Part 13 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIII
The spring sun of 1875 that tanned John Barclay's face gave it a leathery masklike appearance that the succeeding years never entirely wore off. For he lived in the open by day, riding among his fields in three towns.h.i.+ps, watching the green carpet of March rise and begin to dimple in April, and billow in May. And at night he worked in his office until the midnight c.o.c.kcrow. His back was bowed under a score of burdens. But his greatest burden was the bank; for it gave him worry; and worry weighed upon him more than work. It was in April--early April when the days were raw and cloudy, and the nights bl.u.s.tery and dreary--that Barclay sat in his office one night after a hard day afield, his top-boots spattered with mud, his corduroy coat spread out on a chair to dry, and his wet gray soft hat on his desk beside him. Jane was with her parents in Minneola, and Barclay had come to his office without eating, from the stable where he left his team. The yellow lights in the street below were reflected on the mists outside his window, and the dripping eaves and cornices above him and about him seemed to mark the time of some eery music too fine for his senses, and the footfalls in the street below, hurrying footfalls of people s.h.i.+vering through the mists, seemed to be the drum beats of the weird symphony that he could not hear.
Barclay drew a watch from, the pocket of his blue flannel s.h.i.+rt, and looked at it and stopped writing and stood by the box-stove. He was looking at the door when he heard a thud on the stairs. It was followed by a rattling sound, and in a moment Adrian Brownwell and his cane were in the room. After the rather gorgeous cadenza of Brownwell's greeting had died away and Barclay had his man in a chair, Barclay opened the stove door and let the glow of the flames fight the shadows in the room.
”Well,” said Barclay, turning toward his visitor brusquely, ”why won't you renew that accommodation paper for me again?”
The Papins and the Dulangpres shrugged their shoulders and waved their hands through Brownwell rather nastily as he answered, ”Circ.u.mstances, Mr. Barclay, circ.u.mstances!”
”You're not getting along fast enough, eh?” retorted Barclay.
”Yes--and no,” returned Brownwell.
”What do you mean?” asked Barclay, half divining the truth.
”Well--it is after all our own affair--but since you are a friend I will say this: three times a week--sometimes four times a week I go out to pay my respects. Until November I stayed until nine, at Christmas we put on another hour; now it is ten-thirty. I am a man, John Barclay--as you see. She--she is an angel. Very good. In that way, yes. But,” the Papins and Dulangpres came back to his face, and he shook his head. ”But otherwise--no. There we stand still. She will not say it.”
Barclay squinted at the man who sat so complacently in the glow of the firelight, with his cane between his toes and his gloves lightly fanning the air. ”So I take it,” said John, ”that you are like the Memorial Day parade, several hours pa.s.sing a given point!”
”Exactly,” smiled back Brownwell. He drew from his pocket a diamond ring. ”She will look at it; she will admire it. She will put it on a chain, but she will not wear it. And so I say, why should I put my head in a noose here in your bank--what's the use? No, sir, John Barclay--no, sir. I'm done, sir.”
Barclay knew wheedling would not move Brownwell. He was of the mulish temperament. So Barclay stretched out in his chair, locked his hands back of his head, and looked at the ceiling through his eyelashes.
After a silence he addressed the cobwebs above him: ”Supposing the case. Would a letter from me to you, setting forth the desperate need of this accommodation paper, not especially for me, but for Colonel Culpepper's fortunes and the good name of the Hendricks family--would that help your cause--a letter that you could show; a letter,”
Barclay said slowly, ”asking for this accommodation; a letter that you could show to--to--well, to the proper parties, let us say, to-night; would--that kind of a letter help--” Barclay rose suddenly to an upright position and went on: ”Say, Mr. Man, that ought to pretty nearly fix it. Let's leave both matters open, say for two hours, and then at ten o'clock or so--you come back here, and I'll have the note for you to sign--if you care to. How's that?” he asked as he turned to his desk and reached for a pen.
”Well,” replied Brownwell, ”I am willing to try.”
And so Barclay sat writing for five minutes, while the glow of the flames died down, and the shadows ceased fighting and were still.
”Read this over,” said Barclay at length. ”You will see,” he added, as he handed Brownwell the unfolded sheets, ”that I have made it clear that if you refuse to sign our notes, General Hendricks will be compelled to close the bank, and that the examination which will follow will send him to prison and jeopardize Bob, who has signed a lot of improper notes there to cover our transactions, and that in the crash Colonel Culpepper will lose all he has, including the roof over his head--if you refuse to help us.” (”However,” snarled Barclay, at his conscience, ”I've only told the truth; for if you take your money and go and shut down on the colonel, it would make him a pauper.”)
With a flouris.h.i.+ng crescendo finale Adrian Brownwell entered the dark stairway and went down into the street. Barclay turned quickly to his work as if to avoid meditation. The scratch of his pen and the murmur of the water on the roof grew louder and louder as the evening waxed old. And out on the hill, out on Lincoln Avenue, the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house--that stately house of a father's pride and--
At ten o'clock John Barclay heard a light footstep and a rattling cane upon the stair, and Brownwell, a human whirligig of gay gestures, came tripping into the room. ”A pen, a pen,”--he cried, ”my kingdom for a pen.” He was tugging at his gloves as he spoke, and in the clatter that he made, Barclay found the blank note and pushed it toward the table's edge to Brownwell, who put his ornate copy-book signature upon it with a flourish.
When he had gone, Barclay wrote a note to Jane telling her of Molly's engagement to Brownwell, and then he sat posting his books, and figuring up his accounts. It was after midnight when he limped down the stairs, and the rain had ceased. But a biting wind like a cruel fate came out of the north, and he hurried through the deserted street, under lowering clouds that scurried madly across the stars.
But John Barclay could not look up at the stars, he broke into a limping run and head downward plunged into the gale. And never in all his life could he take a square look at Molly Culpepper's diamond ring.
As the spring deepened Bob Hendricks felt upon him at his work the pressure of two distinct troubles. One was his sweetheart's att.i.tude toward him, and the other was the increasing weakness of his father.
Molly Culpepper's letters seemed to be growing sad; also they were failing in their length and frequency--the young man felt that they were perfunctory. His father's letters showed a physical breakdown.
His handwriting was unsteady, and often he repeated himself in successive letters. The sister wrote about her father's weakness, and seemed to think he was working too hard. But the son suspected that it was worry rather than work, and that things were not going right in the bank. He did not know that the Golden Belt Wheat Company had sapped the money of the bank and had left it a husk, which at any time might crumble. The father knew this, and after the first of the year every morning when he opened the bank he feared that day would be the last day of its career.
And so it fell out that ”those that look out of the windows” were darkened, and General Hendricks rose up with the voice of the bird and was ”afraid of that which was high” and terrors were in the way. So on his head, the white blossom of the almond tree trembled; and one noon in March the stage bore to this broken, shaking old man a letter from Kansas City that ran the sword of fear into his heart and almost stopped it forever. It ran:--
”Dear General: I have just learned from talking with a banker here that an inspector is headed our way. He probably will arrive the day after this reaches you. Something must be done about that tax check of yours. The inspector should not find it in the drawer again. Once was all right, but you must get it out now. Put it in the form of a note.
Make it Carnine's note. He is good for twice that. Don't bother him with it, but make it out for ninety days, and by that time we can make another turn. But that note must be in there. Your check won't do any longer. The inspector has been gossiping about us up here--and about that check of yours. For G.o.d's sake, don't hesitate, but do this thing quick.”