In the Heart of a Fool Part 20

"Come on, Tom--just for a little minute--come on out and see her. I know she is waiting for you--I know she is just dying to show off to you--and besides, the new rugs have come for the living-room, and I just couldn't unpack them without you. It would seem so--old--old--old marriedy, and we aren't going to be that." She laughed and tried to close the law book.

Their eyes met and she thought for a moment that she was winning her contest. But he put her hand aside gently and answered: "Now, Laura, I'm busy, exceedingly busy. This mine accident is bound to come before me in one form or another soon, and I must be ready for it, and it is a serious matter. There will be all kinds of attacks upon the property."

"The property?" she asked, and he answered:

"Why, yes--legal attacks upon the mine--to bleed the owners, and I must be ready to guard them against these a.s.saults, and I just can't jump and run every time Lila coos or you cut a string on a package. I'll be out to-night and we'll hear Lila and look at the rugs." To the disappointment upon her face he replied: "I tell you, Laura, sentiment is going to wreck your life if you don't check it."

The man looked into his book without reading. He had come to dislike these little scenes with his wife. He looked from his book out of the window, into the snowy street. He remembered his morning walk. There was no talk of souls in those eyes, no hint of higher things from those lips, no covert taunt of superiority in that face.

Laura did not wince. But her eyes filled and her voice was husky as she spoke: "Tom, I want your soul again--the one that used to speak to me in the old days." She bent over him, and rubbed her cheek against his and there she left him, still looking into the street.

That evening at sunset, Judge Van Dorn, with his ulster thrown back to show his fine figure, walked in his character of town Prince homeward up the avenue. His face was amiable; he was gracious to every one. He spoke to rich and poor alike, as was his wont. As he turned into his home yard, he waved at a little face in the window. In the house he was the spirit of good nature itself. He was full of quips and pleasantries and happy turns of speech. But Laura Van Dorn had learned deep in her heart to fear that mood. She was ashamed of her wisdom--degraded by her doubt, and she fought with it.

And yet a man and a woman do not live together as man and wife and parents without learning much that does not come from speech and is not put into formulated conviction. The signs were all for trouble, and in the secret places of her heart she knew these signs.

She knew that this grand manner, this expansive mood, this keying up of attentions to her were the beginnings of a sad and sordid story--a story that she did not entirely understand; would not entirely translate, but a story that sickened her very soul. To keep the table talk going, she said: "Tom, it's wonderful the way Kenyon is taking to the violin. He has a real gift, I believe."

"Yes," answered the husband absently, and then as one who would plunge ahead, began: "By the by--why don't you have your father and mother and some of the neighbors over to play cards some evening--and what's the matter with the Fenns? Henry's kind of down on his luck, and I'll need him in my next campaign, and I thought if we could have them over some evening--well, what's the matter with to-morrow evening? They'd enjoy it. You know Mrs. Fenn--I saw her down town this morning, and George Brotherton says Henry's slipping back to his old ways. And I just thought perhaps--"

But she knew as well as he what he "thought perhaps," and a cloud trailed over her face.

When Thomas Van Dorn left his home that night, striding into the lights of Market Street, his heart was hot with the glowing coals of an old wrong revived. For to Judge Van Dorn, home had become a trap, and the glorious eyes that had beamed upon him in the morning seemed beacons of liberty.

As gradually those eyes became fixed in his consciousness, through days and weeks and months, a mounting pa.s.sion for Margaret Fenn kindled in his heart. And slowly he went stone-blind mad. The whole of his world was turned over. Every ambition, every hope, every desire he ever had known was burned out before this pa.s.sion that was too deep for desire.

Whatever l.u.s.t was in his blood in those first months of his madness grew pale. It seemed to the man who went stalking down the street past her house night after night that the one great, unselfish pa.s.sion of his life was upon him, loosening the roots of his being, so that any sacrifice he could make, whether of himself or of any one or anything about him, would give him infinite joy. When he met Henry Fenn, Van Dorn was always tempted and often yielded to the temptation to rush up to Fenn with some foolish question that made the sad-eyed man stare and wonder. But just to be that near to her for the moment pleased him.

There was no jealousy for Fenn in Van Dorn's heart; there was only a dog-like infatuation that had swept him away from his reason and seated a fatuous, chattering, impotent, lecherous ape where his intellect should have been. And he knew he was a fool. He knew that he was stark mad. Yet what he did not know was that this madness was a culmination, not a pristine pa.s.sion new born in his heart. For the maggot in his brain had eaten out a rotten place wherein was the memory of many women's yieldings, of many women's tears. One side of his brain worked with rare cunning. He wound the evidence against the men in the mine, taken at the coroner's hearing, through the labyrinth of the law, and snared them tightly in it. That part of his brain clicked with automatic precision. But sitting beside him was the ape, grinning, leering, ready to rise and master him. So many a night when he was weary, he lay on the couch beside his desk, and the ape came and howled him to a troubled sleep.

But while Judge Van Dorn tried to fight his devil away with his law book, down in South Harvey death still lingered. Death is no respecter of persons, and often vaunts himself of his democracy. Yet it is a sham democracy. In Harvey, when death taps on a door and enters the house, he brings sorrow. But in South Harvey when he crosses a threshold he brings sorrow and want. And what a vast difference lies between sorrow, and sorrow with want. For sometimes the want that death brings is so keen that it smothers sorrow, and the poor may not mourn without shame--shame that they feel the self-interest in their sorrow. So when Death entered a hundred homes in South Harvey that winter day at the beginning of the new year, with him came hunger, with him came cold, with him came the harlot's robe and the thief's mask, and the blight of ignorance, and the denial of democratic opportunity to scores of children. With death that day as he crossed the dreary, unpainted portals of the poor came horror that overshadows grief among the poor and makes the boast of the democracy of death a ruthless irony.

CHAPTER XIX

HEREIN CAPTAIN MORTON FALLS UNDER SUSPICION AND HENRY FENN FALLS FROM GRACE

On Market Street nearly opposite the Traders' National Bank during the decades of the eighties and nineties was a smart store front upon which was fastened a large, black and gold sign bearing the words "The Paris Millinery Company" and under these words in smaller letters, "Mrs.

Brunhilde Herd.i.c.ker, Prop." If Mr. George Brotherton and his Amen Corner might be said to be the clearing house of public opinion in Harvey, the establishment of Mrs. Brunhilde Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., might well be said to be the center of public clamor. For things started in this establishment--by things one means in general, trouble; variegated of course as to domestic, financial, social, educational, amatory, and at times political. Now the women of Harvey and South Harvey and of Greeley county--and of Hanc.o.c.k and Seymour counties so far as that goes--used the establishment of "The Paris Millinery Company, Mrs. Brunhilde Herd.i.c.ker, Prop.," as a club--a highly democratic club--the only place this side of the grave, in fact, where women met upon terms of something like equality.

And in spring when women molt and change their feathers, the establishment of "Mrs. Brunhilde Herd.i.c.ker, Prop." at its opening rose to the dignity of a social inst.i.tution. It was a kind of folk-mote. Here at this opening, where there was music and flowers and bonbons, women a.s.sembled en ma.s.se. Mrs. Nesbit and Mrs. Fenn, Mrs. Dexter and Violet Hogan, she that was born Mauling met, if not as sisters at least in what might be called a great step-sisterhood; and even the silent Lida Bowman, wife of d.i.c.k, came from her fastness and for once in a year met her old friends who knew her in the town's early days before she went to South Harvey to share the red pottage of the Sons of Esau!

But her friends had little from Mrs. Bowman more than a smile--a cracked and weather-beaten smile from a broken woman of nearly forty, who was a wife at fifteen, a mother at seventeen, and who had borne six children and buried two in a dozen years.

"There's Violet," ventured Mrs. Bowman to Mrs. Dexter. "I haven't seen her since her marriage."

To a question Mrs. Bowman replied reluctantly, "Oh--as for Denny Hogan, he is a good enough man, I guess!"

After a pause, Mrs. Bowman thought it wise to add under the wails of the orchestra: "Poor Violet--good hearted girl's ever lived; so kind to her ma; and what with all that talk when she was in Van Dorn's office and all the talk about the old man Sands and her in the Company store, I just guess Vi got dead tired of it all and took Denny and run to cover with him."

Violet Hogan in a black satin,--a cheap black satin, and a black hat--a cheap black hat with a red rose--a most absurdly cheap red rose in it, walked about the place picking things over in a rather supercilious way, and no one noticed her. Mrs. Fenn gave Violet an eyebrow, a beautifully penciled eyebrow on a white marble forehead, above beaming brown eyes that were closed just slightly at the moment. And Mrs. Van Dorn who had kept track of the girl, you may be sure, went over to her and holding out her hand said: "Congratulations, Violet,--I'm so glad to hear--" But Mrs. Denny Hogan having an eyebrow to spare as the gift of Mrs. Fenn pa.s.sed it on to Mrs. Van Dorn who said, "Oh--" very gently and went to sit on a settee beside Mrs. Brotherton, the mother of the moon-faced Mr.

Brotherton and Mrs. Ahab Wright, who always seemed to seek the shade.

And then and there, Mrs. Van Dorn had to listen to this solo from Mrs.

Brotherton:

"George says Judge Van Dorn is running for Judge again: really, Laura, I hope he'll win. George says he will. George says Henry Fenn is the only trouble Mr. Van Dorn will have, though I don't see as Henry could do much. Though George says he will. George says Henry is cranky and mean about the Judge someway and George says Henry is drinking like a fish this spring and his legs is hollow, he holds so much; though he must have been joking for I have heard of hollow horn in cattle, but I never heard of hollow legs, though they are getting lots of new diseases."

By the time Mrs. Brotherton found it necessary to stop for breath, Laura Van Dorn had regained the color that had dimmed as she heard the reference to Henry Fenn. And when she met Mrs. Margaret Fenn at a turn of the aisle, Mrs. Margaret Fenn was the spirit of joy and it seemed that Mrs. Van Dorn was her long lost sister; so Mrs. Margaret Fenn began fumbling her over to find the identifying strawberry mark. At least that is what Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., told Mrs. Nesbit as she sold Mrs. Nesbit the large one with the brown plume.

Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., made it a rule never to gossip, as every one who frequented her shop was told, but as between old friends she would say to Mrs. Nesbit that if ever one woman glued herself to another, and couldn't be boiled or frozen, or chopped loose, that woman was Maggie Fenn sticking to Laura Van Dorn. And Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., closed her mouth significantly, and Mrs. Nesbit pretended with a large obvious, rather clumsy pretense, that she read no meaning in Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker's words. The handsome Miss Morton, with her shoe tops tiptoeing to her skirts, who was in the shop and out of school for the rush season, listened hard, but after that they whispered and the handsome Miss Morton turned her attention to the youngest Miss Morton who was munching bonbons and opening the door for all of Harvey and South Harvey and the princ.i.p.alities around about to enter and pa.s.s out. After school came the tired school teachers from the High School, her eldest sister, Emma Morton, among them, with their books and reports pressed against their sides. But Margaret Fenn did not see the school teachers, nor even the fifth Mrs. Sands towed about by her star-eyed stepdaughter Anne, though Margaret Fenn's eyes were busy. But she was watching the women; she was looking for something as though to ward it off, always glancing ahead of her to see where she was going, and who was in her path; always measuring her woman, always listening under the shriek of the clarionettes, always quick with a smile--looking for something--something that she may have felt was upon its way, something that she dreaded to see. But all the shoulders she hobn.o.bbed with that day were warm enough--indifferently warm, and that was all she asked. So she smiled and radiated her fine, animal grace, her feline beauty, her superfemininity, and was as happy as any woman could be who had arrived at an important stage of her journey and could see a little way ahead with some degree of clearness.

Let us look at her as she stands by the door waiting to overhaul Mrs.

Nesbit. A fine figure of a woman, Margaret Fenn makes there--in her late twenties, with large regular features, big even teeth, clear brown eyes--not bold at all, yet why do they seem so? Perhaps because she is so sure and firm and unhesitating. Her skin is soft and fair as a child's, bespeaking health and good red blood. The good red blood shows in her lips--red as a wicked flower, red and full and as shameless as a dream. Taller than Mrs. Nesbit she stands, and her clothes hang to her in spite of the fullness of the fas.h.i.+on, in most suggestive lines. She seems to s.h.i.+ne out of her clothes a l.u.s.trous, s.h.i.+mmering figure, female rather than feminine, and gorgeous rather than lovely. Margaret Fenn is in full bloom; not a drooping petal, not a bending stamen, not a wilted calyx or bruised leaf may be seen about her. She is a perfect flower whose whole being--like that of a flower at its full--seems eager, thrilling, burning with antic.i.p.ation of the perfect fruit.

She puts out her hands--both of her large strong hands, so well-gloved and well-kept, to Mrs. Nesbit. Surely Mrs. Fenn's smile is not a make-believe smile; surely that is real pleasure in her voice; surely that is real joy that lights up her eyes. And why should they not be real? Is not Mrs. Nesbit the one person in all Harvey that Margaret Fenn would delight to honor? Is not Mrs. Nesbit the dowager empress of Harvey, and the social despot of the community? And is not Mrs. Nesbit smiling at the eldest Miss Morton, she of the Longfellow school, who is trying on a traveling hat, and explaining that she always wanted a traveling hat and suit alike so that she could go to the Grand Canyon if she could ever save up enough money, but she could never seem to afford it? Moreover is not Mrs. Nesbit in a beneficent frame of mind?

"Well," smiles the eyes and murmurs the voice, and glows the face of the young woman, and she puts out her hand. "Mrs. Nesbit--so glad I'm sure.

Isn't it lovely here? Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker is so effective."

"Mrs. Fenn,--" this from the dowager, and the eyebrow that Mrs. Fenn gave to Mrs. Hogan, and Mrs. Hogan gave to Mrs. Van Dorn and Mrs. Van Dorn gave to Mrs. Brotherton and Mrs. Brotherton gave to Mrs. Calvin who, George says, is an old cat, and Mrs. Calvin gave to Mrs. Nesbit for remarks as to the biennial presence of Mr. Calvin in the barn (repeated to Mrs. Calvin), the eyebrow having been around the company comes back to Mrs. Fenn.

After which Mrs. Nesbit moves with what dignity her tonnage will permit out of the perfumed air, out of the concord of sweet sounds into the street. Mrs. Fenn, who was looking for it all the afternoon, that thing she dreaded and antic.i.p.ated with fear in her heart's heart, found it. It was exceedingly cold--and also a shoulder of some proportions. And it chilled the flowing sap of the perfect flower so that the flower s.h.i.+vered in the breeze made by the closing door, though the youngest Miss Morton presiding at the door thought it was warm, and Mrs.

Herd.i.c.ker thought it was warm and Mrs. Violet Hogan said to Mrs. Bowman as they went through the same door and met the same air: "My land, Bowman, did you ever see such an oven?" and then as the door closed she added:

"See old Mag Fenn there? I just heard something about her to-day. I bet it's true."

Thus the afternoon faded and the women went home to cook their evening meals, and left Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., with a few late comers--ladies of no particular character who had no particular men folk to do for, and who slipped in after the rush to pay four prices for what had been left.

Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., was straightening up the stock and snapping prices to the girls who were waiting upon the belated customers. She spent little of her talent upon the sisterhood of the old, old trade, and contented herself with charging them all she could get, and making them feel she was obliging them by selling to them at all. It was while trade sagged in the twilight that Mrs. Jared Thurston, Lizzie Thurston to be exact, wife of the editor of the South Harvey _Derrick_ came in. Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., knew her of old. She was in to solicit advertising, which meant that she was needing a hat and it was a swap proposition. So Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker told Mrs. Thurston to write up the opening and put in a quarter page advertis.e.m.e.nt beside and send her the bill, and Mrs. Thurston looked at a hat. No time was wasted on her either--nor much talent; but as Mrs. Thurston was in a business way herself, Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., stopped to talk to her a moment as to an equal--a rare distinction. They sat on a sofa in the alcove that had sheltered the orchestra behind palms and ferns and Easter lilies, and chatted of many things--the mines, the new smelter, the new foreman's wife at the smelter, the likelihood that the Company store in South Harvey would put in a line of millinery--which Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., denied with emphasis, declaring she had an agreement with the old devil not to put in millinery so long as she deposited at his bank. Mrs.

Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., had taken the $500 which the Company had offered for the life of poor Casper and had filed no lawsuit, fearing that a suit with the Company would hurt her trade. But as a business proposition both women were interested in the other damage suits pending against the Company for the mine accident. "What do they say down there about it?"

asked the milliner.

"Well, of course," returned Mrs. Thurston, who was not sure of her ground and had no desire to talk against the rich and powerful, "they say that some one ought to pay something. But, of course, Joe Calvin always wins his suits and the Judge, of course, was the Company's attorney before he was the Judge--"

"And so the claim agents are signing 'em up for what the Company will give," cut in the questioner.

"That's about it, Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker," responded Mrs. Thurston. "Times are hard, and they take what they can get now, rather than fight for it. And the most the Company will pay is $400 for a life, and not all are getting that."

"Tom Van Dorn--he's a smooth one, Lizzie--he's a smooth one." Mrs.

Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., looked quickly at Mrs. Thurston and got a smile in reply. That was enough. She continued:

"You'd think he'd know better--wouldn't you?"

"Well, I don't know--it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks," was the non-committal answer of Mrs. Thurston, still cautious about offending the powers.

Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., brushed aside formalities. "Yes--stenographers and hired girls, and biscuit shooters at the Palace and maybe now and then an excursion across the track; but this is different; this is in his own cla.s.s. They were both here this afternoon, and you should have seen the way she cooed and billed over Laura Van Dorn. Honest, Lizzie, if I'd never heard a word, I'd know something was wrong. And you should have seen old lady Nesbit give her the come-uppins."

Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., dropped her voice to a confidential tone.

"Lizzie?" a pause; "They say you've seen 'em together."