Part 21 (1/2)
The thought of the quarter page advertis.e.m.e.nt overcame whatever scruples Mrs. Thurston may have had, and so long as she had the center of the stage she said her lines: ”Why I don't know a single thing--only this: that for--maybe a month or so every few days along about five or six o'clock when the roads are good I've seen him coming one way on his wheel, and go down in the country on the Adams road, and about ten minutes later from another way she'd come riding along on her wheel and go down the Adams road into the country following him. Then in an hour or so, they come back, sometimes one of them first--sometimes the other, but I've really never seen them together. She might be going to the Adamses; she boarded there once years ago.”
”Yes,--and she hates 'em!” snapped Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker derisively, and then added, ”Well, it's none of my business so long as they pay for their hats.”
”Well, my land, Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker,” quoth Lizzie, ”it's a comfort to hear some one talk sense. For two months now we've been hearing nothing but that fool Adams boy's crazy talk about unions, and men organizing to help their fellows, and--why did you know he's quit his job as boss carpenter in the mine? And for why--so that he can be a witness against the company some say; though there won't be any trial. Tom Van Dorn will see to that. He's sent word to the men that they'd better settle as the law is against them. But that Grant Adams quit his job any way and is going about holding meetings every night, and working on construction work above ground by day and talking union, union, union till Jared and I are sick of it. I tell you the man's gone daft. But a lot of the men are following him, I guess.”
Being a methodical woman Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., wrote the copy for her advertis.e.m.e.nt and let Mrs. Thurston go in peace. She went into the gathering twilight, and hurried to do a few errands before returning to South Harvey.
At the court house Mrs. Thursston met Henry Fenn coming out of the register of deeds office where he had been filing a deed to some property he had sold, and at Mr. Brotherton's Amen Corner, she saw Tom Van Dorn smoking upon the bench. The street was filled with bicycles, for that was a time when the bicycle was a highly respectable vehicle of business and pleasure. Mrs. Thurston left Market Street and a dozen wheels pa.s.sed her. As she turned into her street to South Harvey a bell tinkled. She looked around and saw Margaret Fenn making rapidly for the highway. Mrs. Thurston was human; she waited! And in five minutes Tom Van Dorn came by and went in the same direction!
An hour later Margaret Fenn came pedaling into the town from the country road, all smiling and breathless and red lipped, and full of color. As she turned into her own street she met her husband, immaculately dressed. He bowed with great punctiliousness and lifting his hat high from his head smiled a search-light of a smile that frightened his wife.
But he spoke no word to her. Five minutes later, as Tom Van Dorn wheeled out of Market Street, he also saw Henry Fenn, standing in the middle of the crossing leering at him and laughing a drunken, foolish, noisy laugh. Van Dorn called back but Fenn did not reply, and the Judge saw nothing in the figure but his drunken friend standing in the middle of the street laughing.
CHAPTER XX
IN WHICH HENRY FENN FALLS FROM GRACE AND RISES AGAIN
This chapter must devote itself chiefly to a bargain. In the bargain, Judge Thomas Van Dorn is party of the first part, and Margaret Fenn, wife of Henry Fenn, is party of the second part, and the devil is the broker.
Tom Van Dorn laid hungry eyes upon Margaret Fenn; Margaret Fenn looked ravenously upon all that Van Dorn had; his talent, his position, his worldly goods, estates and chattels. He wanted what she had. He had what she wanted, and by way of commission in negotiating the bargain, the devil took two souls--not such large souls so far as that goes; but still the devil seems to have been the only one in the transaction who profited.
June came--June and the soft night wind, and the warm stars; June with its new, deep foliage and its fragrant gra.s.s and trees and flowers; June with a mocking bird singing through the night to its brooding mate; June came with its poets leaning out of windows into the night hearing love songs in the rhythmic whisper of lagging feet strolling under the shade of elms. And under cover of a June night, breathing in the sensuous meaning of the time like a charmed potion, Judge Van Dorn, who personated justice to twenty-five thousand people, went forth a slinking, cringing beast to woo!
Here and there a lamp blinked through the foliage. The footfalls of late homecomers were heard a long way off; the voices of singers--a serenading party out baying at the night--was heard as the breeze carried the music upon its sluggish ebb and flow. To avoid belated homecomers, Judge Van Dorn crossed the street; the clanging electric car did not find him with its search-light, though he felt s.h.i.+elded by its roar as he stepped over the iron railing about the Fenn home and came softly across the lawn upon the gra.s.s.
On the verandah, hidden by summer vines, he sat a moment alone, panting, breathless, though he had come up but four steps, and had mounted them gently. A rustle of woman's garments, the creaking of a screen door, the perfume that he loved, and then she stood before him--and the next moment he had her in his arms. For a minute she surrendered without struggling, without protest, and for the first time their lips met. Then she warded him off.
”No--no, Tom. You sit there--I'll have this swing,” and she slipped into a porch swing and finally he sat down.
”Now, Tom,” she said, ”I have given you everything to-night. I am entirely at your mercy; I want you to be as good to me as I have been to you.”
”But, Margaret,” he protested, ”is this being good to me, to keep me a prisoner in this chair while you--”
”Tom,” she answered, ”there is no one in the house. I've just called Henry up by long distance telephone at the Secretary of State's office in the capitol building. I've called him up every hour since he got there this afternoon, to make him remember his promise to me. He hasn't taken a thing on this trip--I'm sure; I can tell by his voice, for one thing.” The man started to speak. She stopped him: ”Now listen, Tom.
He'll have that charter for the Captain's company within half an hour and will start home on the midnight train. That will give us just an hour together--all alone, Tom, undisturbed.”
She stopped and he sprang toward her, but she fended him off, and gave him a pained look and went on as he sank moaning into his chair: ”Tom, dear, how should we spend the first whole hour we have ever had in our lives alone together? I have read and re-read your beautiful letters, dear. Oh, I know some of them by heart. I am yours, Tom--all yours. Now, dear,” he made a motion to rise, ”come here by my chair, I want to touch you. But--that's all.”
They sat close together, and the woman went on: ”There are so many things I want to say, Tom, to-night. I wonder if I can think of any of them. It is all so beautiful. Isn't it?” she asked softly, and felt his answer in every nerve in his body, though his lips did not speak. It was the woman who broke the silence. ”Time is slipping by, Tom. I know what's in your mind, and you know what's in mine. Where will this thing end? It can't go on this way. It must end now, to-night--this very night, Tom, dear, or we must know where we are coming out. Do you understand?”
”Yes, Margaret,” replied the man. He gripped his arm about her, and continued pa.s.sionately, ”And I'm ready.” In a long minute of ecstasy they were dumb. He went on, ”You have good cause--lots of cause--every one knows that. But I--I'll make it somehow--Oh, I can make it.” He set his teeth fiercely, and repeated, ”Oh, I'll make it, Margaret.”
The night sounds filled their deaf ears, and the pressure of their hands--all so new and strange--filled them with joy, but the joy was shattered by a step upon the sidewalk, and until it died away they were breathless. Then they sat closer together and the woman whispered:
”'And I'd turn my back upon things eternal To lie on your breast a little while.'”
A noise in the house, perhaps of the cat moving through the room behind them, startled them again. The man shook and the woman held her breath; then they both smiled. ”Tom--Tom--don't you see how guilty we are? We mustn't repeat this; this is our hour, but we must understand each other here and now.” The man did not reply. He who had taken recklessly and ruthlessly all of his life had come to a place where he must give to take. His fortunes were tied up in his answer, so he replied: ”Margaret, you know the situation--down town?”