In the Heart of a Fool Part 7

CAPTAIN MORTON ACTS AS COURT HERALD AND MORTY SANDS AND GRANT ADAMS HEAR SAD NEWS

Spring in Mrs. Nesbit's garden, even in those days when a garden in Harvey meant chiefly lettuce and radishes and peas, was no casual event.

Spring opened formally for the Nesbits with crocuses and hyacinths; smiled genially in golden forsythia, bridal wreath and tulips, preened itself in flags and lilacs before glowing in roses and peonies. Now the spring is always wise; for it knows what the winter only hopes or fears.

Events burst forth in spring that have been hidden since their seedtime.

And it was with the coming of the first crocuses that Dr. Nesbit found in his daughter's eyes a joyous look, new and exultant--a look which never had been inspired by the love he lavished upon her. It was not meant for him. Yet it was as truly a spring blossom as any that blushed in the garden. When it came and when the father realized that the mother also saw it, they feared to speak of it--even to themselves and by indirection.

For they knew their winter conspiracies had failed. In vain was the trip to Baltimore; in vain was the week with grand opera in New York, and they both knew that the proposed trip to Europe never would occur. When the parents saw that look of triumphant joy in their daughter's face, when they saw how it lighted up her countenance like a flame when Tom Van Dorn was near or was on his way to her, they knew that from the secret recesses of her heart, from the depths of her being, love was springing. They knew that they could not uproot it, and they had no heart to try. For they accepted love as a fact of life, and felt that when once it has seeded and grown upon a heart, it is a part of that heart and only G.o.d's own wisdom and mercy may change the destiny that love has written upon the life in which love rests. So in the wisdom of the spring, the parents were mute and sad.

There was no hint of anger in their sorrow. They realized that if she was wrong, and they were right, she needed them vastly more than if they were wrong and she was right, and so they tried to rejoice with her--not of course expressly and baldly, but in a thousand ways that lay about them, they made her as happy as they could. Their sweet acquiescence in what she knew was cutting the elders to the quick, gave the girl many an hour of poignant distress. Yet the purpose of her heart was not moved.

The Satterthwaite in her was dominant.

"Doctor," spoke the wife one morning as they sat alone over their breakfast, "I think--" She stopped, and he knew she was listening to the daughter, who was singing in an undertone in the garden.

"Yes," he answered, "so do I. I think they have settled it."

The man dropped his glance to the table before him, where his hands rested helplessly and cried, "Bedelia--I don't--I don't like it!"

The color of her woe darkened Mrs. Nesbit's face as her features trembled for a second, before she controlled herself. "No, Jim--no--no!

I don't--I'm afraid--afraid, of I don't know what!"

"Of course, he's of excellent family--the very best!" the wife ventured.

"And he's making money--and has lots of money from his people!" returned the father.

"And he's a man among men!" added the mother.

"Oh, yes--very much that,--and he's trying to be decent! Honestly, Bedelia, I believe the fellow's got a new grip on himself!" The Doctor's voice had regained its timbre; it was just a little hard, and it broke an instant later as he cried: "O Lord, Lord, mother--we can't fool ourselves; let's not try!" They looked into the garden, where the girl stood by the blooming lilacs with her arms filled with blossoms.

At length the mother spoke, "What shall we do?"

"What can we do?" the Doctor echoed. "What can any human creatures do in these cases! To interfere does no good! The thing is here. Why has it come? I don't know." He repeated the last sentence piteously, and went on gently:

"'They say it was a stolen tide--the Lord who sent it, He knows all!'

But why--why--why--did it wash in here? What does it mean? What have we done--and what--what has she done?"

The little Doctor looked up into the strong face of his wife rather helplessly, then the time spirit that is after all our sanity--touched them, and they smiled. "Perhaps, Jim," the smile broke into something almost like a laugh, "father said something like that to mother the day I stood among the magnolias trying to pluck courage with the flowers to tell him that I was going with you!"

They succeeded in raising a miserable little laugh, and he squeezed her hand.

The girl moved toward the house. The father turned and put on his hat as he went to meet her. She was a hesitant, self-conscious girl in pink, who stopped her father as he toddled down the front steps with his medicine case, and she put her hand upon him, saying:

"Father," she paused, looking eagerly at him, then continued, "there's the loveliest yellow flag over here." The father smiled, put his arm about the girl and piped: "So the pink rosebud will take us to the yellow flag!" They walked across the garden to the flower and she exclaimed: "Oh, father--isn't it lovely!"

The father looked tenderly into her gray eyes, patted her on the shoulder and with his arm still about her, he led her to a seat under the lilacs before the yellow flower. He looked from the flower to her face and then kissed her as he whispered: "Oh my dear, my dear." She threw her arms about him and buried her face, all flushed, upon his shoulder. He felt her quiver under the pressure of his arm and before she could look at him, she spoke:

"Oh, father! Father! You--you won't--you won't blame--" Then she lifted up her face to his and cried pa.s.sionately: "But all the world could not stop it now--not now! But, oh, father, I want you with me," and she shook his arm. "You must understand. You must see Tom as I see him, father." She looked the question of her soul in an anxious, searching glance. Her father reached for one of her hands and patted it. He gazed downward at the yellow iris, but did not see it.

"Yes, dear, I know--I understand."

"I was sure that you would know without my spelling it all out to you.

But, oh, father," she cried, "I don't want you and mother to feel as you do about Tom, for you are wrong. You are all--all wrong!"

The Doctor's fat hand pressed the strong hand of the girl. "Well," he began slowly, his high-keyed voice was pitched to a soft tone and he spoke with a woman's gentleness, "Tom's quite a man, but--" he could only repeat, "quite a man." Then he added gently: "And I feel that he thinks it's genuine now--his--love for you, daughter." The Doctor's face twitched, and he swallowed a convulsive little sob as he said, "Laura--child--can't you see, it really makes no difference about Tom--not finally!" He blinked and gulped and went on with renewed courage. "Can't you see, child--you're all we've got--mother and I--and if you want Tom--why--" his face began to crumple, but he controlled it, and blurted out, "Why by johnnie you can have him. And what's more," his voice creaked with emotion as he brought his hand down on his knee, "I'm going to make Tom the best father-in-law in the whole United States."

His body rocked for a moment as he spurred himself to a last effort.

Then he said: "And mother--mother'll be--mother will--she'll make him--"

he could get no further, but he felt the pressure of her hand, and knew that she understood. "Mother and I just want you to be happy and if it takes Tom for that--why Tom's what it takes, I guess--and that's all we want to know!"

The girl felt the tears on his face as she laid her cheek against his.

Then she spoke: "But you don't know him, father! You don't understand him! It's beautiful to be able to do what I can do--but," she shuddered, "it's so awful--I mean all that devil that used to be in him. He is so ashamed, so sorry--and it's gone--all gone--all, every bit of it gone, father!" She put her father's hand to her flaming cheek and whispered, "You think so, don't you, father?"

The father's eyes filled again and his throat choked. "Laura," he said very gently, "my professional opinion is this: You've a fighting chance with Tom Van Dorn--about one in ten. He's young. You're a strong, forceful woman--lots of good Satterthwaite in you, and precious little of the obliging Nesbits. Now I'll tell you the truth, Laura; Tom's got a typical cancer on his soul. But he's young; and you're young, and just now he's undergoing a moral regeneration. You are new blood. You may purify him. If the moral tissue isn't all rotten, you may cure him."

The girl gripped her father's hand and cried: "But you think I can--father, you think I can?"

"No," piped the little man sadly, "no, daughter, I don't think you can.

But I hope you can; and if you'd like to know, I'm going to pray the G.o.d that sent me to your mother to give you the sense and power He gave her." The Doctor smiled, withdrew his arm, and started for the street.

He turned, "And if you do save him, Laura, I'll be mighty proud of you.

For," he squeaked good naturedly, "it's a big job--but when you've done it you'll have something to show for it--I'll say that for him--you'll certainly have something to show for it," he repeated. He did not whistle as he walked down the street and the daughter thought that he kept his eyes upon the ground. As he was about to pa.s.s from her view, he turned, waved his hand and threw her a kiss, and with it she felt a blessing.

But curiously enough she saw only one of the goodly company of Doctor Nesbits that trudged down the hill in his white linen suit, under his broad-brimmed panama hat. Naturally she hardly might be expected to see the conscienceless boss of Hanc.o.c.k and Greely counties, who handled the money of privilege seekers and bought and sold men gayly as a part of the day's work. Nor could she be expected to see the helpless little man whose face crumpled, whose heart sank and whose courage melted as he stood beside her in the garden, the sad, hopeless little man who, as he went down the hill was captain of the groups that walked under his hat that hour. The amiable Doctor, who was everybody's friend and was loyal to those who served him, the daughter neglected that day; and the State Senator did not attract her. She saw only a gentle, tender, understanding father, whose love shone out of his face like a beacon and who threw merry kisses as he disappeared down the hill--a ruddy-faced, white phantom in a golden spring day!

Some place between his home and Market Street the father retired and the politician took command of Dr. Nesbit's soul. And he gave thought to the Nesbit machine. The job of the moment before the machine was to make George Brotherton, who had the strength of a man who belonged to all the lodges in town, mayor of Harvey. "Help Harvey Hump" was George's alliterative slogan, and the translation of the slogan into terms of Nesbitese was found in a rather elaborate plan to legalize the issuance of bonds by the coal and oil towns adjacent to Harvey, so that Daniel Sands could spin out his web of iron and copper and steel,--rails and wires and pipes into these huddles of shanties that he might sell them light and heat and power and communication and transportation.

Even the boss--even Old Linen Pants--was not without his sense of humor, nor without his joyous moments when he relished human nature in large, raw portions. As he walked down the hill there flashed across his mind a consciousness of the pride of George Brotherton in his candidacy. That pride expressed itself in a feud George had with Violet Mauling who, having achieved stenography, was installed in the offices of Calvin & Van Dorn as a stenographer--the stenographer in fact. She on her part was profoundly proud of her job and expressed her pride in overhanging and exceeding mischievous looking bangs upon her low and rather narrow brow. In the feud between George and Violet, it was her consecrated task to keep him waiting as long as possible before admitting him to Van Dorn's inner room, and it was Mr. Brotherton's idea never to call her by her right name, nor by any name twice in succession. She was Inez or Maude or Mabel or Gwendolyn or Pet or Sweetheart or Dearest, in rapid succession, and in return for his pseudonymnal attentions, Mr.

Brotherton always was sure of receiving from Miss Mauling upon leaving the office, an elaborately turned-up nose. For Miss Mauling was peevish and far from happy. She had been conscious for nearly a year that her power over young Mr. Van Dorn was failing, or that her charms were waning, or that something was happening to clog or cloy her romance. On a certain May morning she had sat industriously writing, "When in the course of human events," "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary," "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to separate--" upon her typewriter, over and over and over again, while she listened to Captain Morton selling young Mr. Van Dorn a patent churn, and from the winks and nods and sly digs and nudges the Captain distributed through his canva.s.s, it was obvious to Miss Mauling that affairs in certain quarters had reached a point.

That evening at Brotherton's Amen corner, where the gay young blades of the village were gathered--Captain Morton decided that as court herald of the community he should proclaim the banns between Thomas Van Dorn and Laura Nesbit. Naturally he desired a proper entrance into the conversation for his proclamation, but with the everlasting ting-aling and tym-ty-tum of Nathan Perry's mandolin and the jangling accompaniment of Morty's mandolin, opening for the court herald was not easy. Grant Adams was sitting at the opposite end of the bench from the Captain, deep in one of Mr. Brotherton's paper bound books--to-wit, "The Stones of Venice," and young Joe Calvin sadly smoking his first stogy, though still in his knickerbockers, was greedily feasting his eyes upon a copy of the pink Police _Gazette_ hanging upon a rack above the counter.

Henry Fenn and Mr. Brotherton were lounging over the cigar case, discussing matters of state as they affected a county attorney and a mayor, when the Captain, clearing his throat, addressed Mr. Brotherton thus:

"George--I sold two patent churns to two bridegrooms to-day--eh?" As the music stopped the Captain, looking at Henry Fenn, added reflectively: "Bet you four bits, George, you can't name the other one--what say?" No one said and the Captain took up his solo. "Well--it's this-away: I see what I see next door. And I hear what my girls say. So this morning I sashays around the yard till I meets a certain young lady a standing by the yaller rose bush next to our line fence and I says: 'Good morning madam,' I says, 'from what I see and hear and cogitate,' I says, 'it's getting about time for you to join my list of regular customers.' And she kind of laughs like a Swiss bellringer's chime--the way she laughs; and she pretended she didn't understand. So I broadens out and says, 'I sold Rhody Kollander her first patent rocker the day she came to town to begin housekeeping with. I sold your pa and ma a patent gate before they had a fence. I sold Joe Calvin's woman her first apple corer, and I started Ahab Wright up in housekeeping by selling him a Peerless cooker.

I've sold household necessities to every one of the Mrs. Sandses' and 'y gory, madam,' I says, 'next to the probate court and the preacher, I'm about the first necessity of a happy marriage in this man's town,' I says, 'and it looks to me,' I says, 'it certainly looks to me--' And I laughs and she laughs, all redded up and asts: 'Well, what are you selling this spring, Captain?' And I says, 'The Appomattox churn,' and then one word brought on another and she says finally, 'You just tell Tom to buy one for the first of our Lares and Penates,' though I got the last word wrong and tried to sell him Lares and spuds and then Lares and Murphies before he got what I was drivin' at. But I certainly sold the other bridegroom, Henry--eh?"

A silence greeted the Captain's remarks. In it the "Stones of Venice"

grew bleak and cold for Grant Adams. He rose and walked rather aimlessly toward the water cooler in the rear of the store and gulped down two cups of water. When he came back to the bench the group there was busy with the Captain's news. But the music did not start again. Morty Sands sat staring into the pearl inlaid ring around the hole in his mandolin, and his chin trembled. The talk drifted away from the Captain's announcement in a moment, and Morty saw Grant Adams standing by the door, looking through a window into the street. Grant seemed a tower of strength. For a few minutes Morty tried to restore his soul by thrumming a tune--a sweet, tinkly little tune, whose words kept dinging in his head:

"Love comes like a summer sigh, softly o'er us stealing; Love comes and we wonder why, at love's shrine we're kneeling!"

But that only unsteadied his chin further. So he tucked his mandolin under his arm, and moved rather stupidly over to Grant Adams. To Morty, Grant Adams, even though half a dozen years his junior, represented cousins.h.i.+p and fellows.h.i.+p. As Morty rose Grant stepped through the open door into the street and stood on the curb. Morty came tiptoeing up to the great rawboned youth and whispered:

"Grant--Grant--I'm so--so d.a.m.ned unhappy! You don't mind my telling you--do you?" Grant felt the arm of his cousin tighten around his own arm. Grant stared at the stars, and Morty gazed at the curb; presently he drew a deep sigh and said: "Thank you, Grant." He relaxed his hold of the boy's arm and walked away with his head down, and disappeared around the corner into the night. Slowly Grant followed him. Once or twice or perhaps three times he heard Morty trying vainly to thrum the sad little tune about the waywardness of love.

CHAPTER IX