There was a single day of incredulity and suspense, and then the fact of Adam Lawton’s financial downfall was made public through the papers, together with the names of those who had been swept from their feet in his company. As to his physical collapse, it was merely stated that he was ill at his department in the St. Hilaire, denied himself to all visitors, and would hold no communication even with his lawyer or business associates.
Few people sink alone in a financial maelstrom, and Lawton was not one of these; so that the cries and muttered imprecations of those who, unlike her father, were conscious and battling for life in trying to find and cling to bits of the wreckage reached Brooke and rang in her ears, partially deafening her to her own thoughts.
It was not until noon of the second day that she had succeeded in getting her mother to leave her post and see Mr. Dean in the library. At first Brooke had hoped to keep the knowledge of the real cause of her father’s illness from her mother, for a few days at least, but it was of no use; every one in the great hotel was aware of the facts, even though it made no difference in the attitude of the employees, for with a certain class of people, and a fairly intelligent one at that, failures are often interpreted merely as an odd trick in the game of finance now played. One of the important morning papers even went so far as to print a thinly veiled hint that Adam Lawton’s seclusion and supposed illness was a very subtle excuse for gaining time or allowing him to forget much that it would be extremely inconvenient to be called upon to remember at this juncture.
Mrs. Lawton had gone through her ordeal with Mr. Dean very quietly; she heard his explanation—that is, as far as anything that might be said could be called such, but its full meaning had not yet dawned upon her; and being utterly worn out she allowed herself to be tucked up on the lounge in Brooke’s room, where she fell into an exhausted sleep, under the soothing touch of her daughter’s fingers.
Lucy Dean, coming in during the late afternoon, for she had remained with her friend since the first and had only gone out for a walk, found Brooke sitting bolt upright in her father’s chair in the den, a newspaper that rested on the desk crumpled in one hand, and a dangerous light in her eyes.
“Have you seen this?” she asked Lucy, in a voice that was fairly hoarse from suppression, as she pointed to the insinuating article which bore the double significance of being semi-editorial in form,—“and appearing in the Daily Forum, too, the paper that father always thought the most sound and moderate. Oh, how I wish that I could get hold of some one and make them believe at least that father is truly ill and knows absolutely no one, not even mother and me!”
“Brooke Lawton, if you are going to read all the papers say or hint about your affairs during the next few weeks, you will give me a chance to look up a sanatorium, with nice cool bars for you to snub your nose against, which won’t improve its shape. Don’t read the papers; if the things aren’t true, why bother, and if some of them are, what are you going to do about it?”
Lucy had been astonishingly quiet and sympathetic for nearly twenty-four hours, but a long walk in the fresh air had raised her indomitable animal spirits to the top again, and though they sometimes made Brooke catch her breath and gasp, like too crude a stimulant, they were under the circumstances probably the best counterbalance and tonic she could have had.
“Of course,” Lucy continued, “if it was a purely social affair, I could get Charlie Ashton to stuff the papers to the limit. If he is my cousin, I must say that he managed to syndicate the account of the Parkses’ musicale most adroitly (of course, though, you didn’t read that yesterday). The main description—gowns and all that—was the same in each, but Charlie contrived to let each reporter have some extra item that fitted his paper specially. A little more about the music for one, details of the picture gallery for another, the brand of champagne used for a third, upholstery for a fourth, and so on. Come to think of it, I remember something about his saying that a reporter on the Daily Forum was a chum of his at Harvard. I might try and see what Charlie can do, but I’m afraid, as far as serious news goes, even his chum wouldn’t swallow him.”
“Oh, Lucy, Lucy! can’t you see it is not stuffing and swallowing that I want, but for people to know that father is really ill and not shamming—that we are not all combining in a dreadful game of deceit?”
“Do be content, child, to let the talk wear itself out. From what the doctor told my father this morning, your father may be a long time like this—weeks and months perhaps—even if by and by he comes to himself. It isn’t like a toothache that will be over to-morrow. You can’t rush out on the avenue and pull the people up here in flocks to see for themselves, though by to-morrow, just as soon as society has made up its mind what it ought to do, you’ll have plenty of callers. You told me yourself that the result of the consultation was that everything hinges on quiet.
“By the way, there were two reporters clamouring at the lift when I went out, one actually trying to bribe the boy to tell whether your father was really here in the apartment. I sent them scurrying in a hurry, I can tell you. Listen! I believe that there is another at the door now; anyway, some one is asking for you. I think I heard the words Daily Forum,” and Lucy pulled aside the curtain, and going to the angle in the hallway peered down its length to where the maid was talking in whispers to a tall somebody in pantaloons.
“Yes, it is a reporter,” said Lucy, stepping back noiselessly. “Sellers is trying to shoo him out, but he’s all inside the door and asking, not a bit humbly, to see ‘a member of the family.’ Watch and see how long it will take me to get rid of him,” and Lucy pulled on and buttoned her gloves, which, on coming in, she had begun to take off, with a gesture as though fists were to take part in the encounter, if necessary.
Brooke, who had been listening to Lucy, yet not looking at her, with eyes fixed on the crumpled paper before her, suddenly sprang to her feet, the warning flash returning to her eyes, saying: “Don’t go; I will see this man myself, and please remember, Lucy, whatever I may say or do, you are not to speak. No, don’t leave the room. I want you to stay by me, but this matter of father’s feigning illness is an affair of honour that only one of the family can conduct.”
Going quickly down the hall, she relieved the harassed maid by indicating to the visitor that he was to follow her, at the same time making a gesture to caution silence, as she guided him back to the den.
What he first saw on entering the room was the tall, straight figure of a young woman, back turned, half a hat and one cheek outlined against the lace drapery, through which she was looking into the street with a frozen fixedness, as if her very life depended upon not moving or turning the fraction of an inch. His second glance rested on the other woman, who, having preceded him, was standing by the desk corner, half supporting herself by it. She raised her head with its wreath of ash-brown hair proudly, and looked him in the face with eyes in which anger struggled with a pleading expression, in keeping with the heavy shadows that underlay them.
After moistening her lips once or twice nervously, Brooke spoke: “You asked to see one of the family, and said it was important that you should. If you are a gentleman, as you appear to be, of course you would not have come at such a time on trivial business. I am Brooke Lawton; what do you wish to ask?”
For an instant the young fellow hesitated, thoroughly abashed; he had met with a variety of experiences in following his vocation of news collecting, but never before had he felt so much like beating a retreat, or his errand seemed so intrusive. Without any special claim to good looks or great stature, he had a certain clear-cut distinctiveness of feature, a mouth that stood the harsh test of the shaved upper lip, and eyes that, though they opened lengthwise rather than wide, looked as if they would take in the surroundings and atmosphere as well as the main object on which they were focussed.
While he hesitated the newspaper which Brooke still clutched attracted him, and as he read its title he divined that Brooke had overheard the name he had just given the maid at the door and already associated him with the sneering article. Laying the card, which the maid had refused, upon the table, he said quietly, but with an earnestness that carried conviction: “I am Tom Brownell of the Daily Forum, the sheet you have in your hand. I know that there was a nasty leader in this morning’s issue that was slipped in, no one seems to know how, by some one who had animus or was hard hit in this T. Y. D. Q. deal. We pride ourselves upon getting at the truth of things that concern the public, so I have come here to settle for once and all the question of Mr. Lawton’s reported serious illness, by direct communication with some one of his family.”
“You mean that you wish to know if my father is really ill? Then people do doubt it and think he may be merely hiding to avoid inquiry?” said Brooke, who now had full control of the voice that her friends called silvery, but which now had more of steel in its ring.
“Moreover, you expect to learn the truth by asking one of his family—what will that amount to if they choose to aid and abet the illness that your paper hints is part of a well-arranged covering of a retreat? If I should tell you that night before last, while my mother and I were waiting for him to return to dinner, my father had come home, unknown to us or the maids, letting himself in with a latch-key, which he used so seldom that we had forgotten its existence; when finally, attracted by a light under the door of this room, we opened it, he was in this chair, unconscious, stricken with apoplexy, his hand by the receiver of the overturned telephone; since then, though as far as physical life goes he is living, he has neither moved nor spoken nor recognized any one, nor can he swallow, and such liquid food as he has taken is given artificially,—if I tell you all this, still how can you be sure it is the truth?”
“Please, please, Miss Lawton, I am shocked and awfully grieved and ashamed. Don’t be so hard on yourself and on me as to think that I dreamed of any such condition existing. We reporters do not rejoice in the misfortunes of others. But that it is not the time for such things, I could tell you that one of the reasons I had in beginning life in this way was to get to the bottom of things, and see if some people at least didn’t really want to tell and hear the truth in the newspapers. Of course I will believe what you tell me, and all that remains is for me to apologize for pushing in upon you and—go as quickly as possible. I only wish I could help or do something to ease you.”
“You forget that I have told you nothing,” said Brooke, hesitating and catching at the throat of her blouse as if she wished to pull it away and give herself more room to breathe—“I only said if, and if you are looking for truth, to be certain you must see it, not ask about it.” Then, as the new thought grew upon her, and she realized that her mother was asleep, the tragedy fled from her eyes, that she had fixed upon the face of the reporter,—who, fast losing his self-possession, stood looking uncomfortable and foolish, turning his hat about by its rim like an applicant for a situation,—her entire poise had altered, and she seemed several inches taller.
“Oh, Mr. Brownell, don’t you see that the only way that you can help us in telling the truth about father is by seeing for yourself? Put down your hat and come with me—” and before he had recovered from his astonishment, Brooke grasped Tom Brownell by the wrist and literally led him from the room, up the hallway, not toward the entrance but along the side passage, where the electricity had not yet been turned on and which was in a dim and uncertain light.
Pausing before the door of Adam Lawton’s room, and without releasing her hold of Brownell’s wrist, she turned the handle carefully, entered, and was standing with her companion in the shadow of the bed before the nurse at the opposite side realized that any one had come in, or could even raise her hand in caution. No one spoke, and the footsteps on the thick rug that covered the floor made no sound—the breathing of the pale figure prone upon the bed was the only vibration even of the air.
For two, perhaps three, minutes, that held an eternity of torture to Brownell, who stood with bent head, they remained, so that no detail could escape his notice. Then Brooke led him back to the den, leaving the nurse in grave doubt as to what manner of man this might be who had seemingly been forcibly led into the room where, by the doctor’s orders, no one but mother and daughter were to be admitted.
The moment that the curtains had closed behind the two, Lucy Dean turned from the window with a suddenness that might be described as a bang, except that no noise went with the motion. Drawing two or three long breaths, as a relief to her suppressed speech, she crossed the room and picked up the reporter’s card, turned it over and over and, reading the name with deliberation, put it in her pocket. “Thomas Brownell, Jr., the Daily Forum,” she repeated, at the same time making a mental note that the card itself was of good quality and engraved, not printed, an unusual occurrence with the average reporter. Spying his hat, she next seized upon that, discovering at a single glance the name of a maker of good repute and Brownell’s own address, at a comfortable though inexpensive bachelor inn, stamped in gilt letters on the band. Hearing a slight rustling in the hall, she returned to her post by the window, but, instead of standing, she had thrown herself into a chair, half facing the room, by the time that the two returned.
Nothing further was said as to what had been seen. Brownell picked up his hat, preparing to leave as quickly as possible, yet he could not but notice that Lucy Dean, who by this time had turned wholly toward the room, was looking at him with an expression half quizzical, half challenging.
Brooke dropped wearily into the chair by the desk; the strain of the last hour had been greater than what she actually felt; she had been hurried swiftly to face stern realities, which all her life, though through no choice of her own, had been to her a side issue in which she took no part or responsibility, and which she was never allowed to question. Then, seeing that the reporter was standing and evidently at a loss how to go, she went forward with extended hand, saying, very gently, “Good-by. I think I may trust you not to misunderstand my father’s illness now.” Turning to the figure by the window, now all on the alert, she said, “Lucy, dear, will you please show Mr. Brownell the way out, there are so many turns in this inner hall?” Then, as Lucy raised her eyebrows in disgusted question marks, Brooke continued, “Ah, forgive me! this is my dear friend, Miss Dean, Mr. Brownell, and”—a little smile hovered around the comers of her mouth in spite of herself—“you may be very sure that she will never tell you anything but the whole truth!”
Then, as the two girls changed places and Lucy led the way down the main hall, Brooke reseated herself before the desk, that might tell so much if it only could, folded her arms upon it, hiding her weary eyes in them. Had she done right or wrong in letting a stranger see her father’s real condition? Would it make outside conditions better or worse? Why had the doctor given out such evasive bulletins? Well, the die was cast, and something within told her that from that hour, when she had taken the family responsibility upon herself, she would have to bear it.
As Tom Brownell crossed the rug that lay before the outer door of the Lawton apartment, something between it and the tiled flooring slid under the pressure of his foot. Checking his first impulse to pass on and get out as quickly as possible, he turned back, even though the door itself was open, and, lifting the corner of the rug, picked up two thin keys, one smaller than the other, that were joined by a steel ring. Accustomed to fit two and two together rapidly, he involuntarily glanced at the spring lock on the door to see if they belonged to it, but found it of a different pattern. Stepping outside, the better to see by the hanging electric light, he found that the keys bore no name or mark other than figures, probably the factory number of keys of a fine make. Turning to Lucy, who had already come into the main hall and, half closing the door behind her, was watching him, he muttered a hasty apology for his curiosity concerning the keys, saying: “To me unfamiliar keys have always had a strange fascination, for all my life I have expected to find one that would unlock a mystery. These probably belong to some of Mrs. or Miss Lawton’s possessions—a travelling bag or jewel case. Will you please take charge of them? And thank you for showing me the way out,” turning up the corridor as he spoke.
“You needn’t thank me for showing you the way, as you evidently don’t know it,” said Lucy; “that is, unless you have professional reasons for going down in the luggage lift with trunks, baby wagons, clothes-baskets, and scrubbing pails. No, you needn’t raise your eyebrows, I’m not English or infected with Anglomania either, simply I’m to the point, and luggage lift is a much more smooth and pronounceable expression than baggage elevator, don’t you think?
“To the right—there you are! Not running? Why, the thing was all right when I came in not an hour ago, but I’ve noticed that the power has a way of giving out, or the machinery needs oiling, about the time the man might be supposed to want an afternoon nap. You’ll have to walk downstairs. Good afternoon. Oh, by the way, do you happen to know Charlie Ashton? I beg his pardon, Carolus, though I only promised to call him that at his studio teas. He had a chum at college, he said, with a literary and reformatory streak, who a year ago had cut away from his father’s business, and incidentally his own fortune, and was climbing into journalism, not in at the top story, but up the cellar stairs. I’ve rather forgotten his name. He doesn’t chance to be you, does he?”
“I’m afraid he does, and that Ashton has guyed me unmercifully to you, in spite of all the good turns that he has done me. But as I am myself, you must be his cousin, Miss Dean, of whom he talks so much at the club. I did not quite catch what name Miss Lawton said.”
“I am Lucy Dean, and I dare say that he has talked about me even at so reprehensible a place as the club. Talking about me, I fear, is a bad habit that a great many of my friends have. I also know that he didn’t call me Miss Dean. What club was it? What did he call me? Lucyfer is his pet title—and what did he say?”
“Oh, Miss Dean, it wasn’t the way you mean at all. I was lunching, at his invitation, with him at the Players,—quite by ourselves on my word, and—he—well, he did call you Lucyfer, and said it expressed your stand-off way and all that; but he declared you were the best chum a fellow ever had, and if he wanted a studio entertainment to be a corking success, he always had you pour tea. If I hadn’t been spending all my time the last year climbing up the cellar stairs, as you express it, I should have begged him to ask me to one of the teas; but I’m out of that sort of thing, for good and all, you see.”
Lucy flushed slightly, an odd thing for her, and then said suddenly, holding out her right hand, both having been held behind her, after a habit she had, until this moment: “You are keen to avoid teas, they are horribly stupid; the cigarette smoke makes one’s eyes weak, and the Saké punch does for the rest of one’s head, and unless we act like mountebanks and shock people so that they forget to be bored, no one would come twice. Ask Charlie to bring you up to the house some afternoon, as you live so near to him, about five for a cup of real tea. No, don’t thank me, it is not an invitation. It’s years since I’ve taken the responsibility of giving one to a man,—certainly not since I was eighteen; you must take the responsibility of coming upon yourself!”
“As you have never seen me until this afternoon, and I only moved over from—well, let’s call it the Borough of Queens—last month, how could you know where I live?” queried Brownell, looking up with a quizzical expression, and passing over the first part of her speech, not because he did not heed it, but for the reason of a certain Indian instinct he had of picking up trails as he went along, that helped him not a little in his work.
Lucy flushed furiously, this time to the roots of her hair, sought refuge for a single instant in subterfuge, but finding herself fairly caught, throwing her head up, stood with hands again clasped behind her, and lips parted, smiling at the man who had already gone two steps downward on the stairs when she had called the halt.
“You say that you are seeking for truth with a fountain pen and a stenographer’s note-book, also Brooke says that I always speak the truth—attention! I saw your address in your hat this afternoon!”
Brownell, who was at that moment holding his hat against his chest, looked anxiously at the top of the crown, wondering if it had become transparent.
“No, I didn’t see through the hat, it’s not my way; I looked in it when you were out of the room, because I wanted to know where it was bought! A woman can tell a great deal by that! The biped I call a man never buys a department-store hat, for instance, he’d rather wear a second-hand one first. Well, yours did not come from a department store, neither was it second-hand; in fact, it was painfully new, address and all!”
Then Lucy Dean turned on her heel with right-about-face rapidity and vanished around the corner of the corridor; while Tom Brownell, half angry, half fascinated, and wholly amazed, went down the marble stairs two steps at a time, a difficult feat, and one that would have made the very correct man at the door suspect that the visitor had been summarily ejected, if it had not been for the expression of Brownell’s face, which, by the time he reached the bottom stair, wore a decidedly satisfied smile.