Stephen did not notice the repellent furnishings of the library tonight Purcell led him in there. He had the largest library in Portersville, and he had read almost all the books. A big fire fluttered on the hearth; it was very warm in the room, in spite of its vastness, its crowding windows, its walls of leather bindings. Purcell, above all things, insisted upon heat
He pushed Stephen into a chair, opened a towering cabinet, and brought out two large glasses. He half-filled one for Stephen. “Here, drink,” he said. “You need it.” Stephen stared at the glass dully, and then his empty eyes wandered blindly about the room. He’s had a shock, thought Purcell. I have some idea. He’s found out something about that pious weasel, Baynes. Well, there was no warning him, the poor goddamn fool. “Come on, Steve,” he said in his harsh voice. “Pour it down.”
Obediently, Stephen’s trembling hand lifted the glass to his lips. He suddenly thought of the antic Aaron, who had forced medicine upon him ten years ago. He said faintly, hardly knowing where he was or to whom he was speaking, “You remind me of my father. …”
“Good,” said Purcell, throwing his bulky body into a chair opposite, and beginning to drink. “Your dad and I had a lot in common. Well? Are you going to drink or not?”
“It’s a great deal,” said Stephen in his sick, courteous way. He drank the whisky suddenly, with deep thirsty swallows, while Purcell watched him out of the corners of his eyes. Stephen put the glass down. His long shivering began to lessen. He leaned toward the fire and stared at it with that blind and seeking gaze. Purcell drank placidly. He finally lit his pipe. He waited. From the hall came the loud and discordant clanging of a clock.
Purcell waited a long time, while Stephen’s gaunt features remained fixed and expressionless in the firelight. Purcell said to himself: The world’s too much for him, it’s always too much for his kind. It gets them in the end. They get killed just as surely and ruthlessly as if a dagger was stuck in their backs. And you can never help them.
The whisky was taking effect on Stephen. He had never drunk so much before at one time, and in his weakened condition he was affected overwhelmingly. His pain receded; the fire enlarged before his eyes, became a conflagration. His body warmed, tingled; sensation receded from his feet and hands. His vision blurred, and he relaxed. He sighed over and over, and the piteous sound was loud in the bleak stillness.
“I don’t remember coming here, Jim,” he said, his tongue a trifle thick. He leaned back, very slowly, in his chair, and caught the arms, because he was swaying. “I’m very grateful. I—I was cold.”
Purcell’s grotesque face loomed closer and closer to him, and Stephen lifted his hand as if to ward off that impelling presence. Purcell merely sat and smoked. “I think,” said Stephen, with a weak laugh, “that you gave me too much, Jim.”
“I’ll drive you home. Don’t worry.”
Stephen stared at him, glazed and confused. “Jim,” he said falteringly. “Why did you bring me here? Why are you around me so often? When we were children—I don’t know. I can’t think clearly. You never said—say—anything very much. We—we don’t have anything in common. I’m grateful. But I never understood.”
“Maybe I just like to know there are people in the world like you,” said Purcell, with one of his ugly smiles. “I don’t know why, myself. Maybe your dad liked to know it, too. Comforting.”
Stephen attempted to focus; he frowned vaguely. “Comfort?” he repeated. “What comfort can I offer you? You are self—self-sufficient.”
“Maybe,” replied Purcell. “By the way, anythin’ on your mind, Steve, that you want to tell me?”
Stephen’s hands fumbled together; he wrung them again. “I think,” he stammered, “that I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” asked Purcell easily.
Stephen put one of his hands to his forehead. He was drunk now, but his nature halted any confidences. “I’m not sure. Perhaps I’m imagining things. A man does that, sometimes.”
“We’re all afraid of somethin’, every damned mother’s son of us,” said Purcell. “If it isn’t one—thing, it’s another. Think you’re the only one in the world with troubles? Look at me; I’m hounded by ’em. Can’t sleep sometimes.” He smiled at Stephen with gross humor. “That’s why I drink whisky all the time; positively reek. You should take it up, Steve.” He paused. “Want to tell me about it?”
But Stephen was mumbling incoherently: “My father—just like you. He would sit in the room—. He never liked me. And I only wanted a dog. I never had one. I don’t want any now. The dog I wanted is dead a long time now. He was a pretty little fellow; he followed me around.”
Purcell was silent. He took the pipe from his mouth and stared at it, glowering. Then he said, “What happened between you and Baynes?’
“Nothing,” murmured Stephen. “It was the. boy, Duncan. He didn’t understand.”
“Quite a lot of people don’t understand, according to you, Steve. Kind of: ‘Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do,’ eh? Well.”
The words roared over and over in Stephen’s drugged brain: Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. Father—forgive—forgive—forgive. …
“Yes, yes,” said Stephen. “Forgive. I always keep forgetting that,” he added apologetically. “I should remember.” He drew a deep breath, and for a few moments his reticence was overcome. “The boy—thought—that his father was paying me interest. Twenty-four thousand dollars. You see, Joe needed the money for the Locals—there was the Capital, trying to get them, and I think Rufus. … Duncan was very angry. Joe must have—must have—let him misunderstand. It was natural, of course; Joe had his pride. Poor Joe.”
Purcell said, “I see. The world’s full of ‘poor Joes.’ And they always get more ‘poor Joes’ to help them. Never mind. It’s too late to tell you anything, Steve. There’s somethin’ from the Bible, I think: ‘He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it.’ Proverbs.”
“You think I am a fool?” asked Stephen with bemused pain.
“Well, naturally. But you can’t help it; you’re made that way. Goethe: ‘So must thou be—thou canst not self escape.’ Good things in those books yonder. If there’s a God, I sometimes wonder why He made people like you. Like to think it over, myself, sittin’ here by the fire alone. Almost came on the answer once—a damn fool answer that wasn’t sensible. Look at you, Steve: you’ve been payin’ all those railroad workers yourself, out of your own. pocket. Been going on for a year, eh? Drainin’ yourself. And who gets the credit? Red Rufe, the bleeder for his fellow man. The workers hate you because they don’t have work, when the whole cursed country is out of work. They never think.”
The roaring in Stephen’s head was so violent that he put his hands to it; he sank deeper and deeper into his chair. He muttered, “It doesn’t matter who gets credit for it. It’s enough for me to know they aren’t starving. The directors wouldn’t let me pay the workers out of railroad funds; I suggested it once and they laughed as if I were insane. So, it had to come out of my personal funds. I haven’t any money,” he added, with broken simplicity. “The house costs me a great deal. I’ve got to borrow on my stocks and bonds just to live and keep going on. I’m going to New York.”
Purcell slowly raised himself in his chair and watched Stephen intently.
“It’s the Chicago Railroad System, too—a great drain,” Stephen whispered. “I could keep our workers on my salary—but there are too many other things. Sometimes it all seems too much for me.” Now his agony of mind gushed over the dam of his normal caution. “When things get better, I’ll be able to redeem the stocks and bonds. They’re bound to get better—”
“They’re going to get worse before they get better,” said Purcell raucously. “The Panic isn’t over yet. And so, what will you do?”
Stephen rubbed his cheeks until they were burning. “I don’t know.”
“How much do you need, Steve, to go on living a while in the damn-fool way you are?”
Stephen murmured, “Forty thousand dollars, I think. I can’t use what I’ll borrow from New York on my stocks and bonds for purely personal expenses—and the workers. It wouldn’t be right; the stocks and bonds are a trust; they belong to the road. So, what I borrow on them will be for the good of the company. But that forty thousand dollars. …”
“I’ll let you have that forty thousand right now, my own check,” said Purcell.
Stephen dropped his hands and stared at the other man incredulously. A slow light began to shimmer on his face. He cried out, “My personal note—!”
Purcell shook his head and replied with slow brutality, “Not good enough for me, Steve. I want your coal acreage—your real estate around Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. Outright sale, to me.”
All light, all alcoholic color, faded from Stephen’s face. Inch by inch, he pushed himself up from his chair. He caught the back of the chair in his sweating hands as he retreated behind it. Purcell watched him, unmoved and smoking, with interest and detachment. His pulpy features took on the contours of hardened concrete which had been discarded and left to dry without form.
“You got there first, Steve; one of the few bright things you’ve ever done. And I want that land. I’ll develop it; you’ll never have the money. What do you say?” His voice was loud and strident and beat implacably on Stephen’s ears.
Stephen whispered, “I can’t. I have to protect Laura. You brought me here, and gave me too much whisky, so you could ruin me, steal from my daughter. …”
Purcell shrugged. “Think what you want, Steve. I can’t control your thoughts. You need forty thousand dollars. That’s ten thousand more than you paid for that real estate. You’re gettin’ a bargain. I think you’d better take it. What else can you do?”
Stephen could make no sound; he could only crouch behind his chair like a desperate animal driven to a last cover. His breath came faster and faster, until he was panting. Then he said in a stifled and shaking voice, “I was told, often, that you were a wicked man. Joe and Tom told me. I’ve heard many stories—exploitation—mercilessness—cruelty.”
Purcell raised his eyebrows. “Don’t waste your time talkin’, Steve. Do I get the land or not? Forty thousand dollars. Think of all the wages you can pay your fellers, even though there’s no work for them. Goin’ to let ’em starve, Steve?” He waited, watching those distended eyes, that open mouth, that gaping, stricken face. “Of course, you can stop payin’, Steve. No weekly checks, signed by Rufus, your executive vice-president, after you deposited your own funds in the railroad accounts. For the men. Evicted, that’s what they’ll be. Huntin’ in the refuse for food. Kids not havin’ any bread. Think it over.”
Stephen looked up, his face aged and haggard. Purcell was sitting at his secretary, and the scratch of his pen was loud in the silence. He got up, waved the check before the fire for a moment, then extended it to Stephen. “I’ve written on the back of it: ‘Received payment for real-estate acreage located in the vicinity of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. Contract to be drawn within thirty days.’ Put it in your personal account, Steve, so there won’t be any gossipin’ around. Then you can draw on it to be earmarked for your workers. The way you’ve been doin’. Puttin’ it in the railroad accounts.”
Stephen did not move. Purcell went to him, pushed the check in his hand. He thrust his hands in his untidy pockets, rocked back on his heels. “You’re tired, Steve. Better go home and sleep. The whisky will help. I’m kind of tired, myself. I’ll rouse up one of my boys and he’ll drive you home. I’m goin’ to bed.”
Stephen glanced dumbly at the check. Then he raised his shattered face and looked at Purcell with agonized accusation. Purcell was apparently unmoved. He shrugged again.
“Rufe won’t lend you the forty thousand, Steve. But he might offer to buy your land for about fifteen thousand. I’m bein’ your friend, Steve.”
“Friend, friend,” Stephen repeated. His eyes dimmed. He turned away.
Stephen sat in a state of paralysis at his desk the next morning. He had just deposited the forty thousand dollars in his personal account, and then had immediately transferred twenty thousand of it to the railroad accounts in the bank. His workers would live again, in some sort of security, until the Panic passed. But Stephen could feel only anguish and hopelessness. The fire burned strongly behind him; it could not warm his flesh.
His desk was piled high with the bills he had brought from his home that morning. They were like an inexorable demand, which must be met. He took up his pen, but it was a heavy rod of iron in his hand. His clerk entered, cleared his throat, and said, “Mr. Stephen, there is a young man here to see you. A Mr. Duncan Baynes.”
Stephen shrank. His first impulse was to refuse to see young Duncan. Then he said feebly, “Send him in.” He leaned back in his chair, bracing himself for further insults and upbraidings. He was certain of only one thing: he would not betray Joseph. Far back in his mind a voice was mocking him: “Poor Joe—poor Joe—poor Joe. …”
Duncan Baynes, half-belligerent, half-sheepish, came in, holding his hat in his hand. His round hard head stuck above his broad shoulders like a superimposed ball, and his strong features were grim. He said at once, “Mr. deWitt, I didn’t know last night. I’ve come to apologize, and ask you not to blame my father too much. He didn’t sleep; I heard him walking the floor. He’s afraid you won’t be his friend any longer.”
Stephen tried to speak, out of his renewed pain, but could not. Duncan resumed: “I suppose you are holding it against my father. I wouldn’t blame you, in a way. But my father is really your friend; he only lied to us to save his own pride. He’s not much of a man, I’m afraid; he’s weak.”
Stephen’s betraying compassion made him close his eyes with suffering and sympathy. “You mustn’t blame your father,” he said gently. “It isn’t his fault there is a panic. He will soon be able to recover himself. He mustn’t worry about that money. I—I am not worrying. He’ll pay it back one of these days. You must have confidence in him.”
Duncan scrutinized that sunken face and closed eyes. He thought: By God, a good man! I never met one before. He said, “If my father can’t pay you back, Mr. deWitt, we will.”
Stephen opened his eyes. Some of the gaunt misery was gone from his face. He could even smile a little, and he said, in a stronger voice, “I understand all about it. Did your father tell you the truth about the whole matter, Duncan?”
Duncan hesitated. Then he lied: “He did, Mr. deWitt. He”—and the young man smiled ruefully, as if in remembrance of a stormy interview with Joseph—“raised hell with me. Now I understand everything.” He eyed Stephen warily. “He said, my father, that if it had not been for you we’d have lost the Locals. He said you refused all interest, that you really wanted to give him the money as a gift, and not a loan.”
Stephen smiled deeper, and he sighed as if some intolerable anguish were beginning to lift from him. “Your father told you the truth, Duncan. I refused his notes for a long time. But he insisted. He thought it more businesslike. So, to humor him—and he has much pride—I took the notes. But he told you all this, didn’t he?”
Duncan’s face darkened with something like hatred and contempt for his father. He was appalled. This was much worse than he had expected. He said gravely, “Yes. He told me. Mr. deWitt, you won’t tell him that I came here today? He will think it presumptuous of me.”
Stephen held out his hand, smiling at Duncan like a father. “Certainly, I won’t tell him, my boy. I can understand your reticence. But don’t hold anything against Joe. He is a good man; he is my friend.”
Duncan took that cold and tremulous hand, and for the first time since he had been eight years old he wanted to cry.
20
The great crisis that was becoming obvious to a few thoughtful men as the intrinsic disease of the Industrial Revolution finally became dimly patent even in Washington. Enormous and unrestrained products of industry were not matched by a corresponding absorption. Fo
reign markets, depressed by aimless and insane wars, could not import American goods, nor could their own feverish manufacturers sell their wares to a penniless population. In America, thousands annually left the farms to “work on the railroad,” or in factories, and acreage slowly became abandoned. The cities languished in a veritable paralysis of unemployment and starvation, while farmers exhausted themselves in labor with insufficient help. England, who had control of world markets, suffered less than did the United States and other nations.
Like a demented machine that could not stop itself, the mills and factories continued to pour out goods in spite of national inability to sell them. And, in grim secret, men of wealth who owned those mills and factories gathered together for discussion as to how to meet the crisis. It was agreed that only wars could stimulate the absorption of goods. It was noted that few nations, however, were at the present time interested in wars.
When President Hayes appealed to the new city-dwellers to return to the land in order to avert the industrial crisis, or to overcome its immediate manifestations, his plea met with resistance. At one time he said to a confidant, “Territory is no longer the goal of wars. Markets and destruction are the new objectives.” He suggested a plan whereby new immigrants to America would consist almost entirely of farmers, who would take up homesteading or work good farms already cleared; he hopefully hinted that Congress might make it mandatory that the immigrants go at once to the land, under pain of subsequent deportation. His enemies, and a number of his friends, indignantly cried that this would be “dictatorship,” and “against the principles of the Constitution.” Wryly, then, he commented, “It seems that ho one wishes to deprive an American, or an immigrant, of his sovereign right to starve.” But, as he was a man of some ideas, he went on to suggest that if industrialists persisted in producing goods for which no one could pay, it might be an excellent plan to engage in barter with those nations who wished to buy American products but who had no money. “Medievalism!” cried his enemies. The President shrugged and decided that he would not be the Republican candidate in 1880.
Never Victorious, Never Defeated Page 23