Part 13 (1/2)
”No,” snapped Mrs. Nesbit--”as usual!”
The Doctor had no opinion to express; one of the family specters was engaging his attention at the moment. Presently his wife put down her paper and sat as one wrestling with an impulse. The specter on her side of the hearth was trying to keep her lips sealed. They sat while the mantel clock ticked off five minutes.
”What are you thinking?” the Doctor asked.
”I'm thinking of Dan Sands,” replied the wife with some emotion in her voice.
The foot tap of Mrs. Nesbit became audible. She shook her head with some force and exclaimed: ”O Jim, wouldn't I like to have that man--just for one day.”
”I've noticed,” cut in the Doctor, ”regarding such propositions from the gentler s.e.x, that the Lord generally tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.”
”The shorn lamb--the shorn lamb,” retorted Mrs. Nesbit. ”The shorn tom-cat! I'd like to shear him.” Wherewith she rose and putting out the light led the Doctor to the stairs.
Both knew that the spectral sentinels had used Daniel Sands and his amours only as a seal upon their lips.
The parents could speak in parables about what they felt or fancied because there was so little that was tangible and substantial for them to see. Of all the inst.i.tutions man has made--the state, the church, his commerce, his schools,--the home is by far the most spiritual. Its successes and its failures are never material. They are never evidenced in any sort of worldly goods. Only in the hearts of those who dwell in a home, or of those to whom it is dear, do its triumphs and its defeats register themselves. But in Tom Van Dorn's philosophy of life small s.p.a.ce was left for things of the spirit alone, to register. He was trying with all his might to build a home upon material things. So above all he built his home around a beautiful woman. Then he lavished upon her and about the house wherein she dwelled, beautiful objects. He was proud of their cost. Their value in dollars and cents gave these objects their chief value in his balance sheet of gain or less in footing up his account with his home. And because what he had was expensive, he prized it. Possibly because he had bought his wife's devotion, at some material sacrifice to his own natural inclinations toward the feminine world, he listed her high in the a.s.sets of the home; and so in the only way he could love, he loved her jealously. She and the rugs and pictures and furniture--all were dear to him, as chattels which he had bought and paid for and could brag about. And because he was too well bred to brag, the repression of that natural instinct he added to the cost of the items listed,--rugs, pictures, wife, furniture, house, trees, lot, and blue gra.s.s lawn. So when toward the end of the first year of his marriage, he found that actually he could turn his head and follow with his eyes a pretty petticoat going down Market Street, and still fool his wife; when he found he could pry open the eyes of Miss Mauling at the office again with his old ogle, and still have the beautiful love which he had bought with self-denial, its value dropped.
And his wife, who felt in her soul her value pa.s.sing in the heart she loved, strove to find her fault and to correct it. Daily her devotion manifested itself more plainly. Daily she lived more singly to the purpose of her soul. And daily she saw that purpose becoming a vain pursuit.
Outwardly the home was unchanged as this tragedy was played within the two hearts. The same scenery surrounded the players. The same voices spoke, in the same tones, the same words of endearment, and the same hours brought the same routine as the days pa.s.sed. Yet the home was slowly sinking into failure. And the specters that sealed the lips of the parents who stood by and mutely watched the inner drama unfold, watched it unfold and translate itself into life without words, without deeds, without superficial tremor or flinching of any kind--the specters pa.s.sed the sad story from heart to heart in those mysterious silences wherein souls in this world learn their surest truths.
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH OUR HERO STROLLS OUT WITH THE DEVIL TO LOOK AT THE HIGH MOUNTAIN
The soup had come and gone; great platters of fried chicken had disappeared, with incidental spinach and new peas and potatoes. A bowl of lettuce splashed with a French dressing had been mowed down as the gra.s.s, and the goodly company was surveying something less than an acre of strawberry shortcake at the close of a rather hilarious dinner--a spring dinner, to be exact. Rhoda Kollander was reciting with enthusiasm an elaborate and impossible travesty of a recipe for strawberry shortcake, which she had read somewhere, when the Doctor, in his nankeens, putting his hands on the table cloth as one who was about to deliver an oracle, ran his merry eyes down the table, gathering up the Adamses and Mortons and Mayor Brotherton and Morty Sands; fastened his glance upon the Van Dorns and cut in on the interminable shortcake recipe rather ruthlessly thus in his gay falsetto:
”Tom, here--thinks he's pretty smart. And George Brotherton, Mayor of all the Harveys, thinks he is a pretty smooth article; and the Honorable Lady Satterthwaite here, she's got a Maryland notion that she has second sight into the doings of her prince consort.” He chuckled and grinned as he beamed at his daughter: ”And there is the princess imperial--she thinks she's mighty knolledgeous about her father--but,” he c.o.c.ked his head on one side, enjoying the suspense he was creating as he paused, drawling his words, ”I'm just going to show you how I've got 'em all fooled.”
He pulled from his pocket a long, official envelope, pulled from the envelope an official doc.u.ment, and also a letter. He laid the official doc.u.ment down before him and opened the letter.
”Kind o' seems to be signed by the Governor of the State,” he drolled: ”And seems like the more I look at it the surer I am it's addressed to Tom Van Dorn. I'm not much of an elocutionist and never could read at sight, having come from Eendiany, and I guess Rhody here, she's kind of elocutionary and I'll jest about ask her to read it to the ladies and gentlemen!” He handed Mrs. Kollander the letter and pa.s.sed the sealed doc.u.ment to his son-in-law.
Mrs. Kollander read aloud:
”I take pleasure in handing you through the kindness of Senator James Nesbit your appointment to fill the vacancy in your judicial district created to-day by the resignation of Judge Arbuckle of your district to fill a vacancy in the Supreme Court of this State created there by the resignation of Justice Worrell.”
Looking over his wife's shoulder and seeing the significance of the letter, John Kollander threw back his head and began singing in his roaring voice, ”For we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again, shouting the battle cry of freedom,” and the company at the table clapped its hands. And while George Brotherton was bellowing, ”Well--say!” Judge Thomas Van Dorn kissed his wife and beamed his satisfaction upon the company.
When the commotion had subsided the chuckling little man, all a-beam with happiness, his pink, smooth face s.h.i.+ning like a headlight, explained thus:
”I jest thought these Maryland Satterthwaites and Schenectady Van Dorns was a-gittin' too top-lofty, and I'd have to register one for the Grand Duke of Griggsby's Station, to sort of put 'em in their place!” He was happy; and his vernacular, which always was his pose under emotional stress, was broad, as he went on: ”So I says to myself, the Corn Belt Railroad is mighty keen for a Supreme Court decision in the Missouri River rate case, and I says, Worrell J., he's the boy to write it, but I says to the Corn Belt folks, says I, 'It would shatter the respect of the people for their courts if Worrell J. should stay on the bench after writing the kind of a decision you want, so we'll just put him in your law offices at twelve thousand per, which is three times what he is getting now, and then one idear brought on another and here's Tom's commission and three men and a railroad all made happy!” He threw back his head and laughed silently as he finished, ”and all the justices concurring!” After the hubbub of congratulations had pa.s.sed and the guests had moved into the parlor of the Nesbit home, the little Doctor, standing among them, regaled himself thus:
”Politics is jobs. Jobs is friends. Friends is politics. The reason why the reformers don't get anywhere is that they have no friends in politics. They regard the people as sticky and smelly and low. Bedelia has that notion. But I love 'em! Love 'em and vote 'em!”
Amos Adams opened his mouth to protest, but the Doctor waved him into silence. ”I know your idear, Amos! But when the folks get tired of politics that is jobs and want politics that is principles, I'll open as fine a line of principles as ever was shown in this market!”
After the company had gone, Mrs. Nesbit faced her husband with a peremptory: ”Well--will you tell me why, Jim Nesbit?” And he sighed and dropped into a chair.
”To save his self-respect! Self-respect grows on what it feeds on, my dear, and I thought maybe if he was a judge”--he looked into the anxious eyes of his wife and went on--”that might hold him!” He rested his head on a hand and drew in a deep breath. ”'Vanity, vanity,' saith the Preacher--'all is vanity!' And I thought I'd hitch it to something that might pull him out of the swamp! And I happened to know that he had a sneaking notion of running for Judge this fall, so I thought I'd slip up and help him.”