XII
A week later the mild Spring weather changed to heat that suggested Midsummer. The Potomac flats sent up odors that made people talk about malaria and the importance of getting out of town. Congress gave no sign of adjourning, however. The House was choked with business; important bills were under consideration and equally important bills lay waiting to be brought up. It looked now as if the session might last till July.
The heat, combined with a peremptory order from Ashburnham, had persuaded Fanny Wallace that she must leave for home. She was not altogether sorry to go; since the night of the ball, an atmosphere of gloom seemed to envelop the Briggs household. It affected even Guy, who, however, attributed it to pressure of business. When Fanny complained of it, Guy would close his lips impatiently and say, “Well,Mr.Briggs is up to his neck.” At last Fanny ordered him tostop using that expression. “You have such a horrid trick of saying the same things over and over again,” she cried one day, and when he looked depressed, she tried to apologize by adding:
“I suppose that’s because you’ve got such a limited vocabulary.”
“A man don’t need to know as many words as a woman,” Guy retorted, and he further exasperated Fanny by refusing to explain what he meant.
“I intend mighty quick to go to a place,” Fanny exclaimed, “where my conversation will be appreciated. At any rate,” she added, “I’ll go where people aren’t afraid to smile once in a while.”
By the time she did leave, however, she and Guy had quarreled and had been reconciled again many times. They parted with the understanding that if Guy could be spared for a week or two, Fanny should go to Ashburnham for a vacation. But on this subject Guy remained conservative to the end. “If Congress holds out all Summer,” he said grimly, “I’ll have to stay here. I can’t leave the Congressmen alone.”
“Great companyyouare,” Fanny maliciously commented, as Guy stepped off the train. Butshe atoned by smiling at him ravishingly from the car window, and kissing the tips of her fingers.
One hot afternoon, a few days later, as Douglas Briggs was walking slowly home, he met Miss Munroe and her little charges. Dorothy and Jack were walking listlessly, their faces pale, their eyes tired. Even Miss Munroe’s face lacked its expression of patient placidity. On meeting him the children showed less than usual enthusiasm.
“They ought to be out of town,” said Briggs.
Miss Munroe nodded. “Jack doesn’t seem like himself at all,” she said, “since this heat began. And Dorothy has lost all her spirits.”
That night at dinner Helen sat alone with her husband. Guy Fullerton was dining out. For a long time neither spoke. They were becoming used to silence.
“I’ve just had a letter from Fanny,” Helen said. “She seems very lonely at Ashburnham; but I’m glad she has escaped this dreadful heat.”
“That reminds me,” Briggs remarked. “I think you’d better not wait till next month before you go up to Waverly. The children will be far better off up there. This heat may continue all through the month. Can’t you get away by Saturday?”
He did not notice that she turned pale.
“I suppose we could,” she replied.
“I shall close up the house,” he continued, “and take rooms with Guy at the club. If I can manage it I’ll go up to Waverly with you for over Sunday. To-morrow I’ll send Michael there to open the house and get things ready. His wife had better go with him, too,” he added, as an afterthought.
“There’ll be no need of going to all that expense,” said Helen, flushing. Then she went on, quickly: “Miss Munroe and I can open the house, and we can get Mary Watson’s daughter to help us.”
“No,” said Briggs, decisively. “I want the place to be aired and put in shape before you get there. You’re too tired to look after those things, anyway, and Miss Munroe has all she can do to take care of the children.”
Helen rose from the table, and her husband followed her out of the room. “I must go right back to the House,” he said. “We shall probably have a long session to-night; so I sha’n’t be home till late. You needn’t have anyone wait up for me.”
Their partings after dinner had lately becomevery difficult, involving unnecessary and uncomfortable explanations. Helen had either to attend to some trifling domestic detail or to hurry upstairs to the nursery, and Briggs was absorbed in work that called him to his study or out of the house. They talked a good deal now about matters that did not relate to themselves. Sometimes it was hard to find a topic. They were in that most miserable of human situations where, loving each other, they were able only to cause each other pain. Briggs found relief in his work; Helen devoted more time to the children. She began to wonder if she had not neglected them, if she had not left them too much to their governess. It seemed to her, at times, that they cared as much for Miss Munroe as for herself. Of course, Miss Munroe was in many ways valuable, but she was provincial and narrow-minded and she petted the children too much and gave them sentimental and foolish notions. Helen dreaded seeming ungrateful, but she suspected that the children had outgrown their governess.
With his buoyant nature it was impossible for Douglas Briggs to remain steadily depressed. There were moments when he felt sure that the trouble between his wife and himself would suddenlydisappear. Some day, when he returned home, she would meet him in the hall or on the stairs, and by a look, a gesture, would let him know that she had forgiven him. Then he would take her in his arms, and all the anguish of the past few weeks would be over. They would be dearer to each other on account of it, closer, tenderer companions. She was in the right, of course, but she would see that he had been forced to do what he had done; that his sin had not been nearly so great as it seemed to her, and that he was going to pay for it; that he had paid for it already, and he would make ample amends in the future.
Helen Briggs, however, cherished no such illusion. She could see no way out of the difficulty. It was not merely that her respect for her husband had gone; she was bitterly disappointed and hurt. She had decided never to speak to him about Franklin West’s insult, but it was her husband’s unconscious participation in it that caused her the deepest humiliation and resentment. On the other hand, the very cruelty of her sufferings deepened both her pity for her husband and her love. The thought of leaving him now made her feel faint. She wished to stay with him and to be more tohim than she had ever been. But in his presence she felt powerless; she could not even seem like herself. She accused herself of being a depressing influence, of adding to his burden.
During the next few days, in spite of the heat that continued to be severe, Helen worked hard helping to close the house and to prepare the children’s Summer clothes. Dorothy began to be irritable, and Jack had developed an affection of the throat that frightened her. The doctors told her, however, that the boy would be well again after he had been for a few days in the pure air of Waverly. It was a relief to her to worry about Jack and to care for him, just as it was a satisfaction to go to bed exhausted at the end of each day.
On Friday afternoon Douglas Briggs returned home early. “I sha’n’t be here for dinner,” he said. “I’m going to a committee meeting at Aspinwall’s house, and it’ll last till evening, probably. Anyway, he’s asked me to stay for a stag dinner. His wife’s away, you know.”
“Aren’t you too busy to go with us to-morrow, Douglas?” Helen asked. “You’ve not had a minute to yourself this week. Miss Munroe and I can manage very well. If you like you can send Guy down.”
Briggs hesitated. “Itisa very hard time for me to leave,” he said, nervously stroking his hair. “I ought to be at the House to-morrow morning. But I didn’t want you and the children to stay till Monday. It’s so hot here——”
“We’ll go on, as we planned, and you can stay here,” Helen interrupted. She turned away quickly and left him with the feeling that the matter had been taken out of his hands. This turn of affairs displeased him. He decided he would go to Waverly anyway. But when he had returned to the cab waiting at the door he recovered from his resentment. Helen’s plan was best, after all. In a week or two there would be a lull, and he could run over to New York and then up the river to Waverly. Perhaps by that time Helen would feel rested and take a different view of things. She had been tired and nervous lately. He liked himself for his leniency toward his wife, and when he reached Aspinwall’s house he was in the frame of mind that always enabled him to appear at his best, friendly and frank, but aggressive.
The next morning Briggs drove with his family to the morning train, leaving Guy to reply to his letters. When he bade them good-bye he triedto maintain a jocular air. The children clamored after him from the open window, and Dorothy’s face gave promise of tears. “Oh, I shall see you all in a few days,” he said, as he stood on the platform. “That is, if I hear that Dorothy and Jack are good. I won’t come if they are not good.”
“Oh, we’ll be awful good, papa,” said Dorothy, earnestly.
A thick-set young man, with big spectacles, came hurrying to the train, carrying a heavy suit-case. Briggs did not recognize him till he was close at hand.
“Oh, hello, Farley! Going on this train? That’s fine. You can look after these people of mine. Helen,” Briggs called through the window, “here’s Farley. He’s going over, too.”
“I don’t know that I can get a seat in the car,” Farley panted.
Briggs turned to the conductor, who stood at the steps. “Oh, I guess Lawton can fix you up,” he remarked, pleasantly, displaying his genius for remembering names.
The conductor brightened. “Oh, that’ll be all right,” he said. “Just jump in,” he added, to Farley. “There are two or three vacant places,and I’ll try to get one of the passengers to change, so that you can sit with the Congressman’s family.”
Briggs walked forward and stood at the window. “I feel more comfortable now,” he said to Farley, with a smile.
The conductor managed to secure the seat beside Helen, and a moment later the train pulled out of the station. Farley had begun to entertain Dorothy and Jack, whom he had seen a few times at home and in the parks. He seemed to know how to approach children; he never talked down to them; he gave them the feeling that they were meeting him on equal terms. His honest eyes and his large, smiling mouth at once won their confidence.
“I’m just running over for Sunday,” he explained to Helen. “Awful day to travel, isn’t it? But we’re going to have a pretty important meeting of our club—the Citizens’ Club, you know. We’re getting after Rathburn. Know him?”
“He has been at our house to seeMr.Briggs,” Helen replied. She rememberedMr.Rathburn as a quiet, and an exceedingly polite man, with a gray, pointed beard, fond of talking about his hobby, the cultivation of roses.
“I think we’ve got him where we want him, now,” Farley continued. “He’s been pretty foxy, but we’ve caught him napping in that big water-supply steal. He engineered the whole job. It must have cost the city a half-million dollars more than it should have cost. They say he pulled out a hundred thousand for himself. But it’s going to queer him for good!”
“Do you mean that you are going to have him prosecuted?” Helen asked.
Farley could not keep from smiling at the simplicity of the question. “Hardly that. That would be more than we could hope for. But if we can only have the thing investigated, and get the people to realize what’s been done, why, his political career will be over. There’s a whole gang of ’em in with him; but most of ’em have covered their tracks.” Farley sighed. “It’s strange,” he said, “how hard it is to rouse public opinion. Sometimes I believe our people are the most indifferent in the world. They haven’t any sense of personal responsibility. That’s why we have so many rascals in public life. If I were going in for rascality,” he concluded, with a laugh, “I’d become a politician. It’s the safest and the mostprofitable way of making money. Big returns and mighty little risk.”
Farley apparently did not notice the look of distress in Helen’s eyes. Encouraged by her questions, he went on to give her an account of the way in which the club had been founded. “I’d been doing the political work in New York for theGazettefor three years,” he said; “so that gave me a chance to see things from the inside. And what I did see made me so sick that I thought of quitting the business. But one night I was talking things over with Jimmy Barker. You’ve heard of him, of course. He made me look at things from another point of view. Jimmy’s father left him half a million dollars, and Jimmy, instead of spending it all on himself, is blowing it in on his philanthropic schemes. Lately he’s been living down on the East Side and working for a reform in the tenement-house laws. Well, he made me see that, instead of quitting political work, because the society wasn’t good enough for me, I ought to stay in it and help to make it a little cleaner, if I could. So he got me to bring together a lot of fellows that looked at things as we did and we formed a sort of organization. At first we had only a few rooms downtown. Nowwe have a house uptown and a pretty big membership. It’s all Jimmy’s work. He’s given us a lot of money, and when we got discouraged he’s kept us going by his enthusiasm—and his money, too. I never knew such a man; nothing discourages him.” Farley’s eyes flashed through his big glasses in the glow of talk. Helen realized for the first time that at moments he was almost handsome.
“Douglas has often spoken to me about the work of your club,” she remarked. “He says it is having a great influence in New York.”
“I wish we could persuade him to come in with us,” Farley said, wistfully. “I’ve been trying to get him for months. He’s just the kind of man we need most. You know we’ve been careful to keep absolutely non-partisan. We have public men from both parties among our members. It’s been pretty hard keeping ’em together. There are a lot of hot-heads among reformers, you know,” he went on, smiling. “I suppose when a man gets a strong bias in any direction it’s apt to throw him off his equilibrium. But most of our men have seen that partisanship would be the death of us. Our great point is to keep the city government out of politics as much as possible. Ofcourse, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be, except there seems to be a sort of weakness in human nature for following a banner and going in crowds.”
“Then you don’t pay attention to politics outside of New York?” Helen asked.
“Only indirectly,” Farley replied. “Some time we hope we can have a National organization like our city club to look after some of those rascals down in Washington. But as I was saying,” Farley resumed, eagerly, “if I could only getMr.Briggs to join us, then he’d meet our men, and they’d get to understand him. They don’t understand him now. They think he’s been an out-and-out machine man. Of course, that’s all nonsense. I only wish we had more machine men like him.”
Helen turned her head away. Dorothy and Jack were playing games with Miss Munroe. When Jack looked up quickly she noticed a little movement of the head that always reminded her of his father. The first time she had noticed this resemblance it had given her a thrill of happiness.
On the arrival of the train in New York Farley helped his friends into a carriage. “I’m not going to bid you good-bye,” he said. “I’ll take the elevatedand I’ll be at the Grand Central station before you have time to get there.”
Helen offered a protest, but Farley smilingly insisted. “It’s on my way uptown,” he explained. “It won’t be the least trouble.”
He had charmed Dorothy on the way over from Washington, and for an hour she had lain asleep in his arms. Now she clamored that he be given a place in the carriage.
“I can sit inMr.Farley’s lap,” she pleaded.
“No, Dorothy,” said Farley, “I’d like that all right; but the carriage is crowded already.”
“Then I’ll go withMr.Farley,” Dorothy insisted. This compromise, however, was instantly rejected, and the driver whipped off. When Helen reached the station Farley had already secured the tickets and the seats in the parlor car.
“I wishMr.Farley was going with us,” said Jack.
“Oh, do come, please,” Dorothy exclaimed, delighted. “Can’t you come and live with us likeMr.Fullerton?”
Farley laughed.
“PerhapsMr.Farley will come some day,” said Helen. “Perhaps he will come with papa.”
“Oh, good!” Jack shouted.
“Well, I wantMr.Farley now,” Dorothy pouted. The fatigue of the journey had begun to tell on her.
Farley walked down to the car and saw his friends settled in their places. As the train pulled out of the station he stood on the platform and watched till it disappeared. Then he sighed and walked slowly back to the street. How fortunate some men were in this world, he thought. Douglas Briggs was an example. He had everything that could contribute to happiness—success, power, money, a happy home, a wife who must be a perpetual inspiration, and children. Farley cared comparatively little for money or power; he was content to follow his life in the world as it had been laid out for him; but sometimes he grew depressed as he thought that the deeper satisfactions, the love of a wife and of children, he should probably never know. For the past year this feeling had become a conviction. He encouraged no morbid sentiment about it, however. He had plenty of interests and pleasures; his work alone brought rewards that were worth striving for, and in his friendships, his interests and in books he found distraction and solace. He was one of those men who are never tempted to experiment with theiremotions; so he had kept his mind wholesome, and he had never known the disappointment and the bitterness of those who try to substitute self-indulgence for happiness.
Farley himself hardly realized how much his view of life was influenced by his attitude toward women. He had the exalted view of women that only those men can take who have kept their lives clean. He had first become interested in Douglas Briggs through seeing Briggs’s wife. He thought there must be remarkable qualities in a man who could win the love of a woman like that. Until within a few months he had seen Helen only a few times. Now he felt as if he had known her always. He looked back on himself during the years before he first saw her as if he had been someone else, with a feeling very like pity. There were also moments of weakness when he thought with pity of himself as he had been since knowing her.
If Farley had realized the misery he had caused Helen Briggs he would have experienced an agony of regret. On the way to Waverly Helen kept thinking of her talk with him on the train. The revelation of his own character that Farley had given made Helen compare him with her husband.She had never before appreciated the rare qualities of the journalist, his inflexible honesty, his candor, his generous admirations, his supreme unselfishness. At the thought of his devotion to her husband Helen felt her face flush with shame. Douglas, of course, knew how much Farley admired him; but Douglas was used to admiration; he had received it all his life.