Part 57 (1/2)
The people's executive motored after the guest cars.
Paul Judson stood alone on the old cottage crest, surveying the overnight growth of the city toward his mountain. The houses on East Highlands had lapped closer and closer, until they broke in a spray over the foothills of the ore-rich summit.
Managing vice-president of the biggest mining business in the state, third largest land-owner in Bragg County, governor after next January!
Well, he had gotten where he had planned, sixteen uneven years ago.
He recalled vaguely the vision that he had had, when he had sat on the same crest beside Nathaniel Guild, and decided to purchase. He would bring the city, and the state, to the feet of the mountain.... He had done it.
The jutting enginehouse smokestacks, the ramp offices to the right, the snarl and screech of the loaded cars on the narrow-gauge lines, forced themselves into his attention. Not a scene of beauty; and there was a charred desolation where Hillcrest Cottage had once spread its graceful lines.
It was not the dream he had had. A man dreamed blindly; life brought to pa.s.s a subst.i.tute instead of the sought goal. It was a necessary process; since dreams must conflict, and the restless s.h.i.+ft of things constantly opened new possibilities, closed old ones. No, it was not what he had pictured.... There was no son beside him now, to take up the work in turn and pa.s.s it on to endless Judsons. Pelham.... Hollis in service, too pleased with the work to give it up.... Ned already determined to be a surgeon....
But it was a magnificent achievement.
Musing, he walked over the grayed site of the old house. His toe met an obstacle jutting in the gra.s.s. He poked it up with his cane. It was the fused handle of the Bohemian gla.s.s epergne which had been grandfather Judson's. He slipped it into his pocket to show Mary.
His wife, her face lined and colorless, as if from too many hours and years spent indoors, listened with intent attention to his account of the afternoon. Two sickly spots of color glowed at what the governor had said.
”But ... it will mean a hard contest, will it not?”
”I don't think so. The primary is the only chance for a real fight; and the Tennant crowd will stop that in advance. You'll have to brighten up a bit, Mary. You ought to do more entertaining....”
”I'm not very strong, Paul.”
His gruff ”Nonsense!” was the prelude to the further account of the planned amalgamation with National Steel. ”We're still to have control of this district; Florence and I will be elected directors. It had to come; compet.i.tion is waste; cooperation is the modern method.”
His wife sat with her eyes intent upon the melted fragment of colored gla.s.s in her hand. She turned it this way and that, up before the fading light, seeking what semblance of the colorful old token of Jackson life remained in it, what part was merely a charred, dead fragment of happier beauty.
”So I thought,” he continued, unaware of her absorption, ”that we could entertain the visiting gentlemen and their wives at dinner to-morrow evening.”
A pinched expression of pain crossed her face. ”You have not realized, Paul, that I am frailer this spring than any time since Ned was born....”
”I mean at the Steelmen's Club, not here. It won't be any trouble....”
”I can make the effort.”
”You must see Dr. Giles. I had a talk with him about you; he says it's only nerves. If you'd quit thinking about that old fool that shot himself in my office, and those n.i.g.g.e.rs that fooled around the place until they got shot.... There's nothing really wrong with you. Nell must give up the art school; you need someone to look after you.”
”She doesn't want to come; she's happier there.”
”You ask Dr. Giles.” He went on with elaborate suggestions about the dinner; Mary Judson laid down the blackened, fused handle of gla.s.s; then held it again against the darkened light without. Hardly a glint of color remained.... That night she laid it away upon a closet shelf in one of the unused rooms of the great house.
By Friday, after a long talk with Judge Florence, Paul had made up his mind. He had his secretary wire the governor to run back to Adamsville for a consultation; he sent word to Robert Kane, who had left the directorate to succeed Pelham as state mining inspector, to meet him half an hour before the governor was due. No chance that either would fail the engagement; one crook of his little finger, and the state came at his bidding. The iron mountain had given that power to its iron master--a magnetism repellent but irresistible.
When the two builders of the mining strength rose to meet the governor, there was a subdued glitter of expectation in the eye of the younger man. He took the governor's hand with a new a.s.surance.
Bob Tennant--”Whiskey-barrel Tennant”--had sought his accustomed solace on the ride up from Jackson; his face was flushed brick-red, although his tones were still straight.
”Well, Paul--am I in the presence of the next governor?” He essayed a satisfactory bow with oldtime courtliness.