CHAPTER XVIII
In Deborah's school, in the meantime, affairs had drawn to a climax. The moment had come for the city to say whether her new experiment should be dropped the following year or allowed to go on and develop. There came a day of sharp suspense when Deborah's friends and enemies on the Board of Education sat down to discuss and settle her fate. They were at it for several hours, but late in the afternoon they decided not only to let her go on the next year but to try her idea in four other schools and place her in charge with ample funds. The long strain came to an end at last in a triumph beyond her wildest hopes; when the news arrived she relaxed, grew limp, and laughed and cried a little. And her father felt her tremble as he held her a moment in his arms.
"Now, Baird," he thought, "your chance has come. For God's sake, take it while it's here!"
But in place of Baird that afternoon came men and women from the press, and friends and fellow workers. The door-bell and the telephone kept ringing almost incessantly. Why couldn't they leave her a moment's peace? Roger buried himself in his study. Later, when he was called to dinner, he found that Allan was there, too, but at first the conversation was all upon Deborah's victory. Flushed with success, for the moment engrossed in the wider field she saw ahead, she had not a thought for anything else. But after dinner the atmosphere changed.
"To hear me talk," she told them, "you'd think the whole world depended on me, and on my school and my ideas. Me, me, me! And it has been me all winter long! What a time I've given both of you!"
She grew repentant and grateful, first to her father and then to Allan, and then more and more to Allan, with her happy eyes on his. And with a keen worried look at them both, Roger rose and left the room.
Baird was leaning forward. He had both her hands in his own.
"Well?" he asked. "Will you marry me now?"
Her eyes were looking straight into his. They kept moving slightly, searching his. Her wide, sensitive lips were tightly compressed, but did not quite hide their quivering. When she spoke her voice was low and a little queer and breathless:
"Do you want any children, Allan?"
"Yes."
"So do I. And with children, what of my work?"
"I don't want to stop your work. If you marry me we'll go right on. You see I know you, Deborah, I know you've always grown like that—by risking what you've got to-day for something more to-morrow."
"I've never taken a risk like this!"
"I tell you this time it's no risk! Because you're a grown woman—formed! I'm not making a saint of you. You're no angel down among the poor because you feel it's your duty in life—it's your happiness, your passion! You couldn't neglect them if you tried!"
"But the time," she asked him quickly. "Where shall I find the time for it all?"
"A man finds time enough," he answered, "even when he's married."
"But I'm not a man, I'm a woman," she said. And in a low voice which thrilled him, "A woman who wants a child of her own!" His lean muscular right hand contracted sharply upon hers. She winced, drew back a little.
"Oh—I'm sorry!" he whispered. Then he asked her again,
"Will you marry me now?" She looked suddenly up:
"Let's wait awhile, please! It won't be long—I'm in love with you, Allan, I'm sure of that now! And I'm not drawing back, I'm not afraid! Oh, I want you to feel I'm not running away! What I want to do is to face this square! It may be silly and foolish but—you see, I'm made like that. I want a little longer—I want to think it out by myself."
When Allan had gone she came in to her father. And her radiant expression made him bounce up from his chair.
"By George," he cried, "he asked you!"
"Yes!"
"And you've taken him!"
"No!"
Roger gasped.
"Look here!" he demanded, angrily. "What's the matter? Are you mad?" She threw back her head and laughed at him.
"No, I'm not—I'm happy!"
"What the devil about?" he snapped.
"We're going to wait a bit, that's all, till we're sure of everything!" she cried.
"Then," said Roger disgustedly, "you're smarter than your father is. I'm sure of nothing—nothing! I have never been sure in all my days! If I'd waited, you'd never have been born!"
"Oh, dearie," she begged him smilingly. "Please don't be so unhappy just now—"
"I've a right to be!" said Roger. "I see my house agog with this—in a turmoil—in a turmoil!"
But again he was mistaken. It was in fact astonishing how the old house quieted down. There came again one of those peaceful times, when his home to Roger's senses seemed to settle deep, grow still, and gather itself together. Day by day he felt more sure that Deborah was succeeding in making her work fit into her swiftly deepening passion for a full happy woman's life. And why shouldn't they live here, Allan and she? The thought of this dispelled the cloud which hung over the years he saw ahead. How smoothly things were working out. The monstrous new buildings around his house seemed to him to draw back as though balked of their prey.
On the mantle in Roger's study, for many years a bronze figure there, "The Thinker," huge and naked, forbidding in its crouching pose, the heavy chin on one clenched fist, had brooded down upon him. And in the years that had been so dark, it had been a figure of despair. Often he had looked up from his chair and grimly met its frowning gaze. But Roger seldom looked at it now, and even when it caught his eye it had little effect upon him. It appeared to brood less darkly. For though he did not think it out, there was this feeling in his mind:
"There is to be nothing startling in this quiet home of mine, no crashing deep calamity here."
Only the steadily deepening love between a grown man and a woman mature, both sensible, strong people with a firm control of their destinies. He felt so sure of this affair. For now, her tension once relaxed with the success which had come to her after so many long hard years, a new Deborah was revealed, more human in her yieldings. She let Allan take her off on the wildest little sprees uptown and out into the country. To Roger she seemed younger, more warm and joyous and more free. He loved to hear her laugh these nights, to catch the glad new tones in her voice.
"There is to be no tragedy here."
So, certain of this union and wistful for all he felt it would bring, Roger watched its swift approach. And when the news came, he was sure he'd been right. Because it came so quietly.
"It's settled, dear, at last it's sure. Allan and I are to be married." She was standing by his chair. Roger reached up and took her hand:
"I'm glad. You'll be very happy, my child."
She bent over and kissed him, and putting his arm around her he drew her down on the side of his chair.
"Now tell me all your plans," he said. And her answer brought him a deep peace.
"We're going abroad for the summer—and then if you'll have us we want to come here." Roger abruptly shut his eyes.
"By George, Deborah," he said, "you do have a way of getting right into the heart of things!" His arm closed about her with new strength and he felt all his troubles flying away.
"What a time we'll have, what a rich new life." Her deep sweet voice was a little unsteady. "Listen, dearie, how quiet it is." And for some moments nothing was heard but the sober tick-tick of the clock on the mantle. "I wonder what we're going to hear."
And they thought of new voices in the house.
CHAPTER XIX
Edith was radiant at the news.
"I do hope they're not going to grudge themselves a good long wedding trip!" she exclaimed.
"They're going abroad," said Roger.
"Oh, splendid! And the wedding! Church or home?"
"Home," said Roger blissfully, "and short and simple, not a frill. Just the family."
"Oh, that's so nice," sighed Edith. "I was afraid she'd want to drag in her school."
"School will be out by then," he said.
"Well, I hope it stays out—for the remainder of her days. She can't do both, and she'll soon see. Wait till she has a child of her own."
"Well, she wants one bad enough."
"Yes, but can she?" Edith asked, with the engrossed expression which came on her pretty florid face whenever she neared such a topic. She spoke with evident awkwardness. "That's the trouble. Is it too late? Deborah's thirty-one, you know, and she has lived her life so hard. The sooner she gives up her school the better for her chances."
The face of her father clouded.
"Look here," he said uneasily, "I wouldn't go talking to her—quite along those lines, my dear."
"I'm not such an idiot," she replied. "She thinks me homely enough as it is. And she's not altogether wrong. Bruce and I were talking it over last night. We want to be closer, after this, to Deborah and Allan. Bruce says it will do us all good, and for once I think he's right. I have given too much time to my children, and Bruce to his office—I see it now. Not that I regret it, but—well, we're going to blossom out."
She struck the same note with Deborah. And so did Bruce.
"Oh, Deborah dear," he said smiling, when he found a chance to see her alone, "if you knew how long I've waited for this big fine thing to happen. A. Baird is my best chum in the world. Don't yank him gently away from us now. We'll keep close—eh?—all four of us."
"Very," said Deborah softly.
"And you mustn't get too solemn, you know. You won't pull too much of the highbrow stuff."
"Heaven forbid!"
"That's the right idea. We'll have some fine little parties together. You and A. Baird will give us a hand and get us out in the evenings. We need it, God knows, we've been getting old." Deborah threw him a glance of affection.
"Why, Brucie," she said, in admiring tones, "I knew you had it in you."
"So has Edith," he sturdily declared. "She only needs a little shove. We'll show you two that we're regular fellows. Don't you be all school and we won't be all home. We'll jump out of our skins and be young again."
In pursuance of this gay resolve, Bruce planned frequent parties to theaters and musical shows, and to Edith's consternation he even began to look about for a teacher from whom he could learn to dance. "A. Baird," he told her firmly, "isn't going to be the only soubrette in this family."
One of the most hilarious of these small celebrations came early in June, when they dined all four together and went to the summer's opening of "The Follies of 1914." The show rather dragged a bit at first, but when Bert Williams took the stage Bruce's laugh became so contagious that people in seats on every hand turned to look at him and join in his glee. Only one thing happened to mar the evening's pleasure. When they came outside the theater Bruce found in his car something wrong with the engine. He tinkered but it would not go. Allan hailed a taxi.
"Why not come with us?" asked Deborah.
"No, thanks," said Bruce. "I've got this car to look after."
"Oh, let it wait," urged Allan.
"It does look a little like rain," put in Edith. Bruce glanced up at the cloudy sky and hesitated a moment.
"Rain, piffle," he said good-humoredly. "Come on, wifey, stick by me. I won't be long." And he and Edith went back to his car.
"What a dear he is," said Deborah. Allan put his arm around her, and they looked at each other and smiled. It was only nine days to the wedding.
Out of the street's commotion came a sharp cry of warning. It was followed by a shriek and a crash. Allan looked out of the window, and then with a low exclamation he jumped from the taxi and slammed the door.
CHAPTER XX
Roger had been spending a long quiet evening at home. He had asked John to dine with him and they had chatted for a time. Then John had started up to his room. And listening to the slow shuffling step of the cripple going upstairs, Roger had thought of the quick eager feet and the sudden scampers that would be heard as the silent old house renewed its life. Later he had gone to bed.
He awakened with a start. The telephone bell was ringing.
"Nice time to be calling folks out of bed," he grumbled, as he went into the hall. The next moment he heard Deborah's voice. It was clear and sharp with a note of alarm.
"Father—it's I! You must come to Edith's apartment at once! Bruce is hurt badly! Come at once!"
When Roger reached the apartment, it was Deborah who opened the door. Her face had changed, it was drawn and gray. She took him into the living room.
"Tell me," he said harshly.
"It was just outside the theater. Bruce and Edith were out in the street and got caught by some idiot of a chauffeur. Bruce threw Edith out of the way, but just as he did it he himself got struck in the back and went under a wheel. Allan brought him here at once, while I telephoned for a friend of his—a surgeon. They're with Bruce now."
"Where's Edith?"
"She's trying to quiet the children. They all woke up—" Deborah frowned—"when he was brought in," she added.
"Well!" breathed Roger. "I declare!" Dazed and stunned, he sank into a chair. Soon the door opened and Allan came in.
"He's gone," he said. And Deborah jumped. "No, no, I meant the doctor."
"What does he say?"
"Bruce can't live," said Allan gently. In the tense silence there came a chill. "And he knows it," Allan added. "He made me tell him—he said he must know—for business reasons. He wants to see you both at once, before Edith gets that child asleep."
As they entered the room they saw Bruce on his bed. He was breathing quickly through his narrow tight-set jaws and staring up at the ceiling with a straining fixed intensity. As they entered he turned his head. His eyes met theirs and lighted up in a hard and terrible manner.
"I'm not leaving them a dollar!" he cried.
"We'll see to them, boy," said Roger, hoarsely, but Bruce had already turned to Baird.
"I make you my executor, Allan—don't need it in writing—there isn't time." He drew a sudden quivering breath. "I have no will," he muttered on. "Never made one—never thought of this. Business life just starting—booming!—and I put in every cent!" There broke from him a low, bitter groan. "Made my money settling other men's muddles! Never thought of making this mess of my own! But even in mine—I could save something still—if I could be there—if I could be there—"
The sweat broke out on his temples, and Deborah laid her hand on his head. "Sh-h-h," she breathed. He shut his eyes.
"Hard to think of anything any more. I can't keep clear." He shuddered with pain. "Fix me for them," he muttered to Baird. "George and his mother. Fix me up—give me a couple of minutes clear. And Deborah—when you bring 'em in—don't let 'em know. You understand? No infernal last good-byes!" Deborah sharply set her teeth.
"No, dear, no," she whispered. She followed her father out of the room, leaving Allan bending over the bed with a hypodermic in his hand. And when, a few moments later, George came in with his mother, they found Bruce soothed and quieted. He even smiled as he reached up his hand.
"They say I've got to sleep, old girl—just sleep and sleep—it'll do me good. So you mustn't stay in the room to-night. Stay with the kiddies and get 'em to sleep." He was still smiling up at her. "They say it'll be a long time, little wife—and I'm so sorry—I was to blame. If I'd done as you wanted and gone in their taxi. Remember? You said it might rain." He turned to George: "Look here, my boy, I'm counting on you. I'll be sick, you know—no good at all. You must stand by your mother."
George gulped awkwardly:
"Sure I will, dad." His father sharply pressed his hand:
"That's right, old fellow, I know what you are. Now good-night, son. Good-night, Edith dear." He looked at her steadily just for a moment, then closed his eyes. "Oh, but I'm sleepy," he murmured. "Good-night."
And they left him. Alone with Allan, Bruce looked up with a savage glare.
"Look here!" he snarled, between his teeth. "If you think I'm going to lie here and die you're mistaken! I won't! I won't let go! I'll show you chaps you can be wrong! Been wrong before, haven't you, thousands of times! Why be so damnably sure about me?" He fell back suddenly, limp and weak. "So damnably sure," he panted.
"We're never sure, my dear old boy," said Allan very tenderly. Again he was bending close over the bed. "We're not sure yet—by any means. You're so strong, old chap, so amazingly strong. You've given me hope—"
"What are you sticking into my arm?" But Allan kept talking steadily on:
"You've given me hope you'll pull through still. But not like this. You've got to rest. Let go, and try to go to sleep."
"I'm afraid to," came the whisper. But soon, as again the drug took hold, he mumbled in a drowsy tone, "Afraid to go to sleep in the dark.... Say, Allan—get Deborah in here, will you—just for a minute. One thing more."
When she came, he did not open his eyes.
"That you, Deborah? Where's your hand?... Oh—there it is. Just one more point. You—you—" Again his mind wandered, but with an effort he brought it back. "You and Edith," he said in a whisper. "So—so—so different. Not—not like each other at all. But you'll stick together—eh? Always—always. Don't let go—I mean of my hand."
"No, dear, no."
And with her hand holding his, she sat for a long time perfectly still. Then the baby was heard crying, and Deborah went to the nursery.
"Now, Edith, I'll see to the children," she said. "Allan says you can go to Bruce if you like."
Edith looked up at Deborah quickly, and as quickly turned away. She went in to her husband. And there, hour by hour through the night, while he lay inert with his hand in hers, little by little she understood. But she asked no question of anyone.
At last Bruce stirred a little and began breathing deep and fast.
And so death came into the family.
CHAPTER XXI
Roger went through the next two days in a kind of a stupor. He remembered holding Edith and feeling her shudder as though from a chill. He remembered being stopped in the hall by George who had dressed himself with care in his first suit with long trousers. "I just wanted you to remember," the boy whispered solemnly, "that I'm nearly sixteen and I'll be here. He said to stand by her and I will." The rest of that ghastly time was a blank, punctuated by small quiet orders which Roger obeyed. Thank God, Deborah was there, and she was attending to everything.
But when at last it was over, and Roger had spent the next day in his office, had found it impossible to work and so had gone home early, Deborah came to him in his room.
"Now we must have a talk," she said. "Allan has gone through Bruce's affairs, and there are still debts to be settled, it seems."
"How much do they come to, Deborah?"
"About five thousand dollars," she said. And for a moment neither spoke. "I wish I could help you out," she went on, "but I have nothing saved and neither has Allan. We've both kept using our money downtown—except just enough for the trip abroad—and we'll need almost all of that to settle for the funeral."
"I can manage," Roger said, and again there was a silence.
"Edith will have to come here to live," Deborah said presently. Her father's heavy face grew stern.
"I'd thought of that," he answered. "But it will be hard on her, Deborah—"
"I know it will—but I don't see anything else to be done." The deep quiet voice of his daughter grew sweet with pity as she spoke. "At least we can try to make it a little easier for her. You can take her up to the mountains and I can close her apartment. But of course she won't agree to it unless she knows how matters stand." Deborah waited a little. "Don't you think you're the best one to tell her?"
"Yes," said Roger, after a pause.
"Then suppose we go to her. I'm sleeping up there for the next few nights."
They found Edith in her living room. She had sent the nurse out, put the children to bed, and left alone with nothing to do she had sat facing her first night. Her light soft hair was disheveled, her pretty features pale and set. But the moment Roger entered he saw that she had herself in hand.
"Well, father," she said steadily. "You'd better tell me about our affairs. My affairs," she corrected herself. When he had explained, she was silent a moment, and then in a voice harsh, bitter, abrupt, "That will be hard on the children," she said. On an impulse he started to take her hand, but she drew a little away from him.
"The children, my dear," he said huskily, "will be taken care of always."
"Yes." And again she was silent. "I've been thinking I'd like to go up to the mountains—right away," she continued.
"Just our idea," he told her. "Deborah will arrange it at once."
"That's good of Deborah," she replied. And after another pause: "But take her home with you—will you? I'd rather not have her here to-night."
"I think she'd better stay, my dear."
"All right." In a tone of weariness. "Madge Deering called me up to-night. She's coming in town to-morrow, and she means to stay till I go."
"I'm glad," he said approvingly. Madge had been a widow for years. Living out in Morristown with four daughters to bring up, she had determinedly fought her way and had not only regained her hold but had even grown in strength and breadth since the death of her husband long ago. "I'm glad," he said. "You and Madge—" he paused.
"Yes, we'll have a good deal in common," Edith finished out his thought. "You look tired, dad. Hadn't you better go home now?" she suggested after a moment.
"Yes," said Roger, rising. "Good-night, my child. Remember."
In the outer hallway he found Deborah with Laura. Laura had been here several times. She was getting Edith's mourning.
"There's a love of a hat at Thurn's," she was saying softly, "if only we can get her to wear it. It's just her type." And Laura drew an anxious breath. "Anything," she added, "to escape that hideous heavy crepe."
Roger slightly raised his brows. He noticed a faint delicious perfume that irritated him suddenly. But glancing again at his daughter, trim, fresh and so immaculate, the joy of life barely concealed in her eyes, he stopped and talked and smiled at her, as Deborah was doing, enjoying her beauty and her youth, her love and all her happiness. And though they spoke of her sister, she knew they were thinking of herself, and that it was quite right they should, for it gave them a little relief from their gloom. She was honestly sorry for Edith, but she was sorrier still for Bruce, who she knew had always liked her more than he would have cared to say. She was sorrier for Bruce because, while Edith had lost only her husband, Bruce had lost his very life. And life meant so much to Laura, these days, the glowing, coursing, vibrant life of her warm beautiful body. She was thinking of that as she stood in the hall.
In the evening, at home in his study, Roger heard a slight knock at the door. He looked up and saw John.
"May I come in, Mr. Gale, for a minute?"
"Yes, my boy." John hobbled in.
"Only a minute." His voice was embarrassed. "Just two or three things I thought of," he said. "The first was about your son-in-law. You see, I was his stenographer—and while I was in his office—this morning helping Doctor Baird—I found a good deal I can do there still—about things no one remembers but me. So I'll stay there awhile, if it's all right. Only—" he paused—"without any pay. See what I mean?"
"Yes, I see," said Roger. "And you'd better stay—in that way if you like."
"Thanks," said John. "Then about his wife and family. You're to take them up to the mountains, I hear—and—well, before this happened you asked me up this summer. But I guess I'd better not."
"I don't think you'd be in the way, my boy."
"I'd rather stay here, if you don't mind. When I'm through in your son-in-law's office I thought I might go back to yours. I could send you your mail every two or three days."
"I'd like that, John—it will be a great help."
"All right, Mr. Gale." John stopped at the door. "And Miss Deborah," he ventured. "Is she to get married just the same?"
"Oh, yes, I think so—later on."
"Good-night, sir."
And John went out of the room.
When would Deborah be married? It came over Roger, when he was alone, how his family had shifted its center. Deborah would have come here to live, to love and be happy, a mother perhaps, but now she must find a home of her own. In her place would come Edith with her children. All would center on her in her grief.
And for no cause! Just a trick of chance, a street accident! And Roger grew bitter and rebelled. Bruce was not the one of the family to die. Bruce, so shrewd and vigorous, so vital, the practical man of affairs. Bruce had been going the pace that kills—yes, Roger had often thought of it. But that had nothing to do with this! If Bruce had died at fifty, say, as a result of the life he had chosen, the fierce exhausting city which he had loved as a man will love drink, then at least there would have been some sense of fairness in it all! If the town had let him alone till his time! But to be knocked down by an automobile! The devilish irony of it! No reason—nothing! Just hideous luck!
Well, life was like that. As for Edith and her children, he would be glad to have them here. Only, it would be different, the house would have to change again. He was sorry, too, for Deborah. No wedding trip as she had planned, no home awaiting her return.
So his mind went over his family.
But suddenly such thoughts fell away as trivial and of small account. For these people would still be alive. And Bruce was dead, and Roger was old. So he thought about Bruce and about himself, and all his children grew remote. "You will live on in our children's lives." Was there no other immortality? The clock ticked on the mantle and beside it "The Thinker" brooded down. And Roger looked up unafraid, but grim and gravely wondering.
CHAPTER XXII
But there was a rugged practical side to the character of Roger Gale, and the next morning he was ashamed of the brooding thoughts which had come in the night. He shook them off as morbid, and resolutely set himself to what lay close before him. There was work to be done on Bruce's affairs, and the work was a decided relief. Madge Deering, in the meantime, had offered to go with Edith and the children to the mountains and see them all well settled there. And a little talk he had with Madge relieved his mind still further. What a recovery she had made from the tragedy of years ago. How alert and wide-awake she seemed. If Edith could only grow like that.
Soon after their departure, one night when he was dining alone, he had a curious consciousness of the mingled presence of Edith and of Judith his wife. And this feeling grew so strong that several times he looked about in a startled, questioning manner. All at once his eye was caught by an old mahogany sideboard. It was Edith's. It had been her mother's. Edith, when she married, had wanted something from her old home. Well, now it was back in the family.
The rest of Edith's furniture, he learned from Deborah that night, had been stored in the top of the house.
"Most of it," she told him, "Edith will probably want to use in fitting up the children's rooms." With a twinge of foreboding, Roger felt the approaching change in his home.
"When do you plan to be married?" he asked.
"About the end of August. We couldn't very well till then, without hurting poor Edith a little, you see. You know how she feels about such things—"
"Yes, I guess you're right," he agreed.
How everything centered 'round Edith, he thought. To pay the debts which Bruce had left would take all Roger had on hand; and from this time on his expenses, with five growing children here, would be a fast increasing drain. He would have to be careful and husband his strength, a thing he had always hated to do.
In the next few weeks, he worked hard in his office. He cut down his smoking, stayed home every evening and went to bed at ten o'clock. He tried to shut Deborah out of his mind. As for Laura, he barely gave her a thought. She dropped in one evening to bid him good-bye, for this summer again she was going abroad. She and her husband, she told him, were to motor through the Balkans and down into Italy. Her father gruffly answered that he hoped she would enjoy herself. It seemed infernally unfair that it should not be Deborah who was sailing the next morning. But when he felt himself growing annoyed, abruptly he put a check on himself. It was Edith he must think of now.
But curiously it happened, in this narrowing of his attention, that while he shut out two of his daughters, a mere outsider edged closer in.
Johnny Geer was a great help. He was back in Roger's office, and with the sharp wits he had gained in his eighteen years of fighting for a chance to stay alive, now at Roger's elbow John was watching like a hawk for all the little ways and means of pushing up the business. What a will the lad had to down bodily ills, what vim in the way he tackled each job. His shrewd and cheery companionship was a distraction and relief. John was so funny sometimes.
"Good-morning, Mr. Gale," he said, as Roger came into the office one day.
"Hello, Johnny. How are you?" Roger replied.
"Fine, thank you." And John went on with his work of opening the morning's mail. But a few minutes later he gave a cackling little laugh.
"What's so funny?" Roger asked.
"Fellers," was the answer. "Fellers. Human nature. Here's a letter from Shifty Sam."
"Who the devil is he? A friend of yours?"
"No," said John, "he's a 'con man.' He works about as mean a graft as any you ever heard of. He reads the 'ads' in the papers—see?—of servant girls who're looking for work. He makes a specialty of cooks. Then he goes to where they live and talks of some nice family that wants a servant right away. He claims to be the butler, and he's dressed to look the part. 'There ain't a minute to lose,' he says. 'If you want a chawnce, my girl, come quick.' He says 'chawnce' like a butler—see? 'Pack your things,' he tells her, 'and come right along with me.' So she packs and hustles off with him—Sam carrying her suit case. He puts her on a trolley and says, 'I guess I'll stay on the platform. I've got a bit of a headache and the air will do me good.' So he stays out there with her suit case—and as soon as the car gets into a crowd, Sam jumps and beats it with her clothes."
"I see," said Roger dryly. "But what's he writing you about?"
"Oh, it ain't me he's writing to—it's you," was John's serene reply. Roger started.
"What?" he asked.
"Well," said the boy in a cautious tone, vigilantly eyeing his chief, "you see, a lot of these fellers like Sam have been in the papers lately. They're being called a crime wave."
"Well?"
"Sam is up for trial this week—and half the Irish cooks in town are waiting 'round to testify. And Shifty seems to enjoy himself. His picture's in the papers—see? And he wants all the clippings. So he encloses a five dollar bill."
"He does, eh—well, you write to Sam and send his money back to him!" There was a little silence.
"But look here," said John with keen regret. "We've had quite a lot of these letters this week."
Roger wheeled and looked at him.
"John," he demanded severely, "what game have you been up to here?"
"No game at all," was the prompt retort. "Just getting a little business."
"How?"
"Well, there's a club downtown," said John, "where a lot of these petty crooks hang out. I used to deliver papers there. And I went around one night this month—"
"To drum up business?"
"Yes, sir." Roger looked at him aghast.
"John," he asked, in deep reproach, "do you expect this office to feed the vanity of thieves?"
"Where's the vanity," John rejoined, "in being called a crime wave?" And seeing the sudden tremor of mirth which had appeared on Roger's face, "Look here, Mr. Gale," he went eagerly on. "When every paper in the town is telling these fellers where they belong—calling 'em crooks, degenerates, and preaching regular sermons right into their faces—why shouldn't we help 'em to read the stuff? How do we know it won't do 'em good? It's church to 'em, that's what it is—and business for this office. Nine of these guys have sent in their money just in the last week or so—"
"Look out, my boy," said Roger, with slow and solemn emphasis. "If you aren't extremely careful you'll find yourself a millionaire."
"But wait a minute, Mr. Gale—"
"Not in this office," Roger said. "Send 'em back, every one of 'em! Understand?"
"Yes, sir," was the meek reply. And with a little sigh of regret John turned his wits to other kinds and conditions of New Yorkers who might care to see themselves in print.
As they worked together day by day, Roger had occasional qualms over leaving John here in the hot town while he himself went up to the mountains. He even thought of writing to Edith that he was planning to bring John, too. But no, she wouldn't like it. So he did something else instead.
"John," he said, one morning, "I'm going to raise your salary to a hundred dollars a month." Instantly from the lad's bright eyes there shot a look of triumph.
"Thanks, Mr. Gale," was his hearty response.
"And in the meantime, Johnny, I want you to take a good solid month off."
"All right, sir, thank you," John replied. "But I guess it won't be quite a month. I don't feel as if I needed it."
The next day at the office he appeared resplendent in a brand-new suit of clothes, a summer homespun of light gray set off by a tie of flaming red. There was nothing soft about that boy. No, Johnny knew how to look out for himself.
And Roger went up to the farm.
CHAPTER XXIII
George met him at the station, as he had done a year before. But at once Roger noticed a difference. In the short time since his father's death certain lines had come in the boy's freckled face, and they gave him a thoughtful, resolute look. George's voice was changing. One moment it was high and boyish, again a deep and manly bass. As he kept his eyes on the horses and talked about his mother, his grandfather from time to time threw curious side glances.
"Oh, yes," George was saying, "mother's all right, she's doing fine. It was pretty bad at first, though. She wouldn't let me sit up with her any—she treated me like a regular kid. But any fellow with any sense could see how she was feeling. She'd get thinking of the accident." George stopped short and clamped his jaws. "You know, my dad did a wonderful thing," he continued presently. "Even when he was dying, and mother and I were there by his bed, he remembered how she'd get thinking alone—all about the accident. You see he knew mother pretty darned well. So he told her to remember that he was the one to blame for it. If it hadn't been for him, he said, they would have gone home in the taxi. That's a pretty good point to keep in her mind. Don't you think so?" he inquired. And Roger glanced affectionately into the anxious face by his side.
"Yes," he said, "it's a mighty good point. Did you think of it?"
"Yes, sir," George replied. "I've told it to her a good many times—that and two other points I thought of."
"What are they, son?" asked Roger.
"First," the boy said awkwardly, "about how good she was to him. And second, that she let him buy the new car before he died. He had such a lot of fun out of that car—"
On the last words the lad's changing voice went from an impressive bass to a most undignified treble. He savagely scowled.
"Those three points," he continued, in more careful measured tones, "were about all I could think of. I had to use 'em over and over—on mother when things got bad, I mean." A flush of embarrassment came on his face. "And hold her and kiss her," he muttered. Then he whipped his horses. "We've had some pretty bad times this month," he continued, loud and manfully. "You see, mother isn't so young as she was. She's well on in her thirties." A glimmer of amusement appeared in Roger's heavy eyes. "But she don't cry often any more, and with you here we'll pull her through." He shot a quick look at his grandfather. "Gee, but I'm glad you're here!" he said.
"So am I," said Roger. And with a little pressure of his hand on George's shoulder, "I guess you've had about your share. Now tell me the news. How are things on the farm?"
With a breath of evident relief, the lad launched into the animal world. And soon he was talking eagerly.
In the next few days with his daughter Roger found that George was right. She had been through the worst of it. But she still had her reactions, her spells of emptiness, bleak despair, her moods of fierce rebellion or of sudden self-reproach for not having given Bruce more while he lived. And in such hours her father tried to comfort her with poor success.
"Remember, child, I'm with you, and I know how it feels," he said. "I went through it all myself: When your mother died—"
"But mother was so much older!" He looked at his daughter compassionately.
"How old are you?" he inquired.
"Thirty-six."
"Your mother was thirty-nine," he replied. And at that Edith turned and stared at him, bewildered, shocked, brought face to face with a new and momentous fact in her life.
"Mother only my age when she died?"
"Yes," said Roger gently, "only three years older." With a twinge of pain he noticed two quite visible streaks of gray in his daughter's soft blonde hair. "And she felt as you do now—as though she were just starting out. And I felt the same way, my dear. If I'm not mistaken, everyone does. You still feel young—but the new generation is already growing up—and you can feel yourself being pushed on. And it is hard—it is very hard." Clumsily he took her hand. "Don't let yourself drop out," he said. "Be as your mother would have been if she had been left instead of me. Go straight on with your children."
To this note he could feel her respond. And at first, as he felt what a fight she was making, Roger glorified her pluck. As he watched her with her children at table, smiling at their talk with an evident effort to enter in, and again with her baby snug in her lap while she read bedtime stories to Bob and little Tad at her side, he kept noticing the resemblance between his daughter and his wife. How close were these two members of his family drawing together now, one of them living, the other dead.
But later, as the weeks wore on, she began to plan for her children. She planned precisely how to fit them all into the house in town, she planned the hours for their meals, for their going alone or with the nurse or a maid to their different private schools, to music lessons, to dancing school and uptown to the park to play. She planned their fall clothes and she planned their friends. And there came to her father occasional moods of anxiety. He remembered Bruce's grim remarks about those "simple" schools and clothes, the kind that always cost the most. And he began to realize what Bruce's existence must have been. For scarcely ever in their talks did Edith speak of anything outside of her family. Night after night, with a tensity born of her struggle with her grief, she talked about her children. And Roger was in Bruce's place, he was the one she planned with. At moments with a vague dismay he glimpsed the life ahead in his home.
George was hard at work each day down by the broken dam at the mill. He had an idea he could patch it up, put the old water-wheel back into place and make it run a dynamo, by which he could light the house and barn and run the machines in the dairy. In his new rôle as the man of his family, George was planning out his career. He was wrestling with a book entitled "Our New Mother Earth" and a journal called "The Modern Farm." And to Roger he confided that he meant to be a farmer. He wanted to go in the autumn to the State Agricultural College. But when one day, very cautiously, Roger spoke to Edith of this, with a hard and jealous smile which quite transformed her features, she said,
"Oh, I know all about that, father dear. It's just a stage he's going through. And it's the same way with Elizabeth, too, and her crazy idea of becoming a doctor. She took that from Allan Baird, and George took his from Deborah! They'll get over it soon enough—"
"They won't get over it!" Roger cried. "Their dreams are parts of something new! Something I'm quite vague about—but some of it has come to stay! You're losing all your chances—just as I did years ago! You'll never know your children!"
But he uttered this cry to himself alone. Outwardly he only frowned. And Edith had gone on to say,
"I do hope that Deborah won't come up this summer. She's been very good and kind, of course, and if she comes she'll be doing it entirely on my account. But I don't want her here—I want her to marry, the sooner the better, and come to her senses—be happy, I mean. And I wish you would tell her so."
Within a few days after this Deborah wrote to her father that she was coming the next week. He said nothing to Edith about it at first, he had William saddled and went for a ride to try to determine what he should do. But it was a ticklish business. For women were queer and touchy, and once more he felt the working of those uncanny family ties.
"Deborah," he reflected, "is coming up here because she feels it's selfish of her to stay away. If she marries at once, as she told me herself, she thinks Edith will be hurt. Edith won't be hurt—and if Deborah comes, there'll be trouble every minute she stays. But can I tell her so? Not at all. I can't say, 'You're not wanted here.' If I do, she'll be hurt. Oh Lord, these girls! And Deborah knows very well that if she does get married this month, with Laura abroad and Edith up here and only me at the wedding, Edith will smile to herself and say, 'Now isn't that just like Deborah?'"
As Roger slowly rode along a steep and winding mountain road, gloomily he reflected to what petty little troubles a family of women could descend, so soon after death itself. And he lifted his eyes up to the hills and decided to leave this matter alone. If women would be women, let them settle their own affairs. Deborah was due to arrive on the following Friday evening. All right, let her come, he thought. She would soon see she was in the way, and then in a little affectionate talk he would suggest that she marry right off and have a decent honeymoon before the school year opened.
So he dismissed it from his mind. And as he listened in the dusk to the numberless murmuring voices of living creatures large and small which rose out of the valley, and as from high above him the serenity of the mountains there towering over thousands of years stole into his spirit, Roger had a large quieting sense of something high and powerful looking down upon the earth, a sense of all humanity honeycombed with millions upon millions of small sorrows, absorbing joys and hopes and fears, and in spite of them all the Great Life sweeping on, with no Great Death to check its course, no immense catastrophe, all these little troubles like mere tiny specks of foam upon the surface of the tide.
Deborah's visit, the following week, was as he had expected. Within an hour after her coming he could feel the tension grow. Deborah herself was tense, both from the work she had left in New York where she was soon to have five schools, and from the thought of her marriage, only a few weeks ahead. She said nothing about it, however, until as a sisterly duty Edith tried to draw her out by showing an interest in her plans. But the cloud of Bruce's death was there, and Deborah shunned the topic. She tried to talk of the children instead. But Edith at once was on the defensive, vigilant for trouble, and as she unfolded her winter plans she grew distinctly brief and curt.
"If Deborah doesn't see it now, she's a fool," her father told himself. "I'll just wait a few days more, and then we'll have that little talk."
CHAPTER XXIV
It had rained so hard for the past two days that no one had gone to the village, which was nearly three miles from the farm. But when the storm was over at last, George and Elizabeth tramped down and came back at dusk with a bag full of mail. Their clothes were mud-bespattered and they hurried upstairs to change before supper, while Roger settled back in his chair and spread open his New York paper. It was July 30, 1914.
From a habit grown out of thirty odd years of business life, Roger read his paper in a fashion of his own. By instinct his eye swept the page for news dealing with individual men, for it was upon people's names in print that he had made his living. And so when he looked at this strange front page it gave him a swift twinge of alarm. For the news was not of men but of nations. Austria was massing her troops along the Serbian frontier, and Germany, Italy, Russia, France and even England, all were in a turmoil, with panics in their capitals, money markets going wild.
Edith came down, in her neat black dress with its narrow white collar, ready for supper. She glanced at her father.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Look at this." And he tossed her a paper.
"Oh-h-h," she murmured softly. "Oh, how frightful that would be." And she read on with lips compressed. But soon there came from a room upstairs the sudden cry of one of her children, followed by a shrill wail of distress. And dropping the paper, she hurried away.
Roger continued his reading.
Deborah came. She saw the paper Edith had dropped, picked it up and sat down to read, and there were a few moments of absolute silence. Then Roger heard a quivering breath, and glancing up he saw Deborah's eyes, intent and startled, moving down the columns of print in a swift, uncomprehending way.
"Pretty serious business," he growled.
"It can't happen!" she exclaimed.
And they resumed their reading.
In the next three days, as they read the news, they felt war like a whirlpool sucking in all their powers to think or feel, felt their own small personal plans whirled about like leaves in a storm. And while their minds—at first dazed and stunned by the thought of such appalling armies, battles, death and desolation—slowly cleared and they strove to think, and Roger thought of business shivered to atoms in every land, and Deborah thought of schools by thousands all over Europe closing down, in cities and in villages, in valleys and on mountain sides, of homes in panic everywhere, of all ideals of brotherhood shaken, bending, tottering—war broke out in Europe.
"What is this going to mean to me?"
Millions of people were asking that. And so did Roger and Deborah. The same night they left for New York, while Edith with a sigh of relief settled back into her family.
The next morning at his office Roger found John waiting with misery stamped on his face. John had paid small heed to war. Barely stopping for sleep in the last two days he had gone through scores and hundreds of papers, angrily skipping all those names of kings and emperors and czars, and searching instead for American names, names of patrons—business! Gone! Each hour he had been opening mail and piling up letters cancelling contracts, ordering service discontinued.
Roger sat down at his desk. As he worked and figured and dictated letters, glancing into the outer rooms he saw the long rows of girls at tables obviously trying to pretend that there was work for them to do. He felt them anxiously watching him—as in other offices everywhere millions of other employees kept furtively glancing at their chiefs.
"War," he thought. "Shall I close down?" He shrank from what it would mean to those girls. "Business will pick up again soon. A few days—weeks—that's all I need."
And he went to his bank. No credit there. He tried other sources, all he could think of, racking his brains as he went about town, but still he could not raise a loan. Finally he went to the firm which had once held a mortgage on his house. The chief partner had been close to Bruce, an old college friend. And when even this friend refused him aid, "It's a question of Bruce's children," Roger muttered, reddening. He felt like a beggar, but he was getting desperate. The younger man had looked away and was nervously tapping his desk with his pen.
"Bad as that, eh," he answered. "Then I guess it's got to be done." He looked anxiously up at Roger, who just at that moment appeared very old. "Don't worry, Mr. Gale," he said. "Somehow or other we'll carry you through."
"Thank you, sir." Roger rose heavily, feeling weak, and took his departure. "This is war," he told himself, "and I've got to look after my own."
But he had a sensation almost of guilt, as upon his return to his office he saw those suddenly watchful faces. He walked past them and went into his room, and again he searched for ways and means. He tried to see his business as it would be that autumn, to see the city, the nation, the world as it would be in the months ahead. Repeatedly he fought off his fears. But slowly and inexorably the sense of his helplessness grew clear.
"No, I must shut down," he thought.
On his way home that evening, in a crush at a turbulent corner he saw a big truck jam into a taxi, and with a throb of rebellion he thought of his son-in-law who was dead. Just the turn of a hair and Bruce might have lived and been here to look after the children! At the prospect of the crisis, the strain he saw before him, Roger again felt weak and old. He shook off his dread and strode angrily on.
In his house, the rooms downstairs were still dismantled for the summer. There was emptiness and silence but no serenity in them now, only the quiet before the storm which he could feel from far and near was gathering about his home. He heard Deborah on the floor above, and went up and found her making his bed, for the chambermaid had not yet come. Her voice was a little unnatural.
"It has been a hard day, hasn't it. I've got your bath-room ready," she said. "Don't you want a nice cool bath? Supper will be ready soon."
When, a half hour later, somewhat refreshed, Roger came down to the table, he noticed it was set for two.
"Isn't Allan coming?" he asked. Her mobile features tightened.
"Not till later," she replied.
They talked little and the meal was short. But afterwards, on the wooden porch, Deborah turned to her father,
"Now tell me about your office," she said.
"There's not enough business to pay the rent."
"That won't last—"
"I'm not so sure."
"I am," she said determinedly. Her father slowly turned his head.
"Are you, with this war?" he asked. Her eyes met his and moved away in a baffled, searching manner. "She has troubles of her own," he thought.
"How much can we run the house on, Deborah?" he asked her. At first she did not answer. "What was it—about six thousand last year?"
"I think so," she said restlessly. "We can cut down on that, of course—"
"With Edith and the children here?"
"Edith will have to manage it! There are others to be thought of!"
"The children in your schools, you mean."
"Yes," she answered with a frown. "It will be a bad year for the tenements. But please go on and tell me. What have you thought of doing?"
"Mortgage the house again," he replied. "It hasn't been easy, for money is tight, but I think I'll be able to get enough to just about carry us through the year. At home, I mean," he added.
"And the office?"
"Shut down," he said. She turned on him fiercely.
"You won't do that!"
"What else can I do?"
"Turn all those girls away?" she cried. At her tone his look grew troubled.
"How can I help myself, Deborah? If I kept open it would cost me over five hundred a week to run. Have I five hundred dollars a week to lose?"
"But I tell you it won't last!" she cried, and again the baffled, driven expression swept over her expressive face. "Can't you see this is only a panic—and keep going somehow? Can't you see what it means to the tenements? Hundreds of thousands are out of work! They're being turned off every day, every hour—employers all over are losing their heads! And City Hall is as mad as the rest! They've decided already down there to retrench!"
He turned with a quick jerk of his head:
"Are they cutting you down?" She set her teeth:
"Yes, they are. But the work in my schools is going on—every bit of it is—for every child! I'm going to find a way," she said. And he felt a thrill of compassion.
"I'm sorry to hear it," he muttered.
"You needn't be." She paused a moment, smiled and went on in a quieter voice: "Don't think I'm blind—I'm sensible—I see you can't lose five hundred a week. But why not try what other employers, quite a few, have decided to do? Call your people together, explain how it is, and ask them to choose a committee to help you find which ones need jobs the most. Keep all you can—on part time, of course—but at least pay them something, carry them through. You'll lose money by it, I haven't a doubt. But you've already found you can mortgage the house, and remember besides that I shall be here. I'm not going to marry now"—her father looked at her quickly—"and of course I'll expect to do my share toward meeting the expenses. Moreover, I know we can cut down."
"Retrench," said Roger grimly. "Turn off the servants instead of the clerks."
"No, only one of them, Martha upstairs—and she is to be married. We'll keep the cook and the waitress. Edith will have to give up her nurse—and it will be hard on her, of course—but she'll have to realize this is war," Deborah said sharply. "Besides," she urged, "it's not going to last. Business everywhere will pick up—in a few weeks or months at most. The war can't go on—it's too horribly big!" She broke off and anxiously looked at him. Her father was still frowning.
"I'm asking you to risk a good deal," she continued, her voice intense and low. "But somehow, dearie, I always feel that this old house of ours is strong. It can stand a good deal. We can all of us stand so much, as soon as we know we have to." The lines of her wide sensitive mouth tightened firmly once again. "It's all so vague and uncertain, I know. But one thing at least is sure. This is no time for people with money—no matter how little—to shut themselves up in their own little houses and let the rest starve or beg or steal. This is the time to do our share."
And she waited. But he made no reply.
"Every nation at war is doing it, dad—become like one big family—with everyone helping, doing his share. Must a nation be at war to do that? Can't we be brothers without the guns? Can't you see that we're all of us stunned, and trying to see what war will mean to all the children in the world? And while we're groping, groping, can't we give each other a hand?"
Still he sat motionless there in the dark. At last he stirred heavily in his chair.
"I guess you're right," he told her. "At least I'll think it over—and try to work out something along the lines you spoke of."
Again there was a silence. Then his daughter turned to him with a little deprecating smile.
"You'll forgive my—preaching to you, dad?"
"No preaching," he said gruffly. "Just ordinary common sense."
A little later Allan came in, and Roger soon left them and went to bed. Alone with Baird she was silent a moment.
"Well? Have you thought it over?" she asked. "Wasn't I right in what I said?" At the anxious ring in her low clear voice, leaning over he took her hand; and he felt it hot and trembling as it quickly closed on his. He stroked it slowly, soothingly. In the semi-darkness he seemed doubly tall and powerful.
"Yes, I'm sure you were right," he said.
"Spring at the latest—I'll marry you then—"
Her eyes were intently fixed on his.
"Come here!" she whispered sharply, and Baird bent over and held her tight. "Tighter!" she whispered. "Tighter!... There!... I said, spring at the latest! I can't lose you, Allan—now—"
She suddenly quivered as though from fatigue.
"I'm going to watch you close down there," he said in a moment, huskily.