I know, it’s hard not to be able to tell her what she longs to hear. Ah, Henrietta,” and he shook his head sadly, “there isn’t a man on the face of this earth that is worthy of such a wealth of love! But how are the mother and sister? And how is the mortgage getting on?”
He was standing in front of her, and, although she was not a tall woman, their eyes were on a level. His deeply lined, thin face was so pale, that, with its white mustache, heavy, gray-white eyebrows and crown of silver-white hair, it was like an artist’s study of white against white.
As Henrietta looked into it a sudden vision came to her of the long procession of men and women who had passed through that office, stricken and fearful, their desperate eyes pleading with that one pale face for help, and a lump came in her throat. She coughed before she could speak.
“We begin to think mother is getting better,” she said, “now that she is feeling so much at ease about money matters. And the mortgage is slowly dwindling. If I have no bad luck I expect to clear it all off by the end of the summer.”
“Good! You are a splendid, plucky girl, my dear, and I’m as proud of you as your father would have been!”
CHAPTER XIII
Mildred Is Militant
The next afternoon Henrietta left her office early, in order to discharge some commissions for her sister in the shopping district. Stopping to look at a window display of spring costumes, her eye was caught by a dress that suited her taste exactly. She inspected it from both sides and went into the doorway that she might get the back view.
“What a lovely suit and how becoming it would be for me!” she thought. “I wonder if I could afford to buy it. Oh dear, no! I mustn’t even think of such a thing! It would be just that much off the mortgage payments.”
She turned away with a sigh and found herself face to face with Hugh Gordon, who glanced with a quizzical smile from her to the window.
“Did you hear one of the commandments cracking?” she laughed. “I’ve just been coveting one of those suits as hard as I could.”
“Are you going in to buy it now?” he asked with a suggestion of disappointment in his air, as if, having come upon her so unexpectedly, he disliked to lose her again at once.
“Oh, dear, no! I’m not going to buy it at all. I can’t afford it.”
“Well, then, you are wise not to buy it, and the best way is not even to think about it any more,” he said in that abrupt manner to which, although it had sometimes startled her at their first meetings, she had already grown accustomed. She had told herself more than once, indeed, that she liked it in him, it seemed so expressive of his masculine forcefulness and decision of character.
“How different you are from Mr. Brand,” she answered smiling. “He would say in such case, ‘If you want it why don’t you buy it at once? There’s no time like the present for doing the things you want to do.’”
His brows came together in a quick frown and his eyes flashed as he said: “Yes, I know that is his philosophy of life. But it’s not mine by a long ways. I think it despicable.”
His voice sounded harsh and angry and Henrietta looked up in surprise at the intensity of feeling it betrayed.
Then she remembered Dr. Annister’s suggestion and exclaimed, “Oh, by the way, I’ve a message for you!”
He listened with interest as she told him of Dr. Annister’s desire to see him and asked if he could either go there with her now or make an appointment for another day.
“It would be kind of you to go,” she added. “You have relieved my mind so much about Mr. Brand that I am hoping you can make them feel a little less anxious, too – especially Miss Annister. I suppose you know she and Mr. Brand are engaged!”
“Yes, I know it,” he answered curtly as he looked at his watch. “I have some leisure time now, a couple of hours, and I can go at once as well as not. I don’t know,” he went on doubtfully, “whether or not Miss Annister will want to see me. She is much prejudiced against me.”
Henrietta’s mind flew back to the decided opinions Mildred had advanced to the reporters, which, however, she was glad to remember, they had modified in their accounts.
“She was, some weeks ago,” Henrietta began reassuringly.
“And is yet,” he declared. “I happen to know that her feeling toward me is very hostile. And Felix has encouraged her in it.”
“She is so very much in love with Mr. Brand and so wildly anxious it would be a great kindness to give her even a little comfort,” Henrietta gently urged.
“I’ll do what I can,” he replied after a moment’s hesitation. He spoke slowly and his companion, looking up, wondered at the extremely serious expression that had come into his face.
As they entered the Annister home, Mildred and her mother were descending the stairs, dressed for the street. Henrietta looked up from the doorway and saw Mildred’s countenance transfigured with sudden joy.
The girl sprang down the steps with a cry of “Oh, Felix, Felix!” Gordon stepped in from the vestibule where his features had been blurred by the brilliant sunlight behind him, and Mildred, stricken with disappointment, threw up her hands to cover the tears she could not control, and sobbing, rushed back up the stairs. Gordon looked grimly on, his face set and scowling, as if he were gripping deep into his very soul with an iron determination.
“Come up to the drawing-room,” said Mrs. Annister, when Henrietta had presented her companion and explained their errand, “and I’ll send for Dr. Annister.”
Thither also she presently brought Mildred. But the stately air with which the girl entered the room and the haughty inclination of her head with which she acknowledged Gordon’s greeting told how little trust she expected to feel in anything he might say.
In answer to Dr. Annister’s inquiries Gordon told them, in substance, what he had already said to Henrietta and gave them, in brief, curt sentences, that seemed to spring spontaneously out of the force and simplicity of his character, the same assurances that Brand was in no danger and that he would return, safe and well, in his own good time.
“That,” he added, “is all that I can tell you, because it is all I know. But I do know that.”
“Father!” cried Mildred, springing from her chair, her slender figure militantly erect, her eyes flashing and her voice thrilling with indignation. “How can you sit there and listen to this man’s talk! Why don’t you throttle him and make him tell all he knows? It’s plain enough that if he knows this much he must know where Felix is and why he doesn’t write to me. But I see through it all! He’s got Felix locked up somewhere, perhaps in some mountain cabin in West Virginia, or perhaps he’s killed him. He ought to be arrested! If you don’t care enough for Felix to have it done I’ll telephone for the police at once and he shall not leave this house until they come!”
Her words poured forth in an angry torrent, and then, with a sobbing cry, she swept from the room. Dr. Annister leaped to his feet as if to follow her, then turned with a hand outstretched to his wife.
“You’d better go to her,” he said anxiously. “She’s hysterical and must be put to bed. I’ll be there presently. I hope you will pardon my daughter’s outburst,” he added, turning to Gordon with a little bow. “She is overwrought from having brooded over this matter much more than it deserves. I don’t share her suspicion of you and you seem to me to show every mark of a man speaking honestly what he believes to be the truth. But you will pardon me if I say I do not quite understand how it can all be true.”
They had all risen and Gordon was looking straight down into the little physician’s eyes with an expression so serious and solemn that Henrietta caught her breath, intently listening for what he was about to say.
“No,” he replied, slowly, gravely, “I do not wonder that you do not understand. Neither do I.”
Professional inquiry was in the keen glance with which Dr. Annister searched for an instant his visitor’s face and eyes. Henrietta, watching him, guessed that he was probing for some sign of mental aberration. But apparently he was satisfied on that score, for as he followed them out he gave her a reassuring pat upon the arm.
“Well,” he said more cheerfully, “since this is all you can tell us, we shall have to wait with what patience we can for Mr. Brand’s return. But I will tell you frankly, Mr. Gordon, that I, at least, have confidence in you and accept your assurances.”
He did not tell them, however, by what course of reasoning he had quickly come to this conclusion. That was something to be kept closely locked in his own breast until he should see Felix Brand again. For he had decided that the most probable key to the mystery was that his daughter’s betrothed was indulging in some secret form of debauchery, perhaps solitary drunkenness, perhaps indulgence in some drug, perhaps mere beastliness, and that this fact was known to his intimate friend, Hugh Gordon, who, in single-minded loyalty, was trying to protect him. A normal man’s disgust at such a course of conduct, thought the doctor, would explain the antipathy which he was often unable to conceal when Brand’s name was mentioned.
Henrietta thought her companion somewhat abstracted on their way down town, and unusually serious, even for him, who was accustomed to take, as she had already learned, a serious view of himself and the world. He crossed the ferry with her, and not until they had ensconced themselves in a quiet corner of the boat’s upper deck did he seem to settle the question which had been disturbing his mind. But settled she decided it must be, for he now gave himself up to enjoyment of her society.
When they landed he walked with her to her trolley car, where they stood, still talking, until the motorman began making preparations to start.
“Good-bye,” he said unsmilingly, as he held out his hand. “I shall see you again sometime, but I fear it will not be soon.”
