CHAPTER XX
George Tresslyn pulled through.
He was a very sick man, and he wanted to die. That is to say, he wanted to die up to a certain point and then he very much wanted to live. Coming out of his delirium one day he made a most incredible discovery, and at that very instant entered upon a dream that was never to end. He saw Lutie sitting at his bedside and he knew that it must be a dream. As she did not fade away then, nor in all the mysterious days that followed, he came to the conclusion that if he ever did wake up it would be the most horrible thing that could happen to him. It was a most grateful and satisfying dream. It included a wonderful period of convalescence, a delightful and ever-increasing appetite, a painless return voyage over a road that had been full of suffering on the way out, a fantastic experience in the matter of legs that wouldn't work and wobbled fearfully, a constant but properly subdued desire to sing and whistle—oh, it was a glorious dream that George was having!
For six weeks he was the uninvited guest of Simmy Dodge. Three of those weeks were terrifying to poor Simmy, and three abounded with the greatest joy he had ever known, for when George was safely round the corner and on the road to recovery, the hospitality of Simmy Dodge expanded to hitherto untried dimensions. Relieved of the weight that had pressed them down to an inconceivable depth, Simmy's spirits popped upward with an effervescence so violent that there was absolutely no containing them. They flowed all over the place.All day long and most of the night they were active. He hated to go to bed for fear of missing an opportunity to do something to make everybody happy and comfortable, and he was up so early in the morning that if he hadn't been in his own house some one would have sent him back to bed with a reprimand.
He revelled in the establishment of a large though necessarily disconnected family circle. The nurses, the doctors, the extra servants, Anne's maid, Anne herself, the indomitable Lutie, and, on occasions, the impressive Mrs. Tresslyn,—all of these went to make up Simmy's family.
The nurses were politely domineering: they told him what he could do and what he could not do, and he obeyed them with a cheerfulness that must have shamed them. The doctors put all manner of restrictions upon him; the servants neglected to whisper when discussing their grievances among themselves; his French poodle was banished because canine hospitality was not one of the niceties, and furthermore it was most annoying to recent acquaintances engaged in balancing well-filled cups of broth in transit; his own luxurious bath-room was seized, his bed-chambers invested, his cosy living-room turned into a rest room which every one who happened to be disengaged by day or night felt free to inhabit. He had no privacy except that which was to be found in the little back bedroom into which he was summarily shunted when the occupation began, and he wasn't sure of being entirely at home there. At any time he expected a command to evacuate in favour of an extra nurse or a doctor's assistant. But through all of it, he shone like a gem of purest ray.
At the outset he realised that his apartment, commodious when reckoned as a bachelor's abode, was entirelyinadequate when it came to accommodating a company of persons who were not and never could be bachelors. Lutie refused to leave George; and Anne, after a day or two, came to keep her company. It was then that Simmy began to reveal signs of rare strategical ability. He invaded the small apartment of his neighbour beyond the elevator and struck a bargain with him. The neighbour and his wife rented the apartment to him furnished for an indefinite period and went to Europe on the bonus that Simmy paid. Here Anne and her maid were housed, and here also Mrs. Tresslyn spent a few nights out of each week.
He studied the nurses' charts with an avid interest. He knew all there was to know about temperature, respiration and nourishment; and developing a sudden sort of lordly understanding therefrom, he harangued the engineer about the steam heat, he cautioned the superintendent about noises, and he held many futile arguments with God about the weather. Something told him a dozen times a day, however, that he was in the way, that he was "a regular Marceline," and that if Brady Thorpe had any sense at all he would order him out of the house!
He began to resent the speed with which George's convalescence was marked. He was enjoying himself so immensely in his new environment that he hated to think of going back to the old and hitherto perfect order of existence. When Braden Thorpe and Dr. Bates declared one day that George would be able to go home in a week or ten days, he experienced a surprising and absolutely inexplicable sinking of the heart. He tried to persuade them that it would be a mistake to send the poor fellow out inside of a month or six weeks. That was the trouble with doctors, he said: they haven't anysense. Suppose, he argued, that George were to catch a cold—why, the damp, spring weather would raise the dickens—Anne's house was a drafty old barn of a place, improperly heated,—and any fool could see that if Georgedidhave a relapse it would go mighty hard with him. Subsequently he sounded the nurses, severally, on the advisability of abandoning the poor, weak young fellow before he was safely out of the woods, and the nurses, who were tired of the case, informed him that the way George was eating he soon would be as robust as a dock hand. An appeal to Mrs. Tresslyn brought a certain degree of hope. That lady declared, quite bitterly, that inasmuch as her son did not seem inclined to return toherhome he might do a great deal worse than to remain where he was, and it was some time before Simmy grasped the full significance of the remark.
He remembered hearing Lutie say that she was going to take George home with her as soon as he was able to be moved!
What was he to do with himself after all these people were gone? For the first time in his life he really knew what it meant to have a home, and now it was to be broken up. He saw more of his home in the five or six weeks that George was there than he had seen of it all told in years. He stayed at home instead of going to the club or the theatre or to stupid dinner parties. He hadn't the faintest idea that a place where a fellow did nothing but sleep and eat bacon and eggs could be looked upon as a "home." He had thought of it only as an apartment, or "diggings." Now he loved his home and everything that was in it. How he would miss the stealthy blue linen nurses, and the expressionless doctors, and the odour of broths and soups, and the scentof roses, and the swish of petticoats, and the elevating presence of pretty women, and the fragrance of them, and the sweet chatter of them—Oh my, oh me-oh-my! If George would only get well in a more leisurely fashion!
Certain interesting events, each having considerable bearing upon the lives of the various persons presented in this narrative, are to be chronicled, but as briefly as possible so that we may get on to the results.
Naturally one turns first to the patient himself. He was the magnet that drew the various opposing forces together and, in a way, united them in a common enterprise, and therefore is of first importance. For days his life hung in the balance. Most of the time he was completely out of his head. It has been remarked that he thought himself to be dreaming when he first beheld Lutie at his bedside, and it now becomes necessary to report an entirely different sensation when he came to realise that he was being attended by Dr. Thorpe. The instant he discovered Lutie he manifested an immense desire to live, and it was this desire that sustained a fearful shock when his fever-free eyes looked up into the face of his doctor. Terror filled his soul. Almost his first rational words were in the form of a half-whispered question: "For God's sake, can't I get well? Is—is it hopeless?"
Braden was never to forget the anguish in the sick man's eyes, nor the sagging of his limp body as if all of his remaining strength had given way before the ghastly fear that assailed him. Thorpe understood. He knew what it was that flashed through George's brain in that first moment of intelligence. His heart sank. Was it always to be like this? Were people tolive in dread of him? His voice was husky as he leaned over and laid his hand gently upon the damp brow of the invalid.
"You are going to get well, George. You will be as sound as a rock in no time at all. Trust me, old fellow,—and don't worry."
"But that's what they always say," whispered George, peering straight into the other's eyes. "Doctors always say that. What are you doing here, Brady? Why have you been called in to—"
"Hush! You're all right. Don't get excited. I have been with you from the start. Ask Lutie—or Anne. They will tell you that you are all right."
"I don't want to die," whined George. "I only want a fair chance. Give me a chance, Brady. I'll show you that I—"
"My God!" fell in agonised tones from Thorpe's lips, and he turned away as one condemned.
When Lutie and Anne came into the room soon afterward, they found George in a state of great distress. He clutched Lutie's hand in his strong fingers and drew her down close to him so that he could whisper furtively in her ear.
"Don't let any one convince you that I haven't a chance to get well, Lutie. Don't let him talk you into anything like that. I won't give my consent, Lutie,—I swear to God I won't. He can't do it without my consent. I've just got to get well. I can do it if I get half a chance. I depend on you to stand out against any—"
Lutie managed to quiet him. Thorpe had gone at once to her with the story and she was prepared. For a long time she talked to the frightened boy, and at lasthe sank back with a weak smile on his lips, confidence partially restored.
Anne stood at the head of the bed, out of his range of vision. Her heart was cold within her. It ached for the other man who suffered and could not cry out.Thiswas but the beginning for him.
In a day or two George's attitude toward Braden underwent a complete change, but all the warmth of his enthusiastic devotion could not drive out the chill that had entered Thorpe's heart on that never-to-be-forgotten morning.
Then there were the frequent and unavoidable meetings of Anne and her former lover. For the better part of three weeks Thorpe occupied a room in Simmy's apartment, to be constantly near his one and only patient. He suffered no pecuniary loss in devoting all of his time and energy to young Tresslyn. Ostensibly he was in full charge of the case, but in reality he deferred to the opinions and advice of Dr. Bates, who came once a day. He had the good sense to appreciate his own lack of experience, and thereby earned the respect and confidence of the old practitioner.
It was quite natural that he and Anne should come in contact with each other. They met in the sick-room, in the drawing-room, and frequently at table. There were times during the darkest hours in George's illness when they stood side by side in the watches of the night. But not once in all those days was there a word bearing on their own peculiar relationship uttered by either of them. It was plain that she had the greatest confidence in him, and he came, ere long, to regard her as a dependable and inspired help. Unlike the distracted, remorseful Lutie, she was the source of great inspiration to those whoworked over the sick man. Thorpe marvelled at first and then fell into the way of resorting to her for support and encouragement. He had discovered that she was not playing a game.
Templeton Thorpe's amazing will was not mentioned by either of them, although each knew that the subject lay uppermost in the mind of the other. The newspapers printed columns about the instrument. Reporters who laid in wait for Braden Thorpe, however, obtained no satisfaction. He had nothing to say. The same reporters fell upon Anne and wanted to know when she expected to start proceedings to have the will set aside. They seemed astonished to hear that there was to be no contest on her part. She could not tell them anything about the plans or intentions of Dr. Thorpe, and she had no opinion as to the ultimate effect of the "Foundation" upon the Constitution of the United States or the laws of God!
As a matter of fact, she was more eager than any one else to know the stand that Braden intended to take on the all-absorbing question. Notwithstanding her peculiar position as executrix of the will under which the conditions were created, she could not bring herself to the point of discussing the salient feature of the document with him. And so there the matter stood, unmentioned by either of them, and absolutely unsettled so far as the man most deeply involved was concerned.
Then came the day when Thorpe announced that it was no longer necessary for him to impose upon Simmy's hospitality, and that he was returning that evening to his hotel. George was out of danger. It was then that he said to Anne:
"You have been wonderful, Anne. I want to thank you for what you have done to help me. You mighthave made the situation impossible, but—well, you didn't, that's all. I am glad that you and that poor little woman in there have become such good friends. You can do a great deal to help her—and George. She is a brick, Anne. You will not lose anything by standing by her now. As I said before, you can always reach me by telephone if anything goes wrong, and I'll drop in every morning to—"
"I want you to know, Braden, that I firmly believe you saved George for us. I shall not try to thank you, however. You did your duty, of course. We will let Lutie weep on your neck, if you don't mind, and you may take my gratitude for granted." There was a slightly satirical note in her voice.
His figure stiffened. "I don't want to be thanked," he said,—"not even by Lutie. You must know that I did not come into this case from choice. But when Lutie insisted I—well, there was nothing else to do."
"Would you have come if I had asked you?" she inquired, and was very much surprised at herself.
"No," he answered. "You would have had no reason for selecting me, and I would have told you as much. And to that I would have added a very good reason why you shouldn't."
"What do you mean?"
"I may as well be frank, Anne. People,—our own friends,—are bound to discuss us pretty thoroughly from now on. No matter how well we may understand each other and the situation, the rest of the world will not understand, simply because it doesn't want to do so. It will wait,—rather impatiently, I fear,—for the chance to say, 'I told you so.' Of course, you are sensible enough to have thought of all this, still I don't see why I shouldn't speak of it to you."
"Has it occurred to you that our friends may be justified in thinking that Ididcall upon you to take this case, Braden?" she asked quietly.
He frowned. "I daresay that is true. I hadn't thought of it—"
"They also believe that I summoned you to take charge of my husband a few weeks ago. No one has advised the world to the contrary. And now that you are here, in the same house with me, what do you suppose they will say?" A queer little smile played about her lips, a smile of diffidence and apology.
He gave her a quick look of inquiry. "Surely no one will—"
"They will say the Widow Thorpe's devotion to her brother was not her only excuse for moving into good old Simmy's apartment, and they will also say that Dr. Thorpe must be singularly without practice in order to give all of his time to a solitary case."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Anne," he cried impatiently, "give people credit for having a little commonsense and charity. They—"
"I don't give them credit for having anything of the kind," she said coolly, "when it comes to discussing their fellow creatures. I hope you are not distressed, Braden. As you have said, people will discuss us. We cannot escape the consequences of being more or less public institutions, you and I. Of course they will talk about our being here together. I knew that when I came here three weeks ago."
"Then why did you come?" he demanded.
She replied with a directness that shamed him. "Because I do not want people to talk about Lutie. That is one reason. Another is that I wanted to do my share in looking after George." Suddenly her eyes narrowed."You—you do not imagine that I—I—you couldn't have thoughtthatof me, Braden."
He shook his head slowly. "If I had thoughtthat, Anne, I should not have told you a moment ago that you were wonderful," he said.
Few women would have been content to let it go at that. It is the prerogative of woman to expect more than a crumb, and, if it is not forthcoming from others, to gratify the appetite by feeding confidently upon herself. In this instance, Anne might have indulged herself in the comfort of a few tremulous words of self-justification, and even though they drew nothing in exchange, she would at least have had the pleasure of uttering them, and the additional satisfaction of knowing that he would have to listen to them, whether or no. But she was far too intelligent for that. Her good sense overcame the feminine craving; she surprised him by holding her tongue.
He waited for a second or two and then said: "Good-bye. I shall drop in to-morrow to see George."
She held out her hand. "He swears by you," she said, with a smile.
For the first time in more than a year, their hands touched. Up to this moment there had not been the remotest evidence of an inclination on the part of either to bridge the chasm that lay between them. The handclasp was firm but perfunctory. She had herself under perfect control. It is of importance to note, however, that later on she pressed her hand to her lips, and that there were many times during the day when she looked at it as if it were something unreal and apart from her own physical being.
"Thank heaven he doesn't feel toward me as he did last week," he said fervently. "I shall never get overthat awful moment. I shall never forget the look of despair that—"
"I know," she interrupted. "I saw it too. But it is gone now, so why make a ghost of it? Don't let it haunt you, Braden."
"It is easy to say that I shouldn't let it—"
"If you are going to begin your life's work by admitting that you are thin-skinned, you'll not get very far, my friend," she said seriously. "Good-bye."
She smiled faintly as she turned away. He was never quite sure whether it was encouragement or mockery that lay in her dark eyes when she favoured him with that parting glance. He stood motionless until she disappeared through the door that opened into the room where George was lying; his eyes followed her slender, graceful figure until she was gone from sight. His thoughts leaped backward to the time when he had held that lovely, throbbing, responsive body close in his arms, to the time when he had kissed those, sensitive lips and had found warmth and passion in them, to the time when he had drunk in the delicate perfume of her hair and the seductive fragrance of her body. That same slender, adorable body had been pressed close to his, and he had trembled under the enchantment it held.
He went away plagued and puzzled by an annoying question that kept on repeating itself without answer; was it in his power now to rouse the old flame in her blood, to revive the tender fires that once consumed her senses when he caressed her? Would she be proof against him if he set out to reconquer? She seemed so serene, so sure of herself. Was it a pose or had love really died within her?
By no means the least important of the happenings inSimmy's house was the short but decisive contest that took place between Lutie and Mrs. Tresslyn. They met first in the sick-room, and the shock was entirely one-sided. It was George's mother who sustained it. She had not expected to find the despised "outcast" there. For once her admirable self-control was near to being shattered. If she had been permitted to exercise the right of speech at that crucial moment, she would have committed the irretrievable error of denouncing the brazen creature in the presence of disinterested persons. Afterwards she thanked her lucky stars for the circumstances which compelled her to remain angrily passive, for she was soon to realise what such an outburst would have brought upon her head.
She took it out on Anne, as if Anne were wholly to blame for the outrage. Anne had the temerity,—the insolence, Mrs. Tresslyn called it,—to advise her to make the best of a situation that could not be helped. She held forth at some length for her daughter's benefit about "common decency," and was further shocked by Anne's complacency.
"I think she's behaving with uncommon decency," said Anne. "It isn't every one who would turn the other cheek like this. Let her alone. She's the best thing that can happen to George."
"My dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Tresslyn, aghast. "Of course, I shall not come to this apartment while she is here. That is out of the question."
"Inasmuch as Lutie was here first and means to stay, I am afraid you will have to reconsider that decision, mother,—provided you want to be near George."
"Did you speak of her as 'Lutie'?" demanded Mrs. Tresslyn, staring.
"I don't know what else to call her," said Anne.
"Simeon Dodge will appreciate my feelings,—my position—"
"Simmy is very much on her side, so I'd advise you to steer clear of him," said Anne impatiently. "Now, mother dear, don't upset things here. Don't make a fuss. Don't—"
"A fuss?" cried her mother, trying hard not to believe her ears.
"Don't make it any harder for poor old Simmy. He is in for a rough time of it. Tresslyns everywhere! It isn't a lovely prospect, you know. He will be fed up with us before—And, mother, don't overlook the fact that George is very ill. He may not pull through. He—"
"Of course he will get well. He's as strong as an ox. Don't be silly."
The next day she and Lutie met in the library and had it out,—briefly, as I said before, but with astounding clarity. Mrs. Tresslyn swept into the library at four in the afternoon, coming direct from her home, where, as she afterwards felt called upon to explain in self-defence, the telephone was aggravatingly out of order,—and that was why she hadn't called up to inquire!—(It is so often the case when one really wants to use the stupid thing!) She was on the point of entering the sick-room when Lutie came up from behind.
"I'm afraid you can't go in just now, Mrs. Tresslyn," she said, firmly and yet courteously.
George's mother started as if stung. "Oh!" she exclaimed, and her tone was so declaratory that it was not necessary to add the unspoken—"it'syou, is it?"
"He is asleep," said Lutie gently. "They won't even allowmeto go in."
This was too much for Mrs. Tresslyn. She transfixed the slight, tired-eyed young woman with a look that would have chilled any one else to the bone—the high-bred look that never fails to put the lowly in their places.
"Indeed," she said, with infinite irony in her voice. "This is Miss Carnahan, I believe?" She lifted her lorgnon as a further aid to inspection.
"I am the person you have always spoken of as Miss Carnahan," said Lutie calmly. Throughout the brief period in which she had been legally the wife of George Tresslyn, Lutie was never anything but Miss Carnahan to her mother-in-law. Mrs. Tresslyn very carefully forbore giving her daughter-in-law a respectable name. "I was afraid you might have forgotten me."
"You will forgive me if I confess that I have tried very hard to forget you, Miss Carnahan," said the older woman.
"It isn't my fault that you haven't been able to do so," said Lutie. "Please! you are not to go in." Mrs. Tresslyn's hand was turning the door-knob.
"I fear you are forgetting who I am," said she coldly.
"Oh, I know you're his mother, and all that," said Lutie, breathlessly. "I do not question your right to be with your son. That isn't the point. The nurse has ordered your daughter and me out of the room for awhile. It is the first wink of sleep he has had in heaven knows how long. So you cannot go in and disturb him, Mrs. Tresslyn."
Mrs. Tresslyn's hand fell away from the knob. For a moment she regarded the tense, agitated girl in silence.
"Has it occurred to you to feel—if you can feel at all—that you may not be wanted here, Miss Carnahan?"she said, deliberately cruel. She towered above her adversary.
"Will you be kind enough to come away from the door?" said Lutie, wholly unimpressed. "It isn't very thick, and the sound of voices may penetrate—"
"Upon my soul!" exclaimed Mrs. Tresslyn, staring. "Do you presume to—"
"Not quite so loud, if you please. Come over here if you want to talk to me, Mrs. Tresslyn. Nurse's orders, not mine. I don't in the least mind what you say to me, or what you call me, or anything, but I do entreat you to think of George."
Greatly to her own surprise, Mrs. Tresslyn moved away from the door, and, blaming herself inwardly for the physical treachery that impelled her to do so, sat down abruptly in a chair on the opposite side of the room, quite as far removed from the door as even Lutie could have desired.
Lutie did not sit down. She came over and stood before the woman who had once driven her out. Her face was white and her eyes were heavy from loss of sleep, but her voice was as clear and sharp as a bell.
"We may as well understand each other, Mrs. Tresslyn," she said quietly. "Or, perhaps I'd better say that you may as well understand me. I still believe myself to be George's wife. A South Dakota divorce may be all right so far as the law is concerned, but it will not amount tothat"—she snapped her fingers—"when George and I conclude to set it aside. I went out to that God-forsaken little town and stayed there for nearly a year, eating my heart out until I realised that it wasn't at all appetising. I lived up to my bargain, however. I made it my place of residence and I got my decree. I tore that hateful piece of paper up last night before I came here. You paid me thirty thousand dollars to giveGeorge up, and he allowed you to do it. Now I have just this to say, Mrs. Tresslyn: if George gets well, and I pray to God that he may, I am going back to him, and I don't care whether we go through the form of marrying all over again or not. He is my husband. I am his wife. There never was an honest cause for divorce in our case. He wasn't as brave as I'd have liked him to be in those days, but neither was I. If I had been as brave as I am now, George wouldn't be lying in there a wreck and a failure. You may take it into your head to ask why I am here. Well, now you know. I'm here to take care of my husband."
Mrs. Tresslyn's steady, uncompromising gaze never left the face of the speaker. When Lutie paused after that final declaration, she waited a moment for her to resume.
"There is, of course," said she levelly, "the possibility that my son may not get well."
Lutie's eyes narrowed. "You mean that you'd rather see him die than—"
"Miss Carnahan, I am compelled to speak brutally to you. I paid you to give up my son. You took the money I proffered and the divorce I arranged for. You agreed to—"
"Just a moment, please. I took the money and—andgot outin order to give George a chance to marry some one else and be happy. That was what you wanted, and whatyoupromised me. You promised me that if I gave him up he would find some one else more worthy, that he would forget me and be happy, and that I would be forgotten inside of six months. Well, none of these things has happened. He hasn't found any one else, he still loves me, and he isn't happy. I am going back on my bargain, Mrs. Tresslyn, because you haven't carried out your part of it. If you think it was easyfor me to give him up when I did, you are very much mistaken. But that wouldn't interest you, so I'll say no more about it. We'll come down to the present, if you don't mind, and see where we stand; George needs me now, but no more than he has needed me all along. I intend to stick to him like a leech from this time on, Mrs. Tresslyn. You had your chance to makeyourkind of a man out of him, and I guess you'll admit that you failed. Well, I'm going to begin where you were content to leave off. You treated me like a dog, and God knows you've treated George but little better, although perhaps you didn't know what you were doing to him. He is down and out. You didn't expect things to turn out as they have. You thought I'd be the one to go to the devil. Now I'll put it up to you squarely. I still have the thirty thousand you gave me. It is nicely invested. I have lived comfortably on the income. A few years ago I sold George to you for that amount. Well, I'll buy him back from you to-morrow."
"Buy my son from me?" gasped Mrs. Tresslyn.
"You made it a business proposition three years ago, so I'll do the same now. I want to be fair and square with you. I'm going to take him back in any event, but I shall be a great deal better satisfied if you will let me pay for him."
Mrs. Tresslyn had recovered herself by this time. She gave the younger woman a frosty smile.
"And I suppose you will expect to get him at a considerably reduced price," she said sarcastically, "in view of the fact that he is damaged goods."
"You shall have back every penny, Mrs. Tresslyn," said Lutie, with dignity.
"How ingenuous you are. Do you really believe that I willsellmy son to you?"
"I sold him to you," said the other, stubbornly.
Mrs. Tresslyn arose. "I think we would better bring this interview to an end, Miss Carnahan. I shall spare you the opinion I have formed of you in—"
"Just as you please, Mrs. Tresslyn," said Lutie calmly. "We'll consider the matter closed. George comes back to me at my own price. I—"
"My son shall never marry you!" burst out Mrs. Tresslyn, furiously.
Lutie smiled. "It's good to see you mad, Mrs. Tresslyn. It proves that you are like other people, after all. Give yourself a chance, and you'll find it just as easy to be glad as it is to be mad, now that you've let go of yourself a little bit."
"You are insufferable! Be good enough to stand aside. I am going in to my son. He—"
"If you are so vitally interested in him, how does it happen that you wait until four o'clock in the afternoon to come around to inquire about him? I've been here on the job since last night—and so has your daughter. But you? Where have you been all this time, Mrs. Tresslyn?"
"God in heaven!" gasped Mrs. Tresslyn, otherwise speechless.
"If I had a son I'd be with him day and night at—"
"The telephone was out of order," began Mrs. Tresslyn before she could produce the power to check the impulse to justify herself in the eyes of this brazen tormentor.
"Indeed?" said Lutie politely.
"My son shall never marry you," repeated the other, helplessly.
"Well," began Lutie slowly, a bright spot in each cheek, "all I have to say is that he will be extremely unfair to your grandchildren, Mrs. Tresslyn, if he doesn't."
CHAPTER XXI
A ground-floor window in an apartment building in Madison Avenue, north of Fifty-ninth street, displayed in calm black lettering the name "Dr. Braden L. Thorpe, M.D." On the panel of a door just inside the main entrance there was a bit of gold-leaf information to the effect that office hours were from 9 to 10A.M. and from 2 to 4P.M.There was a reception room and a consultation room in the suite. The one was quite as cheerless and uninviting as any other reception room of its kind, and the other possessed as many of the strange, terrifying and more or less misunderstood devices for the prolongation of uncertainty in the minds of the uneasy. During office-hours there was also a doctor there. Nothing was missing from this properly placarded and admirably equipped office,—nothing at all except the patients!
About the time that George Tresslyn fared forth into the world again, Thorpe hung out his shingle and sat himself down under his own gates to wait for the unwary. But no one came. The lame, the halt and even the blind had visions that were not to be dissipated by anything so trivial as a neat little sign in an office window. The name of Braden Thorpe was on the lips of every one. It was mentioned, not with horror or disgust, but as one speaks of the exalted genius whose cure for tuberculosis has failed, or of the man who found the North Pole by advertising in the newspapers, or of the books of Henry James. He was a person to steer clear of, that was all.
Every newspaper in the country discussed him editorially, paragraphically, and as an article of news. For weeks after the death of Templeton Thorpe and the publication of his will, not a day passed in which Braden Thorpe's outlandish assault upon civilisation failed to receive its country-wide attention in the press. And when editorial writers, medical sharps, legal experts and grateful reporters failed to avail themselves of the full measure of space set apart for their gluttony, ubiquitous "Constant Reader" rushed into print under many aliases and enjoyed himself as never before.
In the face of all this uproar, brought about by the posthumous utterance of old Templeton Thorpe, Braden had the courage,—or the temerity, if that is a truer word,—to put his name in a window and invite further attention to himself.
The world, without going into the matter any deeper than it usually does, assumed that he who entered the office of Dr. Thorpe would never come out of it alive!
The fact that Thorpe advocated something that could not conceivably become a reality short of two centuries made no impression on the world and his family. Dr. Thorpe believed that it was best to put sufferers out of their misery, and that was all there was to be said about the matter so far as Mr. Citizen was concerned.
It would appear, therefore, that all of Templeton Thorpe's ideas, hopes and plans concerning the future of his grandson were to be shattered by his own lack of judgment and foresight. Without intending to do so he had deprived the young man of all that had been given him in the way of education, training and character. Young Thorpe might have lived down or surmounted the prejudice that his own revolutionary utterancescreated, but he could never overcome the stupendous obstacle that now lay in his path.
If Mr. Thorpe had hoped to create, or believed sincerely that it was possible to create, a force capable of overpowering the natural instincts of man, he had set for himself a task that could have but one result so far as the present was concerned, and it was in the present that Braden Thorpe lived, very far removed from the future that Mr. Thorpe appeared to be seeing from a point close by as he lay on his death-bed. He had completely destroyed the present usefulness of his grandson. He had put a blight upon him, and now he was sleeping peacefully where mockery could not reach him nor reason hold him to account.
The letter that the old man left for his grandson's guidance was an affectionate apology, very skilfully worded, for having, in a way, left the bulk of his fortune to the natural heir instead of to the great, consuming public. True, he did not put this in so many words, but it was obvious to the young man, if not to others who saw and read, that he was very clear in his mind as to the real purport and intention of the clause covering the foundation. He was careful to avoid the slightest expression that might have been seized upon by the young man as evidence of treachery on his part in view of the solemn promise he had made to leave to him no portion of his estate. On the surface, this letter was a simple, direct appeal to Braden to abide by the terms of the will, and to consider the trust as sacred in spite of the absence of restrictions. To Braden, there was but one real meaning to the will: the property was his to have, hold or dispose of as he saw fit. He was at liberty either to use every dollar of it in carrying out the expressed sentiments of the testator,or to sit back luxuriously and console himself with the thought that nothing was really expected of him.
The Foundation that received such wide-spread notice, and brought down upon his head, not the wrath but the ridicule of his fellow beings, was not to serve in any sense as a memorial to the man who provided the money with which the work was to be carried on. As a matter of fact, old Templeton Thorpe took very good care to stipulate plainly that it was not to be employed to any such end. He forbade the use of his name in any capacity except as one of thesupportersof the movement. The whole world rose up at first and heaped anathemas on the name of Templeton Thorpe, and then, swiftly recovering its amiable tolerance of fools, forgot the dead and took its pleasure in "steering clear of the man who was left to hold the bag of gold," as some of the paragraphers would have it.
The people forgot old Templeton, and they also became a bit hazy about the cardinal principle of the Foundation, much as they forget other disasters, but they did not forget to look upon Braden Thorpe as a menace to mankind.
And so it was that after two months of waiting, he closed his office for the summer and disappeared from the city. He had not treated a solitary patient, nor had he been called in consultation by a single surgeon of his acquaintance, although many of them professed friendship for and confidence in him.
Six weeks later Simmy Dodge located his friend in a small coast town in Maine, practically out of the reach of tourists and not at all accessible to motorists. He had taken board and lodging with a needy villager who was still honest, and there he sat and brooded over the curse that his own intelligence had laid upon him.He had been there for a month or more before he lifted his head, figuratively speaking, to look at the world again,—and he found it still bright and sparkling despite his desire to have it otherwise in order that he might be recompensed for his mood. Then it was that he wrote to Simmy Dodge, asking him to sell the furnishings and appliances in his office, sublet the rooms, and send to him as soon as possible the proceeds of the sale. He confessed frankly and in his straightforward way that he was hard up and needed the money!
Now, it should be remembered that Braden Thorpe had very little means of his own, a small income from his mother's estate being all that he possessed. He had been dependent upon his grandfather up to the day he died. Years had been spent in preparing him for the personal achievements that were to make him famous and rich by his own hand. Splendid ability and unquestioned earning power were the result of Templeton Thorpe's faith in the last of his race. But nothing was to come of it. His ability remained but his earning power was gone. He was like a splendid engine from which the motive power has been shut off.
For weeks after leaving New York he had seen the world blackly through eyes that grasped no perspective. But he was young, he was made of the flesh that fights, and the spirit that will not down. He looked up from the black view that had held his attention so long, and smiled. It was not a gay smile but one in which there was defiant humour. After all, why shouldn't he smile? These villagers smiled cheerfully, and what had they in their narrow lives to cause them to see the world brightly? He was no worse off than they. If they could be content to live outside the world, why shouldn't he be as they? He was big and strong and young.The fellows who went out to sea in the fishing boats were no stronger, no better than he. He could do the things that they were doing, and they sang while they went to and from their work.
It was the reviving spirit in him that opened his eyes to the lowly joys surrounding him. He found himself thinking with surprising interest that he could do what these men were doing and do it well, and after all what more can be expected of a man than that he should do some one thing well? He did not realise at the time that this small, mean ambition to surpass these bold fishermen was nothing less than the resurrection of dead hopes.
And so, when Simmy Dodge walked in upon him one day, expecting to find a beaten, discouraged skulker, he was confronted by a sun-browned, bare-armed, bright-eyed warrior whose smile was that of the man who never laughs,—the grim smile of him who thinks.
The lines in his face had deepened under the influence of sun and wind; there was a new, almost unnatural ruggedness about the man Simmy had seen less than two months before. The cheeks had the appearance of being sunken and there was an even firmer look to the strong chin and jaws than in the so recent past. Simmy looked at this new, hardy face and wondered whether two months in the rough world would do as much in proportion for his own self-despised countenance.
Thorpe had been up since five o'clock in the morning. For two weeks he had started off every morning at that hour with his landlord for the timberlands above the town, where they spent the day hewing out the sills and beams for a new boat-house. Unskilled at such labor, his duties were not those of the practised workman, but rather those of the "handy man" upon whomfalls the most arduous tasks as a rule. Thorpe's sinews were strained to the utmost in handling the long, unwieldy trunks of the fallen trees; his hands were blistered and his legs bruised, but the splendid muscles were no longer sore, nor was he so fatigued at day's-end that he could have "dropped in his tracks" right joyfully,—as he had felt like doing in the first week of his toiling.
"Well, I'll be jiggered," said Simmy, still holding Thorpe's hand as he backed away from him the better to take in this new and strange creature in overalls. Thorpe and his grizzled host had just come down from the woods with a load of pine logs, and had found the trim, immaculate little New Yorker waiting for them at the breakwater, directed thither by the housewife in the winding lane that was called High Street. "By the way, is your name Thorpe?" he added quizzically.
"Yep," said the graduate of three great universities, gripping the little man's hand a trifle harder. "All that is left of me is named Thorpe, Simmy."
"Have you—hired out as a—Good Lord, Brady, you're not as hard up as all that, are you?" Simmy's face was bleak with concern.
"I'm doing it for the fun of the thing," said Thorpe. "Next week I'm going out with the boats. I say, Simmy, have you a cigarette about your person? I haven't had a—"
Half an hour later, Simmy was seated in the cool little front porch with its screen of vines, the scent of the sea filling his sensitive nostrils, and he was drinking buttermilk.
"Now, see here, Brady, it's all damned tommyrot," he was saying,—and he had said something of the kind several times before in the course of their earnest conversation."There's just one course open to you, and that's the right one. You've got to come back to New York and look people in the eye and tell 'em to go to Gehenna if they don't like what you're doing. You can't go on living like this, no matter how much you love it now. You're not cut out for this sort of thing. Lordy, if I was as big and brutal looking as you are at this minute I'd stand up for myself against—"
"But you will not understand," repeated Thorpe doggedly. "If my attainments, as you call them, are to be of no value to me in helping mankind, what is there left for me to do but this? Didn't I have enough of it in those horrible two months down there to prove to me that they hate me? They—"
"You weren't so thin skinned as all this when you were writing those inspired articles of yours, were you? Confound you, Brady, you invited all of this, you brought it down upon your head with all that nonsense about—why, it was you who converted old Templeton Thorpe and here you are running away like a 'white-head.' Haven't you any back-bone?"
"That's all very well, Simmy, but of what value is a back-bone in a case like mine? If I had ten back-bones I couldn't compel people to come to me for treatment or advice. They are afraid of me. I am a doctor, a surgeon, a friend to all men. But if they will not believe that I am their friend, how can I be of service to them?"
"You'll get patients, and plenty of 'em too, if you'll just hang on and wait. They'll come to know that you wouldn't kill a cockroach if you could help it. You'll—what's the matter?" He broke off suddenly with this sharp question. A marked pallor had come over Thorpe's sunburnt face.
"Nothing—nothing at all," muttered the other. "The heat up there in the woods—"
"You must look out for that, old boy," said Simmy anxiously. "Go slow. You're only a city feller, as they'd say up here. What a God-forsaken place it is! Not more than two hundred miles from Boston and yet I was a whole day getting here."
"It is peaceful, Simmy," said Thorpe.
"I grant you that, by Jove. A fellow could walk in the middle of the street here for a solid year without being hit by an automobile. But as I was saying, you can make a place for yourself—"
"I should starve, old fellow. You forget that I am a poor man."
"Rats! You've got twenty-five thousand dollars a year, if you'll only be sensible. There isn't another man in the United States who would be as finicky about it as you are, no matter how full of ideals and principles he may be stuffed."
Thorpe looked up suddenly. His jaw was set hard and firm once more. "Don't you know what people would say about me if I were to operate and the patient died?—as some of them do, you know. They would say that I did it deliberately. I couldn't afford to lose in a single instance, Simmy. I couldn't take the chance that other surgeons are compelled to take in a great many cases. One failure would be sufficient. One—"
"See here, you've just got to look at things squarely, Braden. You owe something to your grandfather if not to yourself. He left all that money for a certain, definite purpose. You can't chuck it. You've got to come to taw. You say that he took this means of leavingthe money to you, that the trust thing is all piffle, and all that sort of thing. Well, suppose that it is true, what kind of a fool would you be to turn up your nose at six million dollars? There are all kinds of ways of looking at it. In the first place, he didn't leave it to you outright. Itisa trust, or a foundation, and it has a definite end in view. You are the sole trustee, that's the point on which you elect to stick. You are to be allowed to handle this vast fortune as your judgment dictates,as a trustee, mind you. You forget that he fixed your real position rather clearly when he stipulated that you were to have a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year, and fees as a trustee. That doesn't look as though he left it to you without strings, does it?"
For an hour they argued the great question. Simmy did not pretend that he accepted Braden's theories; in fact, he pronounced them shocking. Still, he contended, that was neither here nor there. Braden believed in them, and it wasn't any affair of his, after all.
"I don't believe it is right for man to try to do God's work," said he, in explaining his objections. "But it doesn't matter what I think about it, old chap, so don't mind me."
"Can't you understand, Simmy, that I advocate a simple, direct means of relieving the—"
"Sure, I understand," broke in Simmy agreeably.
"Does God send the soldiers into battle, does he send the condemned man to the gallows? Man does that, doesn't he? If it is God's work to drop a small child into a boiling vat by accident, and if He fails to kill that child at once, why shouldn't it be the work of man to complete the job as quickly as possible? We shoot down the soldiers. Is that God's work? We hang themurderer. Is that God's work? Emperors and kings conduct their wars in the name of God and thousands of God's creatures go down to death. Do you believe that God approves of this slaughter of the strong and hardy? God doesn't send the man to the gallows nor the soldier to the fighting line. Man does that, and he does it because he has the power to do it, and he lives serene in the consolation that the great, good God will not hold him to account for what he has done. We legalise the killing of the strong; but not for humane reasons. Why shouldn't we legalise the killing of the weak for humane reasons? It may interest you to know, Simmy, that we men have more merciful ways of ending life than God Himself directs. Why prolong life when it means agony that cannot be ended except by the death that so certainly waits a few days or weeks beyond—"
"How can you be sure that a man is going to die? Doctors very frequently say that a person has no chance whatever, and then the fellow fools 'em and gets well."
"I am not speaking of such cases. I only speak of the cases where there can be no doubt. There are such cases, you see. I would let Death take its toll, just as it has always done, and I would fight for my patient until the last breath was gone from his body. Two weeks ago a child was gored by a bull back here in the country. It was disembowelled. That child lived for many hours,—and suffered. That's what I mean, in substance. I too believe in the old maxim,—'while there's life there's hope.' That is the foundation on which our profession is built. A while ago you spoke of the extremely aged as possible victims of my theories. I suppose you meant to ask me if I would include them in my list. God forbid! To me there is nothing more beautiful than a happy, healthy, contented old age.We love our old people. If we love them we do not think of them as old. We want them to live,—just as I shall want to live, and you, Simmy. And we want them to die when their time comes, by God's hand not man's, for God does give them a peaceful, glorious end. But we don't want them to suffer, any more than we would want the young to suffer, I loved my grandfather. Death was a great boon to him. He wanted to die. But all old men do not want to die. They—"
"We're not getting anywhere with this kind of talk," interrupted Simmy. "The sum and substance is this: you would put it in the power of a few men to destroy human life on the representation of a few doctors. If these doctors said—"
"And why not? We put it into the power of twelve men to send a man to the gallows on the testimony of witnesses who may be lying like thieves. We take the testimony of doctors as experts in our big murder trials. If we believe some of them we hang the man because they say he is sane. On the other hand we frequently acquit the guilty man if they say he's insane."
Simmy squinted a half-closed eye, calculatingly, judicially. "My dear fellow, the insane asylums in this country to-day hold any number of reasonably sane inmates, sent there by commissions which perhaps unintentionally followed out the plans of designing persons who were actuated solely by selfish and avaricious motives. Control of great properties falls into the hands of conspiring relatives simply because it happened to be an easy matter to get some one snugly into a madhouse." He said no more. Braden was allowed to draw his own conclusions.
"Oh, I dare say people will go on putting obstacles out of their way till the end of time," said he coolly."If I covet your wife or your ass or your money-bags I put poison in your tea and you very obligingly die, and all that the law can do is to send me after you as soon as the lawyers have got through with me. That is no argument, Simmy. That sort of thing will go on forever."
Finally Thorpe settled back in his chair resignedly, worn out by the persistent argument of his tormentor.
"Well, suppose that I agree with all you say,—what then? Suppose that I take up my burden, as you say I should, and set out to bring the world around to my way of thinking, where am I to begin and how?"
Simmy contrived to suppress the sigh of relief that rose to his lips. This was making headway, after all. Things looked brighter.
"My dear fellow, it will take you a good many years to even make a beginning. You can't go right smack up against the world and say: 'Here, you, look sharp! I'm going to hit you in the eye.' In the first place, you will have to convince the world that you are a great, big man in your profession. You will have to cure ten thousand people before you can make the world believe that you are anybody at all. Then people will listen to you and what you say will have some effect. You can't do anything now. Twenty years from now, when you are at the top of your profession, you will be in a position to do something. But in the meantime you will have to make people understand that you can cure 'em if anybody can, so that when you sayyoucan't cure 'em, they'll know it's final. I'm not asking you to renounce your ideas. You can even go on talking about them and writing to the newspapers and all that sort of thing, if you want to, but you've got to build up a reputation for yourself before you can beginto make use of all this money along the lines laid down for you. But first of all you must make people say that in spite of your theories you are a practical benefactor and not a plain, ordinary crank. Go on sowing the seed if you will, and then when the time comes found a college in which your principles may be safely and properly taught, and then see what people will say."
"It sounds very simple, the way you put it," said Thorpe, with a smile.
"There is no other way, my friend," said Simmy earnestly.
Thorpe was silent for a long time, staring out over the dark waters of the bay. The sun had slipped down behind the ridge of hills to the south and west, and the once bright sea was now cold and sinister and unsmiling. The boats were stealing in from its unfriendly wastes.
"I had not thought of it in that light, Simmy," he said at length. "My grandfather said it might take two hundred years."
"Incidentally," said Simmy, shrewdly, "your grandfather knew what he was about when he put in the provision that you were to have twenty-five thousand dollars a year as a salary, so to speak. He was a far-seeing man. He knew that you would have a hard, uphill struggle before you got on your feet to stay. He may even have calculated on a lifetime, my friend. That's why he put in the twenty-five. He probably realised that you'd be too idiotic to use the money except as a means to bring about the millennium, and so he said to himself 'I'll have to do something to keep the damn' fool from starving.' You needn't have any scruples about taking your pay, old boy. You've got tolive, you know. I think I've got the old gentleman's idea pretty—"
"Well, let's drop the subject for to-night, Simmy," said Thorpe, coming to his feet. His chin was up and his shoulders thrown back as he breathed deeply and fully of the new life that seemed to spring up mysteriously from nowhere. "You'll spend the night with me. There is a spare bed and you'll—"
"Isn't there a Ritz in the place?" inquired Simmy, scarcely able to conceal his joy.
"Not so that you can notice it," replied Thorpe gaily. He walked to the edge of the porch and drank in more of that strange, puzzling air that came from vast distances and filled his lungs as they had never been filled before.
Simmy watched him narrowly in the failing light. After a moment he sank back comfortably in the old rocking chair and smiled as a cat might smile in contemplating a captive mouse. The rest would be easy. Thorpe would go back with him. That was all that he wanted, and perhaps more than he expected. As for old Templeton Thorpe's "foundation," he did not give it a moment's thought. Time would attend to that. Time would kill it, so what was the use worrying. He prided himself on having done the job very neatly,—and he was smart enough to let the matter rest.
"What is the news in town?" asked Braden, turning suddenly. There was a new ring in his voice. He was eager for news of the town!
"Well," said Simmy naively, "there is so much to tell I don't believe I could get it all out before dinner."
"We call it supper, Simmy."
"It's all the same to me," said Simmy.
And after supper he told him the news as they walked out along the breakwater.
Anne Thorpe was in Europe. She closed the house as soon as George was able to go to work, and went away without any definite notion as to the length of her stay abroad.
"She's terribly upset over having to live in that old house down there," said Simmy, "and I don't blame her. It's full of ghosts, good and bad. It has always been her idea to buy a big house farther up town. In fact, that was one of the things on which she had set her heart. I don't mind telling you that I'm trying to find some way in which she can chuck the old house down there without losing anything. She wants to give it away, but I won't listen to that. It's worth a hundred thousand if it's worth a nickel. So she closed the place, dismissed the servants and—"
"'Gad, my grandfather wouldn't like that," said Braden. "He was fond of Murray and Wade and—"
"Murray has bought a saloon in Sixth Avenue and talks of going into politics. Old Wade absolutely refused to allow Anne to close up the house. He has received his legacy and turned it over to me for investment. Confound him, when I had him down to the office afterwards he as much as told me that he didn't want to be bothered with the business, and actually complained because I had taken him away from his work at that hour of the day. Anne had to leave him there as caretaker. I understand he is all alone in the house."
"Anne is in Europe, eh? That's good," said Thorpe, more to himself than to his companion.
"Never saw her looking more beautiful than the day she sailed," said Simmy, peering hard in the darkness atthe other's face. "She hasn't had much happiness, Brady."
"Umph!" was the only response, but it was sufficient to turn Simmy off into other channels.
"I suppose you know that George and Lutie are married again."
"Good! I'm glad to hear it," said Thorpe, with enthusiasm.
"Married two weeks after George went to work in that big bank note company's plant. I got the job for him. He starts at the bottom, of course, but that's the right way for a chap like George to begin. He'll have to make good before he can go up an inch in the business. Fifteen a week. But he'll go up, Brady. He'll make good with Lutie to push from behind. Awful blow to Mrs. Tresslyn, however. He's a sort of clerk and has to wear sleeve papers and an eye-shade. I shall never forget the day that Lutie bought him back." Simmy chuckled.
"Bought him back?"
"Yes. She plunked thirty thousand down on the table in my office in front of Mrs. Tresslyn and said 'I sha'n't need a receipt, Mrs. Tresslyn. George is receipt enough for me.' I'd never seen Mrs. Tresslyn blush before, but she blushed then, my boy. Got as red as fire. Then she rose up in her dignity and said she wouldn't take the money. How was her son to live, she said, if Lutie deprived him of his visible means of support? Lutie replied that if George was strong enough to carry the washing back and forth from the customers', she'd manage to support him by taking in dirty linen. Then Mrs. Tresslyn broke down. Damme, Brady, it brought tears to my eyes. You don't knowhow affecting it is to see a high and mighty person like Mrs. Tresslyn humble herself like that. She didn't cry. I was the only one who cried, curse me for a silly ass. She just simply said that Lutie was the best and bravest girl in the world and that she was sorry for all that she had done to hurt her. And she asked Lutie to forgive her. Then Lutie put her arm around her and called her an old dear. I didn't see any more on account of the infernal tears. But Lutie wouldn't take back the money. She said that it didn't belong to her and that she couldn't look George in the face if she kept it. So that's how it stands. She and George have a tiny little apartment 'way up town,—three rooms, I believe, and so far she hasn't taken in anybody's washing. Anne wants to refund the money to Lutie, but doesn't know how to go about it. She—er—sort of left it to me to find the way. Lordy, I seem to get all of the tough jobs."
"You are a brick, Simmy," said Thorpe, laying his arm across the little man's shoulders.
"Heigh-ho!" sighed Simmy. Later on, as they returned through the fog that was settling down about them, he inquired: "By the way, will you be ready to start back with me to-morrow?"
"Lord love you, no," cried Thorpe. "I've agreed, to help old man Stingley with the boat house. I'll come down in three weeks, Simmy."
"Lordy, Lordy!" groaned Simmy, dejectedly. "Three weeks in this God-forsaken place? I'll die, Brady."
"You? What are you talking about?"
"Why, you don't suppose I'm going back without you, do you?"