Part 12 (2/2)
Tom Van Dorn was, after all, the famous Van Dorn baby!
One evening in the late winter as the Doctor was trudging home from a belated call, he saw the light in Brotherton's window marking a yellow bar across the dark street. As he stepped in for a word with Mr.
Brotherton about the coming spring city election, he saw quickly that the laugh was in some way on Tom Van Dorn, who rose rather guiltily and hurried out of the shop.
”Seegars on George!” exclaimed Captain Morton; then answered the Doctor's gay, inquiring stare: ”Henry bet George a box of Perfectos Tom wouldn't be a year from his wedding asking 'what's her name' when the boys were discussing some girl or other, and they've laid for Tom ever since and got him to-night, eh?”
The Captain laughed, and then remembering the Doctor's relations.h.i.+p with the Van Dorns, colored and tried to cover his blunder with: ”Just boys, you know, Doc--just their way.”
The Doctor grinned and piped back, ”Oh, yes--yes--Cap--I know, boys will be dogs!”
Toddling home that night the Doctor pa.s.sed the Van Dorn house. He saw through the window the young couple in their living-room. The doctor had a feeling that he could sense the emotions of his daughter's heart. It was as though he could see her trying in vain to fasten the steel grippers of her soul into the heart and life of the man she loved. Over and over the father asked himself if in Tom Van Dorn's heart was any essential loyalty upon which the hooks and bonds of the friends.h.i.+p and fellows.h.i.+p of a home could fasten and hold. The father could see the handsome young face of Van Dorn in the gas light, aflame with the joy of her presence, but Dr. Nesbit realized that it was a pa.s.sing flame--that in the core of the husband was nothing to which a wife might anchor her life; and as the Doctor clicked his cane on the sidewalk vigorously he whispered to himself: ”Peth--peth--nothing in his heart but peth.”
A day came when the parents stood watching their daughter as she went down the street through the dusk, after she had kissed them both and told them, and after they had all said they were very happy over it. But when she was out of sight the hands of the parents met and the Doctor saw fear in Bedelia Nesbit's face for the first time. But neither spoke of the fear. It took its place by the vague uneasiness in their hearts, and two spectral sentinels stood guard over their speech.
Thus their talk came to be of those things which lay remote from their hearts. It was Mrs. Nesbit's habit to read the paper and repeat the news to the Doctor, who sat beside her with a book. He jabbed in comments; she ignored them. Thus: ”I see Grant Adams has been made head carpenter for all the Wahoo Fuel Companies mines and properties.” To which the Doctor replied: ”Grant, my dear, is an unusual young man. He'll have ten regular men under him--and I claim that's fine for a boy in his twenties--with no better show in life than Grant has had.” But Mrs.
Nesbit had in general a low opinion of the Doctor's estimates of men.
She held that no man who came from Indiana and was fooled by men who wore cotton in their ears and were addicted to chilblains, could be trusted in appraising humanity.
So she answered, ”Yes,” dryly. It was her custom when he began to bestow knighthood upon common clay to divert him with some new and irrelevant subject. ”Here's an item in the _Times_ this morning I fancy you didn't read. After describing the bride's dress and her beauty, it says, 'And the bride is a daughter of the late H. M. Von Muller, who was an exile from his native land and gave up a large estate and a t.i.tle because of his partic.i.p.ation in the revolution of '48. Miss Muller might properly be called the Countess Von Muller, if she chose to claim her rightful t.i.tle!'--what is there to that?”
The Doctor threw back his head and chuckled:
”Pennsylvania Dutch for three generations--I knew old Herman Muller's father--before I came West--when he used to sell kraut and cheese around Vincennes before the war, and Herman's grandfather came from Pennsylvania.”
”I thought so,” sniffed Mrs. Nesbit. And then she added: ”Doctor, that girl is a minx.”
”Yes, my dear,” chirped the Doctor. ”Yes, she's a minx; but this isn't the open season for minxes, so we must let her go. And,” he added after a pause, during which he read the wedding notice carefully, ”she may put a brace under Henry--the blessed Lord knows Henry will need something, though he's done mighty well for a year--only twice in eighteen months.
Poor fellow--poor fellow!” mused the Doctor. Mrs. Nesbit blinked at her husband for a minute in sputtering indignation. Then she exclaimed: ”Brace under Henry!” And to make it more emphatic, repeated it and then exploded: ”The cat's foot--brace for Henry, indeed--that piece!”
And Mrs. Nesbit stalked out of the room, brought back a little dress--a very minute dress--she was making and sat rocking almost imperceptibly while her husband read. Finally, after a calming interval, she said in a more amiable tone, ”Doctor Nesbit, if you've cut up all the women you claim to have dissected in medical school, you know precious little about what's in them, if you get fooled in that Margaret woman.”
”The only kind we ever cut up,” returned the Doctor in a mild, conciliatory treble, ”were perfect--all Satterthwaites.”
And when the Doctor fell back to his book, Mrs. Nesbit spent some time reflecting upon the virtues of her liege lord and wondering how such a paragon ever came from so common a State as Indiana, where so far as any one ever knew there was never a family in the whole commonwealth, and the entire population as she understood it carried potatoes in their pockets to keep away rheumatism.
The evening wore away and Dr. and Mrs. Nesbit were alone by the ashes in the smoldering fire in the grate. They were about to go up stairs when the Doctor, who had been looking absent-mindedly into the embers, began meditating aloud about local politics while his wife sewed. His meditation concerned a certain trade between the city and Daniel Sands wherein the city parted with its stock in Sands's public utilities with a face value of something like a million dollars. The stocks were to go to Mr. Sands, while the city received therefor a ten-acre tract east of town on the Wahoo, called Sands Park. After bursting into the Doctor's political nocturne rather suddenly and violently with her feminine disapproval, Mrs. Nesbit sat rocking, and finally she exclaimed: ”Good Lord, Jim Nesbit, I wish I was a man.”
”I've long suspected it, my dear,” piped her husband,
”Oh, it isn't that--not your politics,” retorted Mrs. Nesbit, ”though that made me think of it. Do you know what else old Dan Sands is doing?”
The Doctor bent over the fire, stirred it up and replied, ”Well, not in particular.”
”Philandering,” sniffed Mrs. Nesbit.
”Again?” returned the Doctor.
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