MCKEEVER'. company left Benson the day the Confederate Cabinet in session at Montgomery, Alabama, greeted with jeers the news that President Lincoln had issued a call for seventy-five thousand men; but neither its mirth nor the scenes attending the departure of McKeever's handful, in any way foreshadowed the struggle to which the nation was committed. McKeever hustled his men into the cars reserved for them, and the crowd, some thousands strong, that had assembled to see them off, slowly dispersed. During the four grim years that followed, the town grew familiar with these departures, just as it did with the return of the remnants of companies that had gone forth, and men came and went in this new profession of theirs, and only those immediately concerned in their fortunes took note of them.
As they left the town behind, Stephen was conscious only of a sense of freedom. He had cast aside the burdens that had oppressed him. He conceived that in the career he had chosen there would be no perplexing problems, no horror of the law. His one fear was that the war would soon end; and each time this possibility was advanced in his hearing, his heart sank within him.
But if Stephen was disturbed by the prospect of the war's abrupt ending, there were those who did not share in this optimistic view that so widely prevailed. Among these was Tom Benson; who as soon as the call for men came, made ready to cast cannon for the government. When Newton Bently heard of this, he hurried down to the shops. He'd tell Tom a thing or two; did the fool think the country'd waste any time on those lunatics down South? The war would be over with by the middle of summer; then who'd want his cannon?
“And you think that the war will end in two or three months?” said Benson, when he had heard what Bently had to say; and he grinned in large pity of the little man. “Well, think it hard—if it's any comfort to you; man; you see no further than the tip of your nose. You'll never earn your salt as a prophet; this is war if there ever was war.”
“All right, Tom Benson!” sputtered Bently. “If I want to see no further than that, it suits me well enough not to. But I'll tell you one thing; you're doing your best to send this concern straight to hell. You're going to make cannon, are you? When do you expect to use 'em, next Fourth of July, maybe. You're wasting good stock, on which you'll never clear a dollar's profit. I'll not stand for the spending of one cent on such damn foolishness.”
“I'll get it somewhere else,” said Benson sourly.
“Not on the firm's name, you won't; mind you that!” shouted Mr. Bently flying into a rage.
“The firm!” sneered Benson, elevating his bushy eyebrows. “Look here, don't you think the firm's lasted quite long enough? It's been my head against your jaw. It's a hell of a pardnership!” he thrust his hands deep in his trousers' pockets. “Come, which shall it be, do I step out, or do you? One of us has got to go!”
“I guess you'll buy, Tom Benson,” said the postmaster, with a shrewd shake of the head. “I'll not have you moving across the street to set up shop under my nose.”
Benson threw back his head and laughed aloud at this.
“You got a heap of confidence in me. That's a pretty way to talk to your son-in-law, ain't it now?” he said.
“You ain't of my choosing, Tom, I never made any bones about that,” retorted Bently.
His candour must have agreed perfectly with the mechanic's rude sense of humour, for his grin widened.
“Nobody'll ever accuse you of saying anything less than you think,” he said. “Well, if I moved across the street, I could show you how shops ought to be run.”
“I ain't so sure there's anything I can learn of you! I was a mechanic when you was a nursing baby.”
“About then, I should say,” answered Benson. “But the world's slipped forward a cog or two since then.”
“Better buy me out, Tom!” urged Bently. “It's your chance to let the world know how smart a fellow you are!”
“You'll sell then? It ain't all talk?” said Benson.
“Make me your offer, you know what the shops are doing; make me a fair offer and I'll leave you alone here, since that is what you want, to play hell with the business!”
“You'll have my offer inside of two hours,” said the Yankee mechanic coolly.
“Make it cash, Tom, I want none of your paper; people will be building fires with it inside of a twelve month,” he jeered.
Benson turned on his heel and went back through the shops to the pattern-room. From his desk there, which he unlocked, he took a device in polished wood and steel and nickle. This he slipped under his coat, for it was too bulky to carry in his pocket; then he went straight to his nephew's office, where he wasted no time in explanation.
“I want to buy Bently out, Jake,” he said briefly. “I've got money enough put by to meet his price. Now'll you go in with me? for I must have a partner with capital. Wait a minute—I want you should see this before you give me your answer;” and he placed the mechanism he had brought from the pattern room in the lawyer's hands.
“Do you know what you got there, Jake?” he asked, after a moment's silence.
“It's the stock and breech of a gun,” said the lawyer, turning it over.
“It's a repeating rifle, Jake—my own invention, and even if I do say it, it's the greatest weapon ever made! Put that in the hands of one Yankee, and he'll be the match for twenty rebels; do you think the government's going to stand off when I get it in shape to offer? I sha'n'. be able to fill the contracts! Look here, it loads with this special cartridge—automatic—do you see? And feeds from the stock where ten rounds will be carried, and them ten rounds will be available in almost as many seconds. Jake, once I begin to manufacture them rifles, secession's got its death blow; nothing will make good the difference between a muzzle loading musket and that weapon! Once that's in the hands of the Yankees, they will be hunting Jeff Davis in his own back-yard—nothing'll stop 'em!”
“But what do you want me to do?” asked Benson.
“Join me in making that arm! I'll ask you for no money now, all I want is that you should stand ready to put in a few thousands—say eight or ten—in case we're slow in realizing on our contracts.”
“How soon will these demands begin?”
“Not under five or six months.”
“Very well,” said the lawyer. “You can close with Mr. Bently while he's in the humour to sell; later we can draw up papers covering the partnership—there's no hurry about that.”
And before the two hours for which he had stipulated had elapsed,
Tom Benson had closed with Mr. Bendy, and rather less than twenty minutes later he was back at the shops and had given orders to have the old sign which read “Bendy's Foundry” painted out, and “The Benson Iron Works,” the new firm name, under which he intended to continue the business, painted in its stead.
Before Stephen left Camp Jackson, near Columbus, where he was mustered in, he was displaying so great an aptitude for his work, that McKeever, now advanced to a colonelcy, urged his claims to such good purpose, that when he was wounded in a skirmish at Romney, Virginia, and was sent home on sick leave, a lieutenant's commission shortly followed him thither.
His first home-coming his Aunt remembered long afterward with entire satisfaction. Their little estrangement was forgotten; he was frank and affectionate as he had always been.
He had developed wonderfully; his shoulders had broadened and he was brown and muscular, the boy had become a man. He had quite lost his air of troubled preoccupation born of his doubt and foreboding of the future, for his future no longer troubled him.
Virginia made much of him, and he accepted her solicitude and Jane's, with infinite good-nature.
“A fellow don't have any chance with you two!” he told them laughingly. “Especially when his arm's tied up as mine is.”
“But, dear, this is all we can do!” said Virginia sighing, and adjusting his bandages with tender caressing fingers. “When we heard that your regiment had been in battle, it was just as if you were the only one—as if there were not thousands of others!”
The one disturbing element in Virginia's happiness was Stephen's devotion to Marian Benson. It was little short of tragic that this sturdy handsome fellow should be determined to throw himself away on Tom Benson's daughter. Her prejudice here she felt was not altogether groundless, for Benson at her request had brought his cousin to the farm to call; the meeting had not been very successful however; Marian had been embarrassed and ill at ease, and Virginia had not been able to see in her at all what Stephen Saw. With this one tentative attempt at an acquaintance her efforts in that direction had ceased.
Stephen had been delighted when he heard that Marian had driven out to see Virginia. He heard this from Marian herself, Virginia had not mentioned it.
“Why you never said Marian had called,” he told Virginia, almost reproachfully.
“Didn't I, dear?” she asked drily.
“No; and Marian only chanced to mention it to-day. Didn't you think her very pretty?” he questioned eagerly.
“Yes, she is certainly pretty,” agreed Virginia, but without enthusiasm.
“The prettiest girl in Benson—and quite as nice as she is pretty! I wonder you didn't tell me that she had been here; I hope you'll see lots of her, Aunt Virginia.”
“You know, dear, I've quite gotten out of the way of meeting people.”
His face clouded at this.
“But I'm sure you'd like her mother; and Mr. Benson's a very superior sort of man. He showed me an invention of his to-day, a rifle, if he can get it accepted by the government he'll make a fortune. It's certainly a wonderful thing.”
Virginia heard him in silence, and then abruptly changed the subject. He was puzzled, but remembered that Marian had been equally reticent. He decided that for some reason they had not gotten on very well together, and that the friendship which he had confidently looked for the moment they met, was even further off than if they had not met at all. But he took comfort in the thought that when he and Marian were married, the relation between her and Virginia would change entirely; she would be of the family then. There was Harriett, a stranger might have found it difficult to say whether she was Jane's daughter or Virginia's. The latter seemed to feel an equal interest in her with her mother. This was all so characteristic of his aunt, that he felt once they were married, her love would go out to Marian in the same way.
It was during the continuance of his furlough that Virginia determined to sell the mill. It had taken Benson six months to find a purchaser for the property, but he was at last successful; and Stephen drove Virginia into town the day the deed was signed.
“You are satisfied to have the sale made, Stephen?” Benson inquired.
“Certainly,” said the young man a little defiantly, “the ready money is better than the property.”
“I dare say.” responded the lawyer.
In the afternoon, Benson drove to the mill with the new owner. Afterward he strolled up to the house to see Virginia.
“I have just been going over the accounts,” she told him, a trifle ruefully, and held up an inky forefinger.
“I was aware that the sale of the mill would not do all you hoped it might; that it would not clear off the debts even. I can't bear to see you continue this useless struggle; it hurts me as nothing else has ever hurt me. I am proposing nothing unusual—men go to the aid of other men—business is not entirely a matter of calculation, sentiment does enter into it; I want to make this situation easy for you; let me clear up those debts, then you can put this money in the bank.”
“No,” she said quietly.
He left his chair and took a turn of the room.
“Have you forgotten what I once told you, Virginia?” he asked, pausing and facing her.
“You were not to mention that to me again.”
“Have I spoken of it only in words, Virginia?” he asked.
“You have been—most considerate always,” she said guardedly.
“You did not think that I had forgotten, Virginia—or that I had ceased to care?” he said.
“I hoped you had.”
“There is not an hour of the day that you are out of my thoughts, you have given me every decent impulse I have known—you have been more to me than I can ever tell you! You must hear me—you must know how I love you—it is no matter of yesterday or the day before—for years now I have thought only of you, Virginia! Show some mercy—let me think that there is some hope.” He looked at her imploringly, but her face had only hardened as he went on, there was no sign of the pity he implored. He did not wait for her to speak. “I have been patient—I have waited—I have hoped, that you might relent; but we seem to be drifting further and further apart. I see you oppressed and burdened; I find you struggling with cares and a situation you are not fitted to meet, and which I can so quickly remedy; but you will accept nothing from me even as a friend—that is the bitterest part of it; I seem powerless to help you! If you would only let me—that would be something! You leave me only the one thing to do—to ask you again to be my wife. I know—I know,” he put out his hand, imposing silence. “Your struggle is as hopeless as it is unnecessary, the condition you are trying to fight off is older than you know—it had its beginning before Stephen and Bush went West; they felt it coming—that is the real reason they went—and what can you do but wear your life out to no purpose! Be reasonable, and escape from a condition you can not meet!”
“I can't escape from it that way.”
“Listen to me, Virginia!” he said, with gentle firmness. “I love you—you must marry me.”
“I shall never marry—such a thing is impossible.”
“No, not impossible,” he replied, doggedly determined to keep it before her as a possibility. “Why should we wear out our lives. I might have struggled against my love instead of living for it; but the result would have been the same. I should have ended here, as now, trying to tell you what you are to me, how empty my life is without you; and to think that I have failed so miserably in the one great purpose I have known!”
She was softened for the moment by the deep sincerity of his tone. “I have valued you as a friend—you have given me every reason to—I still want you for my friend.”
“That is not enough,” he said with a gesture of bitter disdain. “It is all I can give you.”
He heard Stephen come whistling up the path from the lane, and shaken by his emotion threw himself down in his chair.
“I will attend to the notes,” he said, with an attempt at composure as Stephen entered the room.
AT the expiration of his leave Stephen was detailed for service at the recruiting office that had been opened at Benson; an appointment he received with a very bad grace indeed since if he continued in the post it put a most effectual stop to his career of glory. Virginia, however, was delighted, and even Marian was hardly inclined to give her hero the sympathy he demanded in view of what he conceived to be the extraordinary hard luck that had befallen him.
He now devoted his leisure to Marian, and urged upon her the desirability of their speedy marriage. He found an unexpected ally in Mrs. Benson, who like many mothers, once it was decided her daughter was to marry appeared only anxious to have it over with as soon as possible.
The father of the family, wholly occupied by his invention which he was seeking to have adopted by the government, was ready to agree to anything so long as no demands were made upon his time which was absorbed at the shops, and by the frequent trips he was making to Washington where he had become a familiar figure among the army of hungry contractors, jobbers, and inventors, who like himself had schemes to further with the War Department.
“What about young Landray and Marian?” the lawyer asked him one day; they were in the mechanic's office at the shops.
“Oh, I don't know!” said Tom Benson irritably. “Ask her mother—I got nothing to do with it, Jake.”
“I have asked her; it seems they want to be married before Stephen returns to the front; do you approve? But I suppose you do.”
“Don't lose your temper, Jake, it can't be helped; you're a good enough lawyer, but you know damn little about women or you'd understand why I don't meddle with their plans!”
“I suppose you know that young Landray has very little beside his pay?” said Benson.
“Is that so? Well, I can't see that it matters much. Marian's to stay with us anyhow; and she'd turn up her nose at a man that didn't wear a uniform—and young Landray's all right; he's got quite a knack for machinery, he's a good deal here,” said Tom Benson.
“You mean you can do something for him when the war's over?” inquired the lawyer, who seemed interested in this phase of the case.
“That's about what I'm figuring on doing. I guess Marian's mother'd look to me to see that the young folks didn't want for anything; and she might do lots worse, Jake. I've told him one thing though, I want him to get a couple of thousand dollars and invest them here with me, for him and Marian—in the gun, I mean—he says he can't get the money unless his aunt will borrow it for him.”
“I don't like that!” said Benson quickly. “I wish you'd done nothing of the kind; the demand can only embarrass her.”
“Oh, it ain't that I want the money, Jake. I'll give Marian what'll amount to a good deal more. I want to do my share at starting 'em in life, and this'll be a nice little nest-egg for him when he comes back; and ain't he entitled to something from the estate?”
“I suppose he is,” said Benson grudgingly.
“Well, then, he'd better take it and put it in here where it'll amount to something; he ought to have the handling of his own money.”
“The sum's small enough if a strict accounting was made,” said Benson hastily.
“Still there's something coming to him,” urged the mechanic.
“Of course,” answered Benson reluctantly.
“Well, he'd better put it in here with us, Jake. Look here, I don't want him to be other than fair to his aunt; but if he's going to marry my girl he's got to think of himself.”
“Well, there's nothing to be gained from talking with you,” said Benson frowning. “They'll marry, and that'll be the end of it.”
“No, no use,” admitted Tom Benson absently. “I've got my hands full without trying any arguments with Mrs. Benson; your aunt ain't open to argument—or rather she is; but conviction's a long ways off. Get married yourself and you'll understand why I can storm around down here at the shops, and why I go home as meek as a wet kitten.”
“Of course, I don't want to interfere,” began the lawyer.
“No, you'd better not. The family's on pretty good terms with itself, a thing it never was in your father's day; and all because he wanted to think for us all. That's why him and me never spoke for the last ten years of his life. No, let them have their own way, it'll save a lot of trouble. If there's a wedding, you and me'll act as if we enjoyed weddings!” He fell to rubbing his unshaven chin with the back of his hand; then he took up the model of the breach and stock of his rifle which he had been considering when his nephew entered the office. “It's a great gun, Jake,” he said with fond pride in his invention. “I've got the assurance that it will be given a fair trial; first a company, and if that works, then a regiment. What do you think of calling it the 'Peace-maker?' That's what the country's looking for.” He fixed Benson with his eye. “What do you say to making a thousand of the perfected pattern, against the demand there's sure to be?”
“But you have been making them?”
“Yes,” said the mechanic, “we've about five hundred on hand, but of a former pattern.”
“So many as that!” cried the lawyer. “What do they cost apiece to manufacture?”
“About ten dollars, but the cost is coming down all the time. The first hundred stood us about fifteen, but that was because there was too much hand work put on them. I made the second hundred for twelve and a half; and the last hundred for a shade over ten, but I'll peel it some yet.”
“Do you mean to tell me all that's a loss?” demanded Benson with some show of concern.
“No, of course not, I'll make those over,” responded the mechanic.
“And until you do, about seven thousand dollars are tied up!”
“Somewhere's near that,” said the inventor indifferently. “But look here!” he added quickly. “Just think of the men the government's got enlisted; and once our rifle's given a fair trial every mother's son of them will be lugging a 'Peace-maker;' I'm looking for big returns. We'll be thinking in thousands where we're thinking in hundreds now and holding our breath. Damn the small things! Bently kept me down to them until I pretty near sickened of the business here.”
“Well, don't ruin me,” said Benson.
“Ruin you, Jake! I'll make you ten times the man you are!” said the mechanic.
“Don't you think you'd better go a little slow until you're sure the gun will be accepted?” said the lawyer.
“Oh, I'm sure enough now; but I been pretty near badgered to death by them government experts, as they call themselves; pretty nigh discouraged—but we are to have a fair trial now, and you'll find you've made your best venture with me, Jake.”
About this time Stephen was informed that he would be expected to rejoin his command within six weeks. He went to Virginia and presented the matter to her; he wished to marry Marian before he went to the front, would she be willing to borrow money for him? He had the grace to be shame-faced and embarrassed when he made this request, for he was more than remotely conscious of its selfishness. He also wanted to make the investment Tom Benson advised; in fact, the mechanic was rather urging it upon him. He believed in the rifle himself, and if the mechanic's eloquent figures told the truth, it would give him something to look forward to when the war ended. If they could borrow about twenty-five hundred dollars it would be ample. He only wished the loan to run a year; then he would take it up out of his profits; or if they failed to eventuate by that time, Tom Benson had assured him that he would himself let him have what money he required.
When he enlisted Stephen had determined that he would never again make any demands on Virginia for money; he had even gone through the mental process of relinquishing all claim on the estate; but was glad now that he had not told her of this benevolence of his.
It annoyed him greatly that Jacob Benson would have to know just how the money was secured; but he hoped that some day he could remove his affairs beyond the scope of the lawyer's knowledge. It was deeply humiliating that he should have this intimate acquaintance with them, for he knew that Benson would have his own opinion of him, and he knew him well enough to be aware that he would invest the transaction with none of the large charity with which Virginia was sure to regard it. Virginia said she would see Benson, and learn just what they could do, and with Benson's help, the money was raised; and Stephen was married to Marian three weeks later on the eve of his departure for the front.
Virginia accepted this as she always did the inevitable, with much composure and few words. It was useless to think that Marian could ever be anything to her—perhaps it was her own fault, and she was ready enough to admit that it might be; but there was no affection between them, and she felt that none was possible; and she was more sorry for Stephen than she had ever been for herself, for she knew he must suffer a bitter disappointment.
Tom Benson's gun had its trial, and he came home from Washington where he had received the report of the experts who had conducted the tests, one cold February morning, an aged and broken man. It was scarce day when he arrived in town, but instead of going home he went straight to the office, where he let himself in with the key he always carried; and when Jim Williams the bookkeeper, presented himself there shortly after seven o'clock, he found him still with his hat and overcoat on, and seated before his desk with his hands buried deep in his trousers' pockets, and seemingly quite unmindful of the bitter cold in the fireless room. He had been there for an hour or more but had hardly moved; first in absolute darkness, then the thin grey light had stolen in through the frosted windows, and the sun's faint rays as the day broke. But he had not noticed the change, and it was only when he heard Williams fumbling with numb fingers to fit his key to the lock that he stirred, gruffly calling to him to enter.
“When did you get back?” demanded Jim in frank surprise.
“This morning,” said Benson shortly.
“Train must have been late,” ventured Jim.
“Four hours.”
“Snow?”
“Yes.”
He had removed his hat and outer coat, and was hanging them up on their peg back of the door by his desk.
“Stir round, will you!” said Benson. “And see if you can get a fire started—it's as cold as hell here!”
He had never been an especially agreeable man in his relation with his subordinates; and the bookkeeper after building a fire in the office stove went back into the shops, and informed Shanley the foreman that “The old man was hipped over something, and that he was a mighty good proposition to let alone.”
“Then I'm just the lad to leave him be, if that's so,” said the foreman jocosely.
And Shanley profiting by the hint kept out of the office. Jim's duties, however, did not admit of his taking a similar precaution; but he found that Tom Benson took no notice of him. He sat idly before his desk all the morning and if he noticed anything it was the skirmish line of the heat on the frosted window panes in front of him, which as the day advanced, retreated from the centre of the panes until a circle had been cleared in each, through which one might look.
He was still seated there at midday when the foundry bell clanged clear and sharp from the little square tower on the roof over his head. He watched the hands as they came hurrying out of the big gates, he heard the crisp sound of their footfalls as they disappeared up and down the street, where the snow lay heavy and white; and a smothered curse broke from his twitching lips.
“Did you speak?” asked Jim, who was putting coal in the stove preparatory to leaving, too.
“No,” said Benson gruffly, “I didn't.” Then as the bookkeeper was slipping into his coat, “Stop at the hotel, will you, and have them put me up a snack and a pot of coffee. You can fetch it with you when you come back after dinner.”
But when Williams brought the lunch, he hardly tasted it; and the coffee was cold before he gulped down a cupful of it. This was all he took.
All the afternoon the shops clanged and echoed as the work there went on. It was a sound he had loved once, but now it only brought to him the sickening consciousness that there would come a silence which he should be powerless to vivify into life and energy.
At last he took up a pen and found a sheet of paper and began to write, or rather scrawl, and this scrawl took the form of a letter which he afterward put in an envelope he had already addressed to his nephew. This was what he had written:
“I am just back from Washington. The gun is a failure. It has been finally rejected by the experts, which does not so much matter, for it seems that my patents are not so sound as I supposed. There were others ahead of me with the same idea, and they got the best of it. When I got you to join me in this venture I did not know that I was infringing on any one; but this point was established beyond doubt while I was in Washington, where I had several interviews with the other parties' representatives. I am sorry for you; but you will remember that you yourself told me to go ahead and that you would stand back of me. I did so. You will find that you are much more deeply involved than you have any notion of. I should say that your individual losses will easily reach fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. My own are much heavier, so heavy that I can never meet them. Knowing this, you will understand why I take the course I do.”
The afternoon wore on. He watched the tracery of the frost creep up the panes again. Lights flared in the long rows of windows in the shops, but the sounds there and the rumble of heavy machinery continued until it was quite dark. Then all this ceased with a sudden bang and jar; and again overhead the big bell rang out clear and sharp in the cold night air.
“It's zero weather,” commented Williams getting down from his stool, but his employer gave no heed to what he said, and he busied himself noisily in stamping into his overshoes, then he put on his hat and coat. Benson roused himself.
“Jim!” he said.
“Yes, sir,” answered the bookkeeper briskly.
“What are they doing inside?”
“They are going ahead with the guns.”
“How many have they got?”
“Something over fifteen hundred.”
Benson groaned aloud. It was worse than he supposed. He said huskily:
“You can stop them in the morning. I ain't the heart to; but the government's soured on the whole scheme. It's infernal experts say the gun's no good!” he brought down his fist with a mighty thud on the desk before him. “And its damned Patent Office has allowed me to go ahead with a mechanism that's an infringement on patents already granted; what in hell's name do you think of that!” he left his chair and lurched across the room toward Williams, who was open-mouthed with surprise and dismay. “I've had to spend money like water to find this out! I been buying meals and drinks for the small fry of hungry, thirsty harpies, and taken rebuffs from the big ones in office; me, that counted myself as good as the best! I've had smart lawyers who told me to go ahead, that I was all right, that my gun didn't conflict with no patents issued; the head man in the Patent Office told me the same, but day before yesterday a little twenty-dollar-a-week clerk showed me where I did conflict; and it was so plain that anybody but a government bat who ain't responsible to any one on God's earth for his mistakes, would have seen it with half an eye!”
“It's too bad!” said Williams, at a loss for words.
“Yes, it's too bad!” echoed Benson, with dull inadequacy, dropping back into his chair.
“Hadn't you better go home?” ventured Jim.
“What for?” snarled Benson, relapsing into ill-nature, and regretting his momentary frankness.
“Well, you can't stay here.”
“I want to dip into the books. I want to see where we stand, and figure out what I've dropped on this. I'll go home presently—and you keep your mouth shut until to-morrow.”
When Jim left him, he opened the books which the former had placed on his desk; he knew before he opened them just what he would find; yet he had a vague unreasoning hope that their figures might tell a different story. For half an hour he pored over them and then closed them with a bang.
“I'm a ruined man!” he muttered. “And Jake ain't much better off.”
He took up the lamp from his desk, and unfastening the door that led into the shops, disappeared among the machinery. For a little time his lamp moved to and fro; presently, however, it became stationary, and there was the clanking of a chain; this ceased, and he seemed to be moving some heavy object across the floor, dragging it; then suddenly the light was extinguished, the chain clanked again, violently this time—then there was absolute silence.
Williams, rather troubled by the news that Benson had imparted to him, had gotten no further than the square when he met Shanley the foreman. To him he confided all that their employer had just told him.
“So his gun's no good! I bet he didn't like that; he's always so blame sure of himself;” and Shanley did not attempt to disguise a certain lingering satisfaction that at last Tom Benson had encountered failure.
“It's nothing to chuckle over!” said the bookkeeper resentfully. “If you'd seen him!”
“Well, of course he'd take it hard; he takes everything hard, even his good luck, how'd you expect him to take this?” demanded the foreman.
“If his gun's no good, he's been losing money hand over fist. Look here,” said Williams. “I want you to go back with me.”
“Back with you where?” asked Shanley.
“Why, to the shops; I left him there.”
“You left him there?” cried Shanley.
“Yes, worrying over the books. I got my doubts about him.”
“Hold on, do you mean you think—”
“I don't know what I think; but we'd better go back.”
“He'll think we're spying on him, and I don't want to get the rough edge of his tongue.”
“Neither do I,” agreed Williams. “I'll tell you what we'd better do—we'll go get Jake Benson, and have him go back with us. I tell you we'd be doing all wrong to leave the boss alone there. I don't feel right about it.”
As they were standing on the corner in front of the lawyer's house, this took only a moment; and as the three men turned back toward the shops, Williams briefly explained his fears to Benson, who at each word quickened his pace; they arrived at the office panting and out of breath, but there was no light there now, the frosted panes showed white and clear.
“He's not here—thank the Lord!” said Williams.
“Gone home, I guess,” suggested Shanley.
“Have you your key?” asked Benson of the bookkeeper. “If you have we'll go in and make sure.”
Williams unlocked the door and pushed it open; then he struck a match and rather cautiously entered the room. The others followed him close, treading softly.
“No, he's gone sure enough,” said Williams, giving a sigh of relief. “Probably he's home by this time.”
“Of course he's home if he ain't here!” insisted Shanley. “Well, you've given us a pretty scare!”
“What shall we do?” asked Williams of Benson, as he dropped the end of the match he had been holding.
“I think we'd better go to his house and satisfy ourselves that he's there,” said the lawyer, speaking quietly from the darkness that enveloped them.
They groped their way out into the night again. Williams locked the office door, and then turned to his companions.
“I can go in and ask if he's there; and if he ain't, I can say we were expecting him back, and I thought he might have got in on the late train; we don't want to alarm them, you know. If he's there I'll make some sort of an excuse, say I lost my key in the snow and came to get his so I can open the office in the morning before he gets around.”
It was a short walk to Tom Benson's; and the lawyer, and Shanley, paused in the street opposite the house while Williams crossed and knocked at the front door. It was opened almost immediately and Williams entered the house. A moment later the door opened again, and the bookkeeper rejoined his two companions.
“He ain't there,” he said. “What next?”
“He may have gone up street,” suggested Shanley.
“I think we'd better go back to the office,” said Benson, “and look around again; perhaps he's inside somewhere—possibly in the pattern-room.”
Arrived at the office, Williams again unlocked the door; and the two men followed him in as before, treading softly.
“Find a lamp,” said Benson. “I want to make certain this time whether he's here or not.”
A lamp was found and lighted, and then for the first time Williams noticed that the door leading into the shops was standing slightly ajar. He called the attention of the others to this.
“I closed and fastened it when I left,” he said. “I always do before I go out.”
“He's in the pattern-room probably,” said Benson. “But we'll go back and make sure.”
They were half-way down the long room among the lathes and shafting, when the foreman who was in advance, started back with a cry of horror; for there not ten feet in front of him was a large dark object which seemed to be suspended from the arm of a heavy crane. It was swinging gently to and fro. Near it was a moulder's case set on edge. Then as they looked, the object turned slightly, and the light of their lamp shone full on Tom Benson's rigid face and starting eyes.
BENSON was aghast when he came to look into the affairs of the shops. The condition there was beyond anything he had anticipated; for in seeking to further his invention, Tom Benson had completely lost his head. He had spent money lavishly; the business he had so largely extended during his years of careful management had been neglected until nothing remained. But at last the ruinous record was complete; by the middle of summer the last creditor satisfied; and the lawyer was able to coolly consider the situation. He was terribly crippled by the failure. The very house he lived in was mortgaged, and he applied himself to his profession and his client's interests with an assiduousness he had never before manifested.
He was just beginning to breathe freely again when one day he received one of Virginia's rare summons, and drove to the farm.
“Mr. Stark was here yesterday,” she said, when she greeted him, with an attempt at composure that was hardly successful.
“Mr. Stark?” he repeated. He looked blank.
“Yes; he wants his money, Mr. Benson,” she said unsteadily. “And he dared to come here to you!” burst out Benson furiously. “He promised me he'd wait!”
It was that last loan made at the time of Stephen's marriage. While he had supplied the money himself, Stark had acted for him; but during the summer he had been forced to realize on the paper, and the banker had accepted it as security for one of the several loans he had made to him.
“I am sorry I troubled you, but I thought you might be able to tell me if there was anything that could be done.”
“I'll see him at once!” said Benson; but he was sick at heart with what she had told him. He saw that his misfortunes were extending to her.
He hurried back to the town, where he confronted the banker in his private office with a lowering brow.
“Ah, Jacob, take a chair,” said Mr. Stark, with a winning smile.
“See here,” said Benson abruptly, “I have just seen Mrs. Lan-dray.”
“Yes; I understand you go there quite frequently, Jacob,” and the old man laughed slyly.
Benson glared at him, speechless and white with rage.
“I'm here on business, you'll be pleased to understand!” he said curtly.
“Quite as you prefer, Jacob,” and the banker instantly corrected his levity of manner.
“Do you recall that when I turned back that mortgage on the Landray farm, you agreed that it was to stand as long as the interest was paid?”
“I think you are mistaken, Jacob, the loan was for one year, if my memory serves me.”
“That has nothing to do with it—I refer to our conversation; and my understanding was that you would not press the payment as long as the interest was kept up!”
“I really don't seem able to recall any conversation to that effect,” said the banker blandly.
“You don't?” said Benson with stern repression.
“No; but perhaps you made a memorandum of it.”
“I didn't, more's the pity, and get your signature while I was about it!”
“It was a pity, Jacob. At my age—eighty-one, Jacob—a man's memory is not his strong point, and you know you have a very persuasive manner with you.”
“You agreed to wait!”
“I can't recall it, Jacob. If I did it's quite slipped my memory. Would you like to examine the mortgage? I have it by me.”
“I suppose you intend to buy in the farm,” said Benson scornfully.
“Very probably I shall make a bid on it—why shouldn't I, Jacob?”
“Mr. Stark, I ask it as a personal favour that you abide by my recollection of our conversation,” said Benson, choking down his rage.
“No, Jacob, I shall have to act according to my own memory in the matter. This terrible, wicked war is ruining us all, and the closing of the shops has made so many men idle; why, they have been without work eight months now; I don't know what our merchants will do; it's a calamity for them. And Tom Benson was always such a hard-headed fellow, a really excellent man of business; who could have foreseen he would go as he did!”
“When I turned over that mortgage—” began Benson.
“Why speak of it again, Jacob? Really the circumstance should be a lesson for us both.”
“I want to know what I am to expect?”
“Haven't I made that clear, Jacob?” and the old banker looked at Benson over the tops of his steel-bowed spectacles, while a dry smile parted his lips.
“It is not at all likely that Mrs. Landray can raise the money for you; as for me—you know I haven't it!”
“That's unfortunate,” said Stark in the gentlest and most pitying of tones. “Very unfortunate, for you know the alternative.”
Benson shrank from him as if he had received a blow.
“You can't do that, you won't—” he cried.
“I will have to, Jacob.”
Benson sank into the chair at the corner of the old man's desk.
“You must let me satisfy you,” he urged.
“Have you the money, Jacob?” asked the banker sharply.
“No; you know that.”
“Can you get it, Jacob?”
“Not unless I get it from you—not unless you'll take a second mortgage on my home.”
“I am sure you won't mind my telling you so, but I think you are carrying about all the loans you should; you will pardon me, it is merely an old man's interest in your welfare.” He became thoughtful, and for a moment Benson hoped he would relent.
“Mr. Stark, as a favour—”
“No, Jacob, that must all come out of hours; here, I have only one rule for friends and strangers.”
Benson without a word more, turned away. He would try elsewhere; surely he had friends who could help him. It was only at the last moment, however, that he was willing to admit, that temporarily at least, his resources were exhausted.
Virginia accepted the situation with surprising fortitude; she neither complained nor repined, but arranged to leave the farm early in November, and put the cottage on the small place north of town in order. She expected, and in this she was not disappointed, that the farm would bring much more than enough to satisfy Stark; yet when the day came when she must leave it, her composure almost failed her. She wondered how she could find the courage to begin anew; how it would be possible to go forward from day to day amid strange surroundings when such brief happiness as she had known had been here!
Jane had gone to the cottage early in the day taking Harriett, and Virginia with Sam West had remained to see that the house was emptied. After this was done, and after the last loaded wagon had driven off, she turned back to pass swiftly through each room. It was her farewell.
A day or two later Benson presented himself at the cottage; he looked worn and haggard.
“You see we shall be quite comfortable,” Virginia said, showing him into her small, low-ceilinged parlour. “Please don't take it quite so hard!”
“This would never have happened if I hadn't been so terribly involved; for the first time in my life I have been unable to get money when I needed it!” He spoke with bitter unavailing regret.
“Yes; but I could not have taken your money,” she said. He smiled slightly.
“You couldn't have helped yourself! I should have had my dealings with Stark!”
She looked at him gratefully. His despondency, which he did not seek to hide from her, moved her to a feeling of greater sympathy than she had ever known for him.
“I am quite content here—it is only that it is strange now, but that will wear off.”
The lawyer's face suddenly lighted.
“I sha'n'. be burdened as I am now, long—I'll buy the farm back, and then you shall return to it, Virginia!” he said.
“No,” said Virginia. “I shall never go back there.”
“But why not?” he asked.
“I don't know. But I knew when I left, that I should never go back. I sometimes think that if I could, I would leave here.”
“Leave here, Virginia!”
“Yes, there are nothing but memories for me, and memories may not always be pleasant things to live with. I don't know, but perhaps I should go East—I only know that I should not stay here!”
“Then, thank God you cannot go!” he said, but in the same breath he added, “I don't mean that—you know I don't, Virginia!” He looked into her face with a world of longing in his glance. “Virginia, how long is this to continue?” he asked.
She did not answer him.
“You don't answer me,” he urged.
“I have not changed; I never shall,” she said.
“If I could convince myself of that I would be silent—but I can't believe it; perhaps because I dare not! Some day you will change toward me. When I first saw you I was a boy of twenty or so—it was when Stephen brought you here; that was seventeen or eighteen years ago. I have waited all that time, and I am still waiting, and twenty years hence—only you must change, Virginia—I shall still be waiting for you; whether you value my love or not, you may be sure of that. You have always held me here; to be near you, that has been the perilous happiness I could not deny myself. I should have gone to California but for you—you kept me here, though you did not know it. I should have gone into the army when the war broke out, but I felt then, as I still feel, that it was my place to watch over you. Virginia, who else have you! Stephen has gone out of your life; you do not like Marian and you never will, so you have lost him. Of them all you have only kept me; does that mean nothing to you?” He paused. “I suppose you will come to hate me—hate me or love me—because of my insistance. But I feel that I shall go on dogging you, persecuting you with my devotion, until I force you to change! Which will it be, Virginia? It can't last so forever—which will it be—hate or love?”
“I have forbidden you—you must not speak of this to me.”
“Yes, you have forbidden it, but somehow I don't obey your commands any more. I don't even fear your displeasure. I suppose I am really beginning to persecute you! I wonder if I ever shall do that, Virginia—and I wonder why I shouldn't, my life is empty of the one great blessing I have coveted, as empty as if I had not lived at all! Do you think you have any right to make me suffer?”
“No—no, it is not I who make you suffer.”
“Yes, it is you! It is because you will abide by an ideal!”
“It is not an ideal!” she cried passionately. “But a living presence still—always a living presence, as it was when he left me!”
“Then why didn't he stay? If he had, we would both have been spared!”
She looked at him resentfully.
“You have no right to speak of him!”
“Yes, I have; for I would have done more—sacrificed more—”
“Be silent!” she commanded, and he saw the white anger in her face; he rose and went to her side.
“Forgive me, Virginia—God knows how I love you.”
“Do you think I shall forgive you because of that!” she asked. “Yes, perhaps because of that! Circumstances have kept us together from the first; they are still keeping us together—it will always be so.”
When Benson reached home, he found a stranger seated in his office, who rose as he entered the room.
“Is this Mr. Benson?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the lawyer. “What can I do for you?”
“My name's Southerland,” said the stranger. “Mr. Benson, I want to talk to you about a tract of land in Belmont County, on which you have been paying taxes, though I understand it don't belong to you. The county clerk gave me your name—told me where to find you—I'm from Wheeling, West Virginia, myself.”
“The property belongs to a client of mine—a widow. I have it in charge,” said Benson briefly.
“Is it on the market?” inquired Southerland.
“Yes; my client will sell for a price,” answered Benson.
“You have had offers then?” suggested Southerland, with a tinge of disappointment.
“None that we care to consider,” replied Benson.
“There's two thousand acres more or less?”
“About that,” agreed Benson, nodding slightly.
“What do you hold it at?”
Benson surveyed him critically. He wondered what his business was; he wondered also what was the value of the land and if it had not a special value to Southerland—he rather thought it had.
“I'll tell you,” he said at last. “I'd like to look over the property myself before I commit my client in any way.”
“You won't see much but scrub-timber and rocks,” said Southerland.
“And minerals,” suggested Benson at a hazard.
“Coal,” nodded Southerland.
Benson was thoughtful.
“Go back with me,” advised Southerland. “I'll show you over it. I know every rod of it.”
“Do you?” said Benson drily. “Well, I'll go back with you.”
“When, Mr. Benson?”
“At once—to-morrow if you like,” answered Benson.
His first impulse had been to see Virginia; but on thinking it over, he decided not to arouse her hope until he was sure something would come of it.
The next day he boarded an east-bound train in company with the Wheeling man. It was an ugly region into which he was introduced, defiled by soft-coal smoke, and unpicturesque with tall foundry chimneys; a region of pig-iron, coke, iron rails, and mammoth castings. He found that Southerland was a man of substance and importance here. In his own smoky atmosphere he talked in a large way, and with an enthusiasm for his schemes and ventures which he could not altogether repress. He was up to the neck in iron, he told Benson, and he was all for going deeper.
To look over the Landray tract involved an entire day in a buggy over the worst of roads; and, as Southerland had said, there was not much to see.
“I'll tell you, sir,” said he, chewing a blade of grass and watching the lawyer out of the corner of his eye. “I'll tell you, sir, I want this land. I'll give as much as the next—maybe you'll find I'll give more. After you get through with me you're perfectly welcome to go about and learn all you can. I don't want you should think I'm trying to keep anything from you. I want this piece of property. I've been buying coal; I want to stop that—I want to mine it. You'll note the property's out of the way just now, that's what's kept it back; but if I buy it I'll have a railroad over here inside of a twelve month.”
They had left the buggy, and were seated on the ground with a flat rock between them which was littered with the remains of their lunch.
“I'll make you my offer. I'll give—” he paused for a brief instant. “I'll give fifty thousand dollars for the tract. Now if you can beat them figures, you're at liberty to!” He had risen, and stood looking down on the lawyer. Benson did not speak, he did not look up, for he did not want Southerland to see his face. Fifty thousand dollars! He wondered if he had really heard aright. Fifty thousand dollars! A great joy engulfed him, he could only think of what this would do for Virginia—the relief, the ease—again the comfort of ample means. Yet when he spoke his habitual caution prompted him to ask coldly:
“That is the best you can do?”
“Yes. Think it over,” said Southerland. “I'll get up the horse,” he added, and strode away.
Benson did not follow him at once. Fifty thousand dollars! This was rare news he should carry home. He did not propose to commit himself to Southerland then and there however, he would learn first, if he could not do better. But he had the premonition that he would accept this offer in the end, since something in Southerland's tone convinced him that he was offering all the land was worth.
On the drive back to town they seemed by mutual consent to avoid any reference to the offer. When they drew up at the curb before Benson's hotel, Southerland said:
“I suppose you'll want to-morrow to look about, and then you'll have to consult your principal before we can settle anything.”
“Yes,” agreed Benson. “If I see you in the afternoon, I suppose you will be ready to put your offer in shape for me to submit? I expect to take the night train west. If your offer is accepted, I'll be back by the first of next week to conclude the deal.”
Benson took a train west the next evening. He carried with him Southerland's offer, which he had satisfied himself Virginia could do no better than accept.
From the first his feeling had been one of generous enthusiasm. He could hardly wait to see Virginia. The speed of the train that was bearing him across the State seemed utterly inadequate to the great occasion. She would be a rich woman again; the smile faded from his lips. The thought smote him like a sudden blow.
His one hold upon her had been her dependence; and what comfort he had been able to cheat himself into taking was all based on the idea that as Virginia's fortunes grew desperate, she must inevitably turn to him. Now he would have nothing to offer. She was free to leave Benson if she chose.
It was two o'clock in the morning when he descended to the station platform at Benson. He slept late the following morning, and after he had breakfasted went into his office to look over his letters. These were but few. He soon disposed of them, and he was at liberty to go to Virginia. But he had parted with the desire. His first generous enthusiasm had quite left him. He assured himself that he was still unspeakably glad for her sake, it was only that for his own sake he could not be glad. He must surrender all idea of her; but it was folly to imagine he could do this all in a moment, all in a day. In his life, where each sane and modest desire had known its accompaniment of modest achievement, this love of his had been the supreme thing; great, compelling, uplifting, unsatisfied.
There was one thing he could do; and suddenly he found himself thinking it out step by step until the smallest detail was clear in his mind. He might buy the land of her, paying her as he now could, some small sum for it that would benefit her, and yet keep her near him, and still dependent. If he did this, of course he could not accept Southerland's offer. He would hold the land just as Virginia had held it, deriving no benefit from it. This would be a disgraceful and a cruel thing to do, but it could be done—that is, it would be simple enough to do.
It provoked a dull wonder in him that he could consider so base a betrayal of her trust and confidence, but the details of this miserable scheme kept recurring to his mind. He even assured himself that it was no longer possible to be honest in his dealings with Virginia; for to be so, was to forever banish the slight chance of future happiness to which he clung with a determination and desperation that had become a part of his very love for her.
He lived through each phase of the supposititious transaction, but not without suffering to himself. Then he dismissed the matter from his mind. He felt as one does who has awakened from a bad dream. To wrong her was impossible. He would do what was honest because it was honest, and because the habits of a lifetime would admit of nothing else.
But why had he played with a possible temptation, why had he allowed such a fancy to possess him? He gave way to fear—fear of himself; and he was again weighing the merits of his case, the justice even; and he knew that it had become a struggle, a struggle to maintain himself against the willingness to do her wrong.
Strangely enough he seemed to be able to watch quite impersonally the struggle that was going on in his own soul. He wondered what this tempted man would do, who in a single day had fallen away from all his nice ideals of honour!
“I have found a buyer for your wild land near Wheeling,” Benson told Virginia two days later. He stood by the window with his back to the light; to him the air of that low-ceilinged room was close and stifling.
“You have done what, Mr. Benson?” Virginia asked, turning quickly toward him.
“I have found a buyer for your land near Wheeling,” he repeated huskily.
“But should I sell? Is there need for it now?” Virginia asked doubtfully.
“Why continue to pay taxes on the land?” but Benson did not meet her glance. If his life had depended on it, he could not.
“Stephen always thought it might prove valuable some day.”
“I fear that day is a long way off,” he said in a low voice, and still with averted eyes.
“So, then, you think I should sell the land, now that I have the opportunity?”
He was silent for an instant and then asked, “Would you—would you—consider five thousand dollars for the land?” The words came with an effort; they seemed to choke him.
“Do you think that is enough, Mr. Benson?”
“It is an unimproved property, you know.”
“But even that would be almost double what Stephen and his brother paid for it.”
“How do you mean, Virginia? They took it in trade from Levi Tucker.”
“Oh, yes, he traded it for the distillery, have you forgotten? The distillery was valued at five thousand dollars, and the land at twenty-five hundred.”
Benson glanced at her sharply.
“Do you know the exact acreage, Virginia?” he asked.
“There are a thousand acres; at least, I seem to remember having heard Stephen say it was a thousand acres.”
It flashed upon him that she had known nothing of that second transfer of a thousand acres that the old tavernkeeper had made to the brothers. Probably she thought the sale of the distillery had been concluded by a cash payment, and that the money had been taken West for investment.
Benson hesitated. An abyss seemed to be yawning at his feet. What evil chance was it that had left her so illy-acquainted with her own affairs? In all the business he had transacted for her, she had signed the necessary papers without even looking at them. If she sold the wild land, the acreage could be managed.
“You remember, don't you, that this land is yours? That when Anna married it was agreed that you were to take over this property in lieu of an increased equity which Stephen was to have in the mill and farm? I simply wish to recall this point to your mind so that you will understand why this is a transaction that does not involve Stephen in any way.”