Part 7 (1/2)

Helmar nodded. Between man and man, he was no believer in striving to break bad news gently. ”It's your father, Jack,” he said. ”He died this morning. It was very sudden. Doctor Morrison was there. It was his heart. There was nothing that could be done. And he didn't suffer, Jack; and that means a great deal.”

He stopped, making no empty protestations of sympathy. Carleton, turning on his heel, stepped quickly to the window, and stood, with his back to Helmar, gazing blankly out into the street. Presently he turned again; his eyes were moist; and his voice, when he spoke, was pitched low. ”The poor old Governor,” he said. ”He was awfully good to me. I never thought--I wish now--I wish somehow I'd been different with him.”

With the vast freemasonry of experience Helmar divined his thoughts. ”I know, Jack,” he said, ”I know how I felt when my father died. I've known since, a hundred times, what sons and daughters might be to their parents, but somehow we're not. It's just the fact of being young, I suppose. We don't understand; we don't appreciate--until it's too late; and then we never can repay; only remember, I suppose, when we have children of our own, that we've got to make allowances, too--”

He broke off abruptly, and for a moment there was silence. Then, with evident constraint, he spoke again. ”Doctor Morrison was coming up here himself, Jack,” he said, ”but I asked him to let me come instead. There was something I wanted to tell you especially--about the estate. Henry has told Doctor Morrison that in the panic your father lost about everything he had, so that practically there's nothing left. I wanted to tell you first--”

Carleton nodded, but the expression on his face showed no new emotion.

”Thank you, Franz,” he said, ”I understand, and I appreciate; you've always been a good friend to me. But I don't care about the money; it isn't that; I only wish--”

In spite of himself his voice faltered and broke, and he again turned hastily away, while Helmar waited in silence, scarce knowing what to do or say. At length Carleton turned to him once more, speaking as one speaks only to a tried friend, his voice steady enough now, yet hardly sounding like his own. ”Memory's a queer thing, Franz,” he said. ”Of all that I remember about my father, what do you suppose comes back to me now? Something that happened almost twenty years ago, when we used to spend our summers down at the sh.o.r.e. A little trivial thing, too, I suppose any one would say. I was just a youngster then--nine or ten, maybe--and we had two little sail-boats that were the apple of my eye.

Poor enough craft I guess they were, looking back at them now, but no two cup defenders to-day could look to me as those two boats did then.

”I wasn't considered big enough to go out in them alone, but one Sat.u.r.day afternoon my father promised me that if Henry, when he came down from town, would take one boat, I could take the other, and we could have a race. As long as I live, I'll never forget that morning. A thousand times I looked out to where the two boats lay moored; crazy with excitement; planning everything; the start, the course; looking at the wind; right on edge--and somehow it never even occurred to me that Henry wouldn't want to go. I suppose I honestly couldn't imagine that any man, woman or child could possibly refuse a chance to sail a boat race.

”Well, Henry arrived, and you can imagine what Henry did. He hated me even then; I believe he'd always hated me, though of course I didn't realize it. Poor little rascal that I was, I'd never learned to think about hating any one. He heard me out--I can even remember how I grabbed hold of him as he was getting out of the station wagon, and how he shook me off, too--and then he looked at me with a queer kind of a smile that wasn't really a smile--I can imagine now just what fun it must have been for him--and said he was afraid there wasn't wind enough to go sailing.

That was just to tantalize me--to see me argue and run out on the piazza and point to the ripples and the big American flag on the Island waving in the breeze--and then he had to turn away, and pretend to yawn, and say he didn't believe he cared to go, that anyway he was going over to the Country Club to play tennis. And then he went into the house to get ready, and left me out there on the piazza alone.

”I can laugh now, and shrug my shoulders at the whole thing, but then--why, it was black tragedy for me. I guess I was a pretty solemn-looking little chap, swallowing hard and trying not to cry, when my father found me there half an hour later. He'd been fis.h.i.+ng all the morning, I remember, and I guess he was good and tired--he hadn't been well that summer, anyway--and he had a cigar in his mouth, and had his hand on the long piazza chair, just going to pull it into the shade, and settle down with a book and a paper for a nice, quiet afternoon. I told him, I remember, and he looked at his chair, and looked out on the water--the sun was strong, and pretty hot, and to tell the truth, though there was a little light air close to sh.o.r.e, about a quarter of a mile out to sea it was getting rather flat--and then he looked again at his chair, and then at me, and then he put down his book and his paper, and drew me up to him with one hand, and gave a smile--that was a smile.

”'Come on, my old sailor,' he said 'and we'll see if we can't have a little boat race of our own.' Oh, how my heart jumped--the poor old Governor, I think my expression must pretty nearly have paid him--and then we toiled down over the rocks, with me hanging to his hand, the way a kid that really likes his father will; and out we went in the skiff, with me doing the rowing, splas.h.i.+ng and jerking, and very proud, and then we got up sail, and drifted around the little course for a couple of hours--I can remember how hot it was--and of course I won. I didn't dream then that he let me, and perhaps, for him to hear me telling my mother about it over and over again at the supper table--perhaps--”

He stopped, unable to go on, and then, after a little pause, he added half-wistfully, in a voice that shook in spite of him, ”It's queer, Helmar--isn't it?--how a little thing like that can stand out in your memory, and so many other things you utterly forget. It's just the--what is the word--just the _kindness_ of it--d.a.m.n it all--” and self-restraint at last giving way, he buried his face in his hands, and for the first time in many a long year, cried like a child.

Helmar for a moment stood still in troubled silence; then turned upon his heel, and softly left the room.

CHAPTER VII

A PARTING

”For of fortunes sharpe adversite, The worst kind of infortune is this,-- A man that hath been in prosperite, And it remember when it pa.s.sed is.”

_Chaucer._

Marjory Graham rose from her seat as Carleton entered the room, her hand outstretched in friendly greeting. ”I'm glad you came out, Jack,” she said, ”it's seemed like a long time.”

Carleton, as he seated himself, unconsciously kept his eyes fixed on the girl's face, thinking to himself that he had never seen her looking prettier, or more charming. He gave a nod of a.s.sent. ”It _has_ been a long time,” he answered, ”but you know how much has happened. I should have come before, but I thought I'd wait until things were settled first.”

The girl looked at him, with sympathy in her glance. ”I was so sorry, Jack,” she said, ”about your father.”

He nodded again. ”I know you were, Marjory,” he answered, ”you were always kind to him, and he valued your friends.h.i.+p, I know. He used to speak to me about you, many a time. And I never dreamed--he seemed so well--it's so hard for me to realize, even now, that we'll never see him again.”

There followed a moment's silence. And then the girl spoke once more.

”And I'm sorry, Jack, about all the rest, too.”

His answering glance was grateful enough, yet somehow he appeared to wince a little at her words. ”You needn't be, Marjory,” he said, ”because I don't deserve it. I've made a fool of myself. Your father told you everything, I suppose.”

”Yes, Jack, he told me,” she answered, ”I don't think he liked doing it--he hates talking about other people's business--but he said you asked him to.”

”Yes, I wanted him to,” Carleton a.s.sented. ”I wanted you to know all about it, before I came out. I thought I'd make a clean breast of things. I've paid my debts, thank Heaven, but I'm left practically without a cent; I'm no better than a beggar. And I'm living in a lodging-house, down-town. Quite a change, all right, from the Mayflower.”

Her face clouded. ”I won't bother you with sympathy, Jack,” she said, ”if you don't want me to; but I am awfully sorry, just the same; I've thought of you so many times. And Jack,” she added, ”I wish you'd promise me to think more about yourself now. You've been through such a lot, and really you don't look well at all. You're thin, and tired-looking, and different--somehow--every way.”