CHAPTER IX.
SENATOR ALYNTON’S COLLEAGUE.
An exciting month had slipped away after the sudden Sugar flurry in Wall Street which had filled its gray granite channels with lame and dead ducks.
Seated in his cozy morning room at the “Elmleaf,” Mr. Harold Vreeland was reflectively watching the snowflakes whirled by a March storm in fluffy white eddies, and furtively gazing askance upon the beautiful face of Romaine Garland at his side.
“Where have I seen that face before?” he mused, as the lovely stenographer arose with a silent bow, and passed through the half-open door to seat herself at her typewriting table, en vis-à-vis with Mary Kelly nodding over her clicking telegraph instrument.
There was ample time for Vreeland to attend to his growing personal correspondence in these long mornings when he awaited the next secret orders of his patroness. But, a singular social and speculative lethargy now seemed to have seized upon Mrs. Elaine Willoughby. The nearness of Lent, the reaction of the giddy winter social season, and the cares of a large property all contributed to keep the woman who had fought Alida Hathorn to a finish, out of the garish glare of show society.
All the news that Vreeland could gain from the watchful Doctor Alberg and the pliant Justine was, that the Lady of Lakemere was seemingly drifting into a settled melancholy. Vreeland was astonished at the dead water into which he himself had glided. His afternoons were regularly spent now at the Wall Street office, where Wyman was busied with the “legitimate.”
It had been Vreeland’s secret self-appointed task to follow out all the details of the Hathorn & Wolfe failure, whose echoes still reverberated in the curses of the defrauded customers.
Wolfe was left alone to face the music, and the whole financial world knew that the great sums paid in to the firm’s coffers by customers in the sudden Sugar flurry had been all diverted by the fugitive Hathorn to margin those enormous private deals of his own plunging, which, even criminal in their character, had been made dead against the rising market. The “double or quits” had been “quits” with him. His disgraced name was off the club lists, the VanSittart town mansion was closed, the deserted Oakwood place was garrisoned for a long foreign stay of the unhappy heiress, and “lightly they spoke of the spirit” which had fled with Hathorn’s good luck.
There was little left for the plundered creditors to divide but “experience.”
Wolfe, the luckless partner, was sullen and crushed, and a new champion, Mr. James Potter, alertly moved around town gathering up loose ends in the interest of the absent wife.
Wyman, beyond a cold comment that Hathorn’s “pace had been a killing one,” never referred to the utter crash of their natural enemies, and the social world was beginning to forget Mr. Frederick Hathorn, having relegated him to the “Limbo” of failure, and marked him off as a “has been.” The mad rush of New York life soon tramples the forgotten graves to a dead level.
In the avoidance of any question as to his regular morning absence, Vreeland knew that Wyman had been evidently posted by Judge Endicott as to Vreeland’s sidereal duties under the orders of Mrs. Willoughby.
It was wormwood to the man who still aspired to read every hidden secret of Elaine Willoughby’s life to know that Wyman and Endicott now frequently spent the long evenings with the Queen of the Street at the “Circassia,” and that vouchers, schedules and papers covered the great table where only the three sat, well out of reach of Justine’s eaves-dropping.
“Cool old file is Endicott,” growled Vreeland. “Cased in steel armor of proof. Nor passion, pride, nor weakness ever leaves him open to the enemy a moment.”
And then his habitual sneer returned. “Bah! He is too old for all of man’s follies. It is only the young and ardent who burn with fond hopes and bravely take the chances of life in the open.
“He has nothing left to gain, why should he disquiet himself? Man delights him not, no—nor woman either.”
But Mrs. Elaine Willoughby had really overplayed the game of an assumed carelessness as to Hathorn’s fate. Vreeland was not deceived.
He narrowly watched her when he ventured to call and report the aftermath of the Hathorn failure. Her lack of interest in the downfall of the two whom she had fought in society and on the Street was entirely forced. She gloated over her victory.
Her despondency, however, was real, for a vague sorrow shone in her eyes and the great rooms of the Circassia were no longer filled with that glittering throng which she had drawn away from Alida Hathorn’s Fifth Avenue drawing-rooms.
“Did she ever love Hathorn?” was Vreeland’s self-torturing question. “And is her vengeance after all only Dead Sea fruit?” He secretly resented the calm, equable kindness of his patroness, for there was no answering glow within her splendid eyes, no quickening of her frozen pulses at his approach.
“She has only used me as a human buffer, a switch to safely reach the other track, and I have worked under the espionage of the adroit Mary Kelly. I see her whole plan,” wrathfully decided Vreeland.
“To break up her whole secret into disjointed links. To play us off, one against the other, and then perhaps to drop me, forever, as she dropped Hathorn, if I am ever caught napping.
“She guards some momentous secret. Either of this hidden syndicate’s inside methods, or else the dangerous past life which blackens her present. How much of that did Hathorn know?
“Not enough to hurt her. But, I will rule her by fear yet, for love is out of the game. Let me secretly tap her lines, and, then, gare le corbeau!”
He had once timidly approached Mrs. Willoughby as to the immediate-future programme of the uptown “special bureau.” His patroness manifested but little interest and simply coldly said, “You will have ample leisure for society and your own affairs. Remain there silent, watchful, and always on duty, though.
“The reincorporation in New Jersey, the coming division into common and preferred stock, and the court’s dubious actions may cause me to act strongly in simulated attack or defense, at any moment. And there’s always that veering Congress; its actions are inexplicably swayed under flex or reflex of the public mind, private manipulation or ‘advanced journalism.’” Vreeland chafed in his heart that there had been as yet no rapprochement between himself and Senator Alynton. A slight cold disdain seemed to chill that magnate’s courtesy in all their brief rencontres. “He likes me not!” was the schemer’s just observation. And yet, he gravely held a uniform courtesy.
A special delivery letter at last awoke Vreeland from his reverie, as he was furtively gazing at Miss Romaine Garland’s shapely head bowed over her machine, and then the tube’s whistle announced from below a call of “Mr. James Potter” on “the most important business.”
The letter lay unopened as Vreeland wonderingly advanced to meet his unfrequent visitor.
It was easy to see that the “butterfly” of fashion was gravely impressed. It was none of the Dickie Doubleday’s crumpled rose leaves which had brought the pale-faced man to the luxurious sky parlors of the “Elmleaf.” His merry face was soberly overshadowed.
With little formality, Jimmy Potter closed the door into the rooms where the two women were engaged, and, not without a glance of impelled admiration at the statuesque stenographer, broke into a confidence which astounded Vreeland.
“Hear me out first, Vreeland,” he soberly said, “and then help me if you can. I’m off on the steamer for Havre to-morrow. To join Hathorn’s widow.”
Vreeland started, but Potter’s outstretched arm kept him in his chair.
“Poor Fred was drowned two days ago by the upsetting of a boat at Cienfuegos. The fact is, the Cuban authorities were after him, and so, he cleared out of Havana.”
“I’ve sent a good man down there to do all that may be done, in a decent respect for his past. Mrs. Hathorn has just cabled for me. I have had a long letter from her.
“Some damned traitor deliberately gave her the dead cross on the ‘Sugar Deal.’ She was trying to get Fred out of the Street. And so, she plunged on fifty thousand shares of Sugar on this lying tip, came out short, and has to pay, as Hathorn shoved all their customers’ money in to hold over his own huge, private gamble until the market broke down to forty. It’s up to seventy-eight and there to stay. Now, she wishes to make restitution to the men whom the firm robbed. And I have to help her settle her own private losses.”
“Poor woman,” murmured Vreeland, with an agitation which did not escape Potter. The little man was all broken up.
“See here, Vreeland!” cried Potter, “I have had a glimpse into a real woman’s heart. This fatal quarrel with the Willoughby has wrecked two lives. Hathorn believed Mrs. Willoughby to be invincible in the Street.
“He tried to follow her game. She is reported to have dealt in Sugar up to several millions.
“Do you suppose that she laid a trap for Hathorn’s wife to fall into? Who gave her the false tips? I hope that the author of this misery will roast in hell.”
“I know nothing. I am not in speculative stocks,” musingly said Vreeland.
“Someone may have taken advantage of the Hathorns and lured them on by pretending to give them Mrs. Willoughby’s game. I am busied here now, half the day, with my own private matters.”
“It was soul-murder, whoever did it,” said Potter. “Alida Hathorn went in nobly to help and save her husband. To aid him, to square him with the Street and his firm, and then to take him forever out of the turmoil and convoy him over to Europe. She has loads of money, you know. But, the Ring was too much for him.
“He plunged, too, on her tip, and then came the crash, his flight, and now his untimely death. It’s all due to the one who lured Alida Hathorn on to ruin her husband. It was a fiend’s work.” A silence reigned, a gloomy acquiescence.
Vreeland was moodily regarding the falling snow through the darkened panes when Jimmy Potter sighed and said: “Well, it’s good-by, old fellow. I’ve got an expert with Wolfe going over the real honest debts.
“I shall stay over there, advise with Alida and see that the sufferers get their money. For she has been a wifely sacrifice; she is high-spirited and true, she outclassed Hathorn. Mrs. Willoughby set him up, and then threw him down.
“His pride never got over her ruin of his firm’s reputation by drawing all her business out.
“Of course, the society snakes who poisoned the young wife’s mind brought on the social catastrophe. I would like to feel that Elaine Willoughby did not betray that poor young woman. But I’ll square it all by and by.”
“How?” eagerly demanded Vreeland. Potter was brave in a mad resolve.
The young millionaire paused, hat and umbrella in hand. “I have found a business in life at last. One that suits me.
“If Alida Hathorn has not money enough to square all the honest claims, I have. For a year and a day from Hathorn’s death, I shall marry her, and then give her a woman’s decent happiness.
“It was a false ambition that pushed Hathorn into her circle. He was only a good-looking upstart, and never worthy of her.
“So, you can see all comes around to the man who waits.
“Now, I count on your sense of manliness to protect the name of Fred Hathorn’s widow, the woman who will be my wife, for, with all your money, you would not be in New York to-day, as you are, at the top of the ladder but for Hathorn.
“You stand in his shoes up at Lakemere, here in the Circassia, and you of all men, should be considerate to his memory.” The scheming liar bowed his head in a speechless agitation.
Vreeland escorted his visitor to the stair. “If I need any private tip, I may use you,” said Potter. “I’ll be at Hotel Vendôme, Paris, till I have made her Mrs. Jimmy Potter, if we live.”
With a last touch of his old lightness, the champion of the absent Alida whispered, “That’s a young goddess you have captured.” Potter had observed the Bona Dea.
Vreeland frowned gravely as he followed the furtive gesture.
“Miss Garland has entire charge of all the books and records of my private estate,” he coldly said.
“I am a man of system and order. The other little woman is my private telegraph operator. She is a part of our ‘business force.’” Vreeland affected the careworn millionaire.
“Ah, you don’t mix up the two affairs. Very good, very good,” complacently said Potter as he disappeared, leaving Vreeland startled. He bore away fruitful memories of Vreeland’s downcast hesitation.
The hard-hearted schemer took a pull at the brandy bottle. “It was a close shave,” he murmured.
“Alida Hathorn is game to the very last. She has not given him my name, and now, as she will finally drift into this fortunate marriage, the Lady of the Red Rose will be only a buried memory.
“I am safe, and he never will know. The lovely ‘Red Rose’ is only another flower in le Jardin Secret.”
He realized, at last, that the daring imprudence of Alida Hathorn’s visit was but a jealous wife’s device, at any risk, to break the lines of her husband’s enemies.
“She got my secret far too easily,” he gloomily reflected, “and without paying the price.
“I wonder if she was playing me as a lone fish,” he pondered—and then a flash came to enlighten him.
“Could Elaine Willoughby fancy that the news of her plunging would leak out and ruin them?
“By heaven! She may have crossed this gigantic trade by secret orders to Endicott. Hathorn ruined, she may have no further use for me.
“And if the Lady of the Red Rose should ever speak I would be ruined, even held at arms length as I am.”
He shuddered under the curse of the burning words of that last telegram.
“She believes me a liar and traitor to her, and I will never dare to undeceive her.” He felt that he had missed the finest play of his life.
But the “special delivery” letter still stared him in the face. He carelessly tore it open and then a smile wreathed his lips.
“To meet Senator Alynton, Senator Garston, and Miss Katharine VanDyke Norreys at dinner.” He instantly wrote out and dispatched his acceptance. A glow of joy lit up his anxious face.
“I must get Justine at work soon on my secret lines. I see it all. These Senators are of the ‘Inner Guild,’ the true illuminati.
“Who the devil is this Garston—some Western fellow?”
A few moments’ reference gave him the news: “Senator-elect from one of the newly knocked together Western States”—the “means to an end” in balancing National elections. The trick of warring plutocrats and democrats.
He paced the room in deep thought, after dispatching his reply. “The battle will be on again soon. The Trust is reorganized and conveniently removed to little Jersey. The courts have now done their worst, and the small holders are all squeezed out.
“Now for a game of high ball. Yes, my lady, that’s your trick. A new deal. And the beautiful Californian heiress is only a bright lay-figure.
“Your real hold on the Street is the secret chain linking these statesmen, through you and Endicott, to the secret chiefs of the Sugar Syndicate.
“I’ll get myself into your current, as a ‘transmitter,’ and you, Madame Elaine, shall yet learn to bow and bend. The child, the secrets of this dangerous partnership, the story of your past life, I can soon get it all, bit by bit. And, then, marriage and ‘dominion over you.’ That’s my game!”
There was an unpleasant menace lingering in the last words of the departing Potter. Vreeland knew that should the generous-hearted ex-banker, in time, marry Fred Hathorn’s widow, the few hundred thousands lost in saving Hathorn’s personal honor would not in any way impair their united estates. He lingered long on the subject. He feared this new alliance.
“They might crush me, if they joined forces. The one danger is a reconciliation with Mrs. Willoughby. I will see that this never occurs.”
And so, with a sense of defeat clinging to his past attempts, he decided to use great care in approaching his proposed dupe, Miss Romaine Garland.
For his patroness certainly was not wearing her heart upon her sleeve now. Her private sorrows busied her more than the confidential intimacy with her newest protégé.
“She could drop me, ruin me, or trap me as easily as she finished off Hathorn,” he decided.
“And the hot-headed, daring young wife, desperate in her jealousy, anxious to break Elaine Willoughby’s lines and guide her husband into the heart of the Sugar forces, she had merely broken the convenances, nothing more.
“For only a cur dare ever hint at the stolen visits. Club and coterie would brand the man as a hound who dared to boast of such a desperate confidence in a man’s honor.
“No. The Lady of the Red Rose, bright, daring and stormy-hearted like many another fin de siècle New York wife, was safe.”
Safe by all the laws of manhood and honor. And, in all the gay life he had led, he had only met the easy abandon of high life.
The loosening of restraint of a democratic luxury. He well knew that the Dickie Doubledays and the Tottie Thistledowns did not weigh in the scale against a real flesh and blood womanhood. They were only bright, lurid beacons, warning signals on the seas of life, stranded on the reefs of human weakness, and with shoals of foolish virgins following on in their daring footsteps.
When he lifted his head, the stroke of twelve brought Miss Romaine Garland, with bowed head, before him, awaiting her daily dismissal.
He had never dared to use the busy hours from nine to twelve for any covert approach upon the stately girl’s confidence. There, too, was the clear-eyed Mary Kelly.
The rapturous verdict of Jimmy Potter was confirmed as he glanced at the young goddess, her brown hair rippling from a pure Greek brow, her dark eyes dreaming under their lashes, and her pale, proud face at rest, with all the untroubled peace of maidenhood.
In her plain, dark dress, her sculptured form was deliciously intimated. Her voice, sweet and low as the breath of forest winds, awoke his hungering curiosity. It was temps de relâche.
Here was the very chance to begin to mold her to his will. To awake her latent love of luxury, to lead her out step by step into the confidential delights of wine and song, and to find out the shady places where Love lurks, an archer unawares. Yes. He would begin to mold this woman to his will.
Vreeland desired to let the loneliness of a great city aid him in his easy approach. And to hurry slowly and be wise. He had noted the friendly cordiality of the two young women. “If the new assistant would only play into his hands, and help to outwit the pale spy.
“If she can throw this little spy off her guard—if I can get them both to begin to enjoy themselves a little, and then drop into an easy, hidden intimacy with Miss Romaine, then my patroness’ little spy game here will be useless.
“For, if that woman learned to love a man, she would go through fire and water for him.”
The throbbing of his heart made his voice tremble, and the veiled purpose of his crafty soul crept into his eyes, though they only rested on her superbly molded arms and slender, delicate hands, when he carelessly said: “If you would kindly leave me your private address, Miss Garland, I might need it. There may be some extra call of duty. I might wish to communicate with you.”
There was a slight flush upon her cheek as the delicate lips slowly parted.
“I live at some distance, Mr. Vreeland, with private friends, and it would be impossible for me to render you any other services than as arranged. I have no one to escort me, and I never receive visitors.” The voice was as cold as the glacier’s rills.
Her beauty shone out as pure as an Easter lily, when she simply said: “Miss Kelly will, however, send any communication you might have to make. I am an absolute stranger in New York. The references which I gave Miss Marble are from old friends in Buffalo. I can, however, at all times, stay as late as Miss Kelly does, on any occasion when you may have overwork.”
The young Diana’s pure brow was loftily brave in its innocence.
Vreeland’s eyes hungrily followed her as she moved quietly away in answer to his grave bow of dismissal.
“More time. More time,” he murmured. “If I could find some way to gain her personal confidence. Flowers, books, little attentions, a stray set of theatre or opera tickets. For she is, after all, only a woman. Fit to reign, royal in youth, and serving without stooping.
“I must see Miss Marble. The ice once broken, perhaps—”
He mused long upon an ingenious plan to “brighten the life” of the woman he would use as a tool. “Yes, it can be done, easily, through the Marble.” And he knew that veteran traitress would aid him for money.
The week before the day of Mrs. Willoughby’s ceremonial dinner was wasted by Vreeland in some amateur detective work. Miss Justine Duprez easily diagnosed the growing friendship of the two young girls.
For Miss Garland’s sweet, tender face was already familiar in the little household where Mary Kelly’s mother watched and wondered from what fairyland this bright-faced nymph had descended.
A stout school lad of sixteen was an efficient home escort for the young neophyte in New York, and pride filled the eyes of Mary Kelly’s brother.
Vreeland felt all the growing charm of the steadfast girl’s influence, her cultured manners, her dainty refinement and the rare delicacy of her language and taste. He valued her as of superior clay.
“Not of common stock,” he murmured as he deftly trod along her path, with a veiled impatience. He was deep now in the last details of a plan which busied Justine Duprez, for the coming of the second Senator, the open splendors of the grand dinner party as elaborated by Justine warned him that if he would cut the secret channels so vital to his success, he must bring the janitor and postal carriers of the “Circassia” under control.
Justine, checking his headlong impatience, only smiled her velvety smile and whispered, “Give me some money to hoodwink them a little. Wait only for a few days, and trust to me. Have I ever failed you?”
When the “rising and successful man,” Mr. Harold Vreeland, dressed himself with unusual distinction for Mrs. Willoughby’s regal dinner party of twenty, there was all the happiness of a new-born hope in his heart. For he was nearly ready now “to move on the enemy’s works.”
That experienced “broker in young womanly talent,” Miss Marble, had earned herself a pretty diamond lace pin, and “an authorization to proceed,” by her ingenious plan of drawing out “Miss Romaine Garland.” The experienced lady had smiled at all his first crude attempts.
“You were too abrupt. There is the awkward fact before her eyes always, that you are her employer. She acts on the mere defensive.
“The proprieties you surely know. Now, you are far too young and charming as a man,” she blushingly said, “to be a safe benefactor for this glowing-hearted girl with her sweet, tender eyes.
“She is a rare beauty and frankly good, and untinged as yet with the fires of Babylon. I have some showy friends of some influence, and, as she trusts me blindly, I will ‘have warm-hearted civilities’ extended to her.
“You will have her home address now, in return for my pretty pin. Never go there. You would ruin all.
“But, sir, you shall be drawn in as a guest to our little friendly coteries. She must be led into our allied camp gradually.
“You, by hazard, will appear as an old intimate, here and there, when her shyness is worn off and, on that friendly and neutral ground, you can soon warm the marble into life.” The Marble had a crafty and glowing heart.
The sly woman smiled. “No lonely young woman can resist long-continued and unobtrusive kindness. It always disarms. Let me have the means to lead her along into little pleasures. Once the taste of the easy evening outing life comes upon her, then, bit by bit, she will be as wax in my hands. You can meet her, by chance, at the theatres or operas when out with me. I will have a little supper given at some friend’s home. We can drop off the friends one by one. I cling to her.
“You can then drop me off, when we are sure that the taste of pleasure is gently awakened, and you are free to then show her all your generous liberality. Take her home to your daily life, then once that the confidential relation is established—” Vreeland’s eyes gleamed in a coming triumph. The way shone out, “straight and sweet,” before him. “Miss Joanna, you are a good fairy, and a keen-witted genius. I will give you carte blanche to lead her out along the rosy path, step by step, and a path that leads always toward me.”
Mr. Harold Vreeland moved on serenely and laid his pitfalls for the pure young girl, whom chance had thrown in his way, with no compunction. In the blighted career of his own dishonored father, he had only despised the weaknesses which led to failure.
He had seen the downfall of Hathorn without a throb of sympathy and he resented the frank, honest predilection which was now leading the warm-hearted Potter to screen Alida Hathorn from a mob of cold-hearted “woman eaters” in honorable marriage.
Mean at heart, he even doubted the past life of the woman who had lifted him up to luxury. He hated her now only that his charms of person and manner had not brought her to his feet, a willing dupe.
“She seemed to be impressed at first,” he mused. “But the shock of Hathorn’s cold abandonment in his little tiger cat wife’s jealous frenzy seems to have turned her against man, for a time.
“But, let me only get a hold on her. I do not care to be the star actor in a modern ‘Romance of a Poor Young Man.’ She shall not shake me off.”
He plotted deliberately against her peace—his generous benefactress. “First, the tapping of the private lines. Then, to mold Romaine Garland to my will. If she does not yield to Joanna Marble’s smooth ways, then out into the streets of New York.
“There are others, more complaisant; but to awaken those dark eyes to pleasure’s glow. To have them quicken at my coming.”
It was with these “undreamed dreams” haunting him that Harold Vreeland arrived, in sedate splendor, at the “Circassia,” where “the feast was set” for Senator Alynton and that Western wonder of recent occultation, Senator-elect James Garston.
In the kaleidoscopic splendors of the drawing-room, where manly eyes gleamed upon the beauties of splendid womanhood, among the fair daughters of Eve he missed that brilliant blonde heiress, Miss Katharine VanDyke Norreys. A tap from Mrs. Volney McMorris’ fan recalled him.
“I know that you are looking for her,” whispered the radiant duenna. “Katharine is a sort of ward of Senator Garston. He is her trustee. They all come together. I must have a word with you about poor—”
The entrance of Mrs. Elaine Willoughby brought the splendid circle around her, there where gleaming lights and the breath of matchless flowers, where diamonds and brightest eyes, where ivory bosoms and shapely silver shoulders were mingling charms of a modern Paradise of throbbing, hungry hearts.
Doctor Alberg’s gloved hand was resting in Vreeland’s palm—he was whispering, “You and I and Justine must watch”—when the calm, passionless face of Senator Alynton, with Miss Katharine Norreys on his arm, appeared.
There was a hum of astonishment, of frank self-surrender to the Occidental beauty’s charms as Alynton gravely presented a tall, stately stranger, whose slightly silvered hair and chevalieresque bearing recalled the “Silver King.”
“My friend, Senator James Garston,” began Alynton, but there was a crowd of a dozen men eagerly stretching willing arms, as Elaine Willoughby’s face contracted in a spasm of pain, and she fell senseless into Doctor Alberg’s firm grasp. “Only the old heart trouble. In five minutes madame will be herself,” suavely announced the doctor. “Perhaps a bit too tightly laced,” he whispered to Mrs. McMorris.
It was a stately function, the dinner, which proceeded in a solemn splendor.
Senator James Garston was gravely attentive at the hostess’ left, and only Vreeland knew when the lights were low that Garston had whispered, “I must see you, at once.”
And with pale lips Elaine Willoughby had murmured, “At Lakemere, and to-morrow.”
Justine had gained her long-needed clue.