He fell back, choking, in Joe’s arms, and the physician bent over him, but Eskew was not gone, and Ariel, upon the other side of the room, could hear him whispering again for the restorative. She brought it, and when he had taken it, went quickly out-of-doors to the side yard.
She sat upon a workman’s bench under the big trees, hidden from the street shrubbery, and breathing deeply of the shaded air, began to cry quietly. Through the windows came the quavering voice of the old man, lifted again, insistent, a little querulous, but determined. Responses sounded, intermittently, from the Colonel, from Peter, and from Buckalew, and now and then a sorrowful, yet almost humorous, protest from Joe; and so she made out that the veteran swore his three comrades to friendship with Joseph Louden, to lend him their countenance in all matters, to stand by him in weal and woe, to speak only good of him and defend him in the town of Canaan. Thus did Eskew Arp on the verge of parting this life render justice.
The gate clicked, and Ariel saw Eugene approaching through the shrubbery. One of his hands was bandaged, a thin strip of court-plaster crossed his forehead from his left eyebrow to his hair, and his thin and agitated face showed several light scratches.
“I saw you come out,” he said. “I’ve been waiting to speak to you.”
“The doctor told us to let him have his way in whatever he might ask.” Ariel wiped her eyes. “I’m afraid that means—”
“I didn’t come to talk about Eskew Arp,” interrupted Eugene. “I’m not laboring under any anxiety about him. You needn’t be afraid; he’s too sour to accept his conge so readily.”
“Please lower your voice,” she said, rising quickly and moving away from him toward the house; but, as he followed, insisting sharply that he must speak with her, she walked out of ear-shot of the windows, and stopping, turned toward him.
“Very well,” she said. “Is it a message from Mamie?”
At this he faltered and hung fire.
“Have you been to see her?” she continued.
“I am anxious to know if her goodness and bravery caused her any — any discomfort at home.”
“You may set your mind at rest about that,” returned Eugene. “I was there when the Judge came home to dinner. I suppose you fear he may have been rough with her for taking my step-brother into the carriage. He was not. On the contrary, he spoke very quietly to her, and went on out toward the stables. But I haven’t come to you to talk of Judge Pike, either!”
“No,” said Ariel. “I don’t care particularly to hear of him, but of Mamie.”
“Nor of her, either!” he broke out. “I want to talk of you!”
There was not mistaking him; no possibility of misunderstanding the real passion that shook him, and her startled eyes betrayed her comprehension.
“Yes, I see you understand,” he cried, bitterly. “That’s because you’ve seen others the same way. God help me,” he went on, striking his forehead with his open hand, “that young fool of a Bradbury told me you refused him only yesterday! He was proud of even rejection from you! And there’s Norbert — and half a dozen others, perhaps, already, since you’ve been here.” He flung out his arms in ludicrous, savage despair. “And here am I—”
“Ah yes,” she cut him off, “it is of yourself that you want to speak, after all — not of me!”
“Look here,” he vociferated; “are you going to marry that Joe Louden? I want to know whether you are or not. He gave me this — and this to-day!” He touched his bandaged hand and plastered forehead. “He ran into me — over me — for nothing, when I was not on my guard; struck me down — stamped on me—”
She turned upon him, cheeks aflame, eyes sparkling and dry.
“Mr. Bantry,” she cried, “he did a good thing! And now I want you to go home. I want you to go home and try if you can discover anything in yourself that is worthy of Mamie and of what she showed herself to be this morning! If you can, you will have found something that I could like!”
She went rapidly toward the house, and he was senseless enough to follow, babbling: “What do you think I’m made of? You trample on me — as he did! I can’t bear everything; I tell you—”
But she lifted her hand with such imperious will that he stopped short. Then, through the window of the sick-room came clearly the querulous voice:
“I tell you it was; I heard him speak just now — out there in the yard, that no-account step-brother of Joe’s! What if he IS a hired hand on the Tocsin? He’d better give up his job and quit, than do what he’s done to help make the town think hard of Joe. And what IS he? Why, he’s worse than Cory. When that Claudine Fear first came here, ‘Gene Bantry was hangin’ around her himself. Joe knew it and he’d never tell, but I will. I saw ’em buggy-ridin’ out near Beaver Beach and she slapped his face fer him. It ought to be TOLD!”
“I didn’t know that Joe knew — that!” Eugene stammered huskily. “It was — it was — a long time ago—”
“If you understood Joe,” she said, in a low voice, “you would know that before these men leave this house, he will have their promise never to tell.”
His eyes fell miserably, then lifted again; but in her clear and unbearable gaze there shone such a flame of scorn as he could not endure to look upon. For the first time in his life he saw a true light upon himself, and though the vision was darkling, the revelation was complete.
“Heaven pity you!” she whispered.
Eugene found himself alone, and stumbled away, his glance not lifted. He passed his own home without looking up, and did not see his mother beckoning frantically from a window. She ran to the door and called him. He did not hear her, but went on toward the Tocsin office with his head still bent.
XXI. NORBERT WAITS FOR JOE
THERE WAS MEAT for gossip a plenty in Canaan that afternoon and evening; there were rumors that ran from kitchen to parlor, and rumors that ran from parlor to kitchen; speculations that detained housewives in talk across front gates; wonderings that held cooks in converse over shadeless back fences in spite of the heat; and canards that brought Main Street clerks running to the shop doors to stare up and down the sidewalks. Out of the confusion of report, the judicious were able by evenfall to extract a fair history of this day of revolution. There remained no doubt that Joe Louden was in attendance at the death-bed of Eskew Arp, and somehow it came to be known that Colonel Flitcroft, Squire Buckalew, and Peter Bradbury had shaken hands with Joe and declared themselves his friends. There were those (particularly among the relatives of the hoary trio) who expressed the opinion that the Colonel and his comrades were too old to be responsible and a commission ought to sit on them; nevertheless, some echoes of Eskew’s last “argument” to the conclave had sounded in the town and were not wholly without effect.
Everywhere there was a nipping curiosity to learn how Judge Pike had “taken” the strange performance of his daughter, and the eager were much disappointed when it was truthfully reported that he had done and said very little. He had merely discharged both Sam Warden and Sam’s wife from his service, the mild manner of the dismissal almost unnerving Mr. Warden, although he was fully prepared for bird-shot; and the couple had found immediate employment in the service of Ariel Tabor.
Those who humanly felt the Judge’s behavior to be a trifle flat and unsensational were recompensed late in the afternoon when it became known that Eugene Bantry had resigned his position on the Tocsin. His reason for severing his connection was dumfounding; he had written a formal letter to the Judge and repeated the gist of it to his associates in the office and acquaintances upon the street. He declared that he no longer sympathized with the attitude of the Tocsin toward his step-brother, and regretted that he had previously assisted in emphasizing the paper’s hostility to Joe, particularly in the matter of the approaching murder trial. This being the case, he felt that his effectiveness in the service of the paper had ceased, and he must, in justice to the owner, resign.
“Well, I’m damned!” was the simple comment of the elder Louden when
his step-son sought him out at the factory and repeated this statement to him.
“So am I, I think,” said Eugene, wanly. “Good-bye. I’m going now to see mother, but I’ll be gone before you come home.”
“Gone where?”
“Just away. I don’t know where,” Eugene answered from the door. “I couldn’t live here any longer. I—”
“You’ve been drinking,” said Mr. Louden, inspired. “You’d better not let Mamie Pike see you.”
Eugene laughed desolately. “I don’t mean to. I shall write to her. Good-bye,” he said, and was gone before Mr. Louden could restore enough order out of the chaos in his mind to stop him.
Thus Mrs. Louden’s long wait at the window was tragically rewarded, and she became an unhappy actor in Canaan’s drama of that day. Other ladies attended at other windows, or near their front doors, throughout the afternoon: the families of the three patriarchs awaiting their return, as the time drew on, with something akin to frenzy. Mrs. Flitcroft (a lady of temper), whose rheumatism confined her to a chair, had her grandson wheel her out upon the porch, and, as the dusk fell and she finally saw her husband coming at a laggard pace, leaning upon his cane, his chin sunk on his breast, she frankly told Norbert that although she had lived with that man more than fifty-seven years, she would never be able to understand him. She repeated this with genuine symptoms of hysteria when she discovered that the Colonel had not come straight from the Tabor house, but had stopped two hours at Peter Bradbury’s to “talk it over.”
One item of his recital, while sufficiently startling to his wife, had a remarkable effect upon his grandson. This was the information that Ariel Tabor’s fortune no longer existed.
“What’s that?” cried Norbert, starting to his feet. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s true,” said the Colonel, deliberately. “She told me so herself. Eskew had dropped off into a sort of doze — more like a stupor, perhaps, — and we all went into Roger’s old studio, except Louden and the doctor, and while we were there, talkin’, one of Pike’s clerks came with a basket full of tin boxes and packages of papers and talked to Miss Tabor at the door and went away. Then old Peter blundered out and asked her point-blank what it was, and she said it was her estate, almost everything she had, except the house. Buckalew, tryin’ to make a joke, said he’d be willin’ to swap HIS house and lot for the basket, and she laughed and told him she thought he’d be sorry; that all there was, to speak of, was a pile of distillery stock—” “What?” repeated Norbert, incredulously.
“Yes. It was the truth,” said the Colonel, solemnly. “I saw it myself: blocks and blocks of stock in that distillery trust that went up higher’n a kite last year. Roger had put all of Jonas’s good money—”
“Not into that!” shouted Norbert, uncontrollably excited.
“Yes, he did. I tell you I saw it!”
“I tell you he didn’t. He owned Granger Gas, worth more to-day than it ever was! Pike was Roger’s attorney-in-fact and bought it for him before the old man died. The check went through my hands. You don’t think I’d forget as big a check as that, do you, even if it was more than a year ago? Or how it was signed and who made out to? It was Martin Pike that got caught with distillery stock. He speculated once too often!”
“No, you’re wrong,” persisted the Colonel. “I tell you I saw it myself.”
“Then you’re blind,” returned his grandson, disrespectfully; “you’re blind or else — or else—” He paused, open-mouthed, a look of wonder struggling its way to expression upon him, gradually conquering every knobby outpost of his countenance. He struck his fat hands together. “Where’s Joe Louden?” he asked, sharply. “I want to see him. Did you leave him at Miss Tabor’s?”
“He’s goin’ to sit up with Eskew. What do you want of him?”
“I should say you better ask that!” Mrs. Flitcroft began, shrilly. “It’s enough, I guess, for one of this family to go runnin’ after him and shakin’ hands with him and Heaven knows what not! NORBERT FLITCROFT!”
But Norbert jumped from the porch, ruthlessly crossed his grandmother’s geranium-bed, and, making off at as sharp a pace as his architecture permitted, within ten minutes opened Ariel’s gate.
Sam Warden came forward to meet him.
“Don’t ring, please, suh,” said Sam. “Dey sot me out heah to tell inquirin’ frien’s dat po’ ole Mist’ Arp mighty low.”
“I want to see Mr. Louden,” returned Norbert. “I want to see him immediately.”
“I don’ reckon he kin come out yit,” Sam said, in a low tone. “But I kin go in an’ ast ’em.”
He stepped softly within, leaving Norbert waiting, and went to the door of the sick-room. The door was open, the room brightly lighted, as Eskew had commanded when, a little earlier, he awoke.
Joe and Ariel were alone with him, leaning toward him with such white anxiety that the colored man needed no warning to make him remain silent in the hallway. The veteran was speaking and his voice was very weak, seeming to come from a great distance.
“It’s mighty funny, but I feel like I used to when I was a little boy. I reckon I’m kind of scared — after all. Airie Tabor, — are you — here?”
“Yes, Mr. Arp.”
“I thought — so — but I — I don’t see very well — lately. I — wanted — to — know — to know—”
“Yes — to know?” She knelt close beside him.
“It’s kind of — foolish,” he whispered. “I just — wanted to know if you was still here. It — don’t seem so lonesome now that I know.”
She put her arm lightly about him and he smiled and was silent for a time. Then he struggled to rise upon his elbow, and they lifted him a little.
“It’s hard to breathe,” gasped the old man. “I’m pretty near — the big road. Joe Louden—”
“Yes?”
“You’d have been — willing — willing to change places with me — just now — when Airie—”
Joe laid his hand on his, and Eskew smiled again. “I thought so! And, Joe—”
“Yes?”
“You always — always had the — the best of that joke between us. Do you — you suppose they charge admission — up there?” His eyes were lifted. “Do you suppose you’ve got to — to show your good deeds to git in?” The answering whisper was almost as faint as the old man’s.
“No,” panted Eskew, “nobody knows. But I hope — I do hope — they’ll have some free seats. It’s a — mighty poor show — we’ll — all have — if they — don’t!”
He sighed peacefully, his head grew heavier on Joe’s arm; and the young man set his hand gently upon the unseeing eyes. Ariel did not rise from where she knelt, but looked up at him when, a little later, he lifted his hand.
“Yes,” said Joe, “you can cry now.”
XXII. MR. SHEEHAN SPEAKS
JOE HELPED TO carry what was mortal of Eskew from Ariel’s house to its final abiding-place. With him, in that task, were Buckalew, Bradbury, the Colonel, and the grandsons of the two latter, and Mrs. Louden drew in her skirts grimly as her step-son passed her in the mournful procession through the hall. Her eyes were red with weeping (not for Eskew), but not so red as those of Mamie Pike, who stood beside her.
On the way to the cemetery, Joe and Ariel were together in a carriage with Buckalew and the minister who had read the service, a dark, pleasant-eyed young man; — and the Squire, after being almost overcome during the ceremony, experienced a natural reaction, talking cheerfully throughout the long drive. He recounted many anecdotes of Eskew, chuckling over most of them, though filled with wonder by a coincidence which he and Flitcroft had discovered; the Colonel had recently been made the custodian of his old friend’s will, and it had been opened the day before the funeral. Eskew had left everything he possessed — with the regret that it was so little — to Joe.
“But the queer thing about it,” said the Squire, addressing himself to Ariel, “was the date of it, the seventeenth of June. The Colo
nel and I got to talkin’ it over, out on his porch, last night, tryin’ to rec’lect what was goin’ on about then, and we figgered it out that it was the Monday after you come back, the very day he got so upset when he saw you goin’ up to Louden’s law-office with your roses.”
Joe looked quickly at Ariel. She did not meet his glance, but, turning instead to Ladew, the clergyman, began, with a barely perceptible blush, to talk of something he had said in a sermon two weeks ago. The two fell into a thoughtful and amiable discussion, during which there stole into Joe’s heart a strange and unreasonable pain. The young minister had lived in Canaan only a few months, and Joe had never seen him until that morning; but he liked the short, honest talk he had made; liked his cadenceless voice and keen, dark face; and, recalling what he had heard Martin Pike vociferating in his brougham one Sunday, perceived that Ladew was the fellow who had “got to go” because his sermons did not please the Judge. Yet Ariel remembered for more than a fortnight a passage from one of these sermons. And as Joe looked at the manly and intelligent face opposite him, it did not seem strange that she should.
He resolutely turned his eyes to the open window and saw that they had entered the cemetery, were near the green knoll where Eskew was to lie beside a brother who had died long ago. He let the minister help Ariel out, going quickly forward himself with Buckalew; and then — after the little while that the restoration of dust to dust mercifully needs — he returned to the carriage only to get his hat.
Ariel and Ladew and the Squire were already seated and waiting. “Aren’t you going to ride home with us?” she asked, surprised.
“No,” he explained, not looking at her. “I have to talk with Norbert Flitcroft. I’m going back with him. Good-bye.”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 88