Part 8 (2/2)
A look of common recognition of Fenn's case pa.s.sed around the group in the corner. Fenn saw the look as he came in. He was walking painfully straight. ”I may,” he said, lapsing into the poetry that came welling from his memory and marked him for a drunken fool, ”I may,” opening his ardent eyes and glancing affectionately about, ”have been toying with 'lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon' and my feet may be 'uncertain, coy and hard to please,'” he grinned with wide amiability, ”but my head is clear as a bell.” His eyes flashed nervously about the shop, resting upon nothing, seeing everything. He spied Grant, ”h.e.l.lo, Red,” exclaimed Mr. Fenn, ”glad to see you back again. 'M back again myself. Ye crags 'n' peaks 'm with you once again.” As he nourished his silk hat he saw the consternation on Brotherton's big, moon face. Walking behind the counter he clapped both hands down on Brotherton's big shoulders.
”Georgy, Georgy,” he repeated mournfully:
”Old story, Georgy. Fight--fight, fight, then just a little, just a very little surrender; not going to give in, but just a nip for old sake's sake. Whoo-oo-oo-oo-p the skyrocket blazes and is gone, and then just another nip to cool the first and then a G.o.d d.a.m.n big drink and--and--”
He laughed foolishly and leaned forward on the counter. As his arm touched the counter it brushed the smilax covered cigar box and sent the box and the cigars to the floor.
”Henry, you fool--you poor fool,” cried Brotherton; but his voice was not angry as he said: ”If you must mess up your own affairs for Heaven's sake have some respect for Tom's!”
”Tom's love affairs and mine,” sneered the maudlin man. ”'They grew in beauty side by side.' But don't you fool yourself,” and Fenn wagged a drunken head, ”Tom's devil isn't, dead, she sleepeth, that's what she does. The maiden is not dead she sleepeth, and some day she'll wake up and then Tom's love affair will be where my love affair is.” His eyes met the doctor's. Fenn sighed and laughed fatuously and then he straightened up and said: ”Mr. George Brotherton, most wors.h.i.+pful master, Senior Warden, Grand High Potentate, Keeper of the Records and Seals--hear me. I'm going out to No. 826 Congress Street to see the fairest of her s.e.x--the fairest of her s.e.x.” Then he smiled like the flash of a burning soul and continued:
”'The cold, the changed, perchance the dead anew, The mourned, the loved, the lost.'”
And sighing a deep sigh, and again waving his silk hat in a profound bow, he was gone. The group in the store saw him step lightly into a waiting hack, and drive away out of their reach. Brotherton stood at the door and watched the carriage turn off Market Street, then came back, shaking a sorrowful head. He looked up at the Doctor and said: ”She's bluffing--say, Doctor, you know her, what do you think?”
”Bluffing,” returned the Doctor absently, then added quickly: ”Come now, George, get your voters' list! It's getting late!”
George Brotherton looked blankly at the group. In every face but the Doctor's a genuine sorrow for their friend was marked. ”Doc,” Brotherton began apologetically, ”I guess I'll just have to get you to let me off to-night!” He hesitated; then as he saw the company around him backing him up, ”Why, Doc, the way I feel right now I don't care if the whole county ticket is licked! I can't work to-night, Doc--I just can't!”
The Doctor's face as he listened, changed. It was as though another soul had come upon the deck of his countenance. He answered softly in his piping voice, ”No man could, George--after that!” Then turning to Grant the Doctor said gently, as one reminded of a forgotten purpose:
”Come along with me, Grant.” They mounted the stairs to the Doctor's office and when the door was closed the Doctor motioned Grant to a chair and piped sharply: ”Grant, Kenyon is wearing your mother's life out.
I've just been down to see her. Look here, Grant, I want to know about Margaret? Does she ever come to see you folks--how does she treat Kenyon?”
Looking at the floor, Grant answered slowly, ”Well she rode down on her wheel on his first birthday--slipped in when we were all out but mother, and cried and went on about her poor child, mother said, and left him a pair of little knit slippers. And she wrote him a birthday card the second time, but we didn't hear from her this time.” He paused. ”She never looks at him on the street, and she's just about quit speaking to me. But last winter, she came down and cried around one afternoon.
Mother sent for her, I think.”
”Why!” asked the Doctor quickly.
”Well,” hesitated Grant, ”it was when mother was first taken sick. I think father and mother thought maybe Maggie might see things different--well, about Kenyon.” He stopped.
”Maggie and you?” prompted the Doctor.
”Well, something like that, perhaps,” replied the boy.
The Doctor pushed back in his chair abruptly and cut in shrilly, ”They still think you and Margaret should marry on account of Kenyon?” Grant nodded. ”Do you want to marry her?” The Doctor leaned forward in his chair, watching the boy. The Doctor saw the flash of revulsion that spread over the youth's face before Grant raised his head, and met the Doctor's keen gaze and answered soberly, ”I would if it was best.”
”Well,” the Doctor returned as if to himself. ”I suppose so.” To the younger man, he said: ”Grant, she wouldn't marry you. She is after bigger game. As far as reforming Henry Fenn's concerned, she's bluffing.
It doesn't interest her any more than Kenyon's lack of a mother.”
The Doctor rose and Grant saw that the interview was over. The Doctor left the youth at the foot of the stairway and went out into the autumn night, where the stars could blink at all his wisdom. Though he, poor man, did not know that they were winking. For often men who know good women and love them well, are as unjust to weak women as men are who know only those women who are frail.
That night Margaret Muller sat on the porch, where Henry Fenn left her, considering her problem. Now this problem did not remotely concern the Adamses--nor even Kenyon Adams. Margaret Muller's problem was centered in Henry Fenn, County Attorney of Greeley County; Henry Fenn, who had visited her gorgeously drunk; Henry Fenn on whose handsome shoulder she had enjoyed rather keenly shedding some virtuous tears in chiding him for his broken promise. Yet she knew that she would take him back. And she knew that he knew that he might come back. For she had moved far forward in the siege of Harvey. She was well within the walls of the beleaguered city, and was planning for the larger siege of life and destiny.
About all there is in life is one's fundamental choice between the spiritual and the material. After that choice is made, the die of life is cast. Events play upon that choice their curious pattern, bringing such griefs and joys, such calamities and winnings as every life must have. For that choice makes character, and character makes happiness.
Margaret Muller sitting there in the night long after the last step of Henry Fenn had died away, thought of her lover's arms, remembered her lover's lips, but clearer and more moving than these vain things, her mind showed her what his hands could bring her and if her soul waved a duty signal, for the salvation of Henry Fenn, she shut her eyes to the signal and hurried into the house.
She was one of G.o.d's miracles of beauty the next day as she pa.s.sed Grant Adams on the street, with his carpenter's box on his arm, going from the mine shaft to do some work in the office of the attorney for the mines.
She barely nodded to Grant, yet the radiance of her beauty made him turn his head to gaze at her. Doctor Nesbit did that, and Captain Morton, and d.i.c.k Bowman,--even John Kollander turned, putting up his ear trumpet as if to hear the glory of her presence; the whole street turned after her as though some high wind had blown human heads backward when she pa.s.sed.
<script>