The Drums of Jeopardy Part 50

Her voice to his ears was like the G string of the Amati. "Will you go with me?"

"Anywhere. But you are a prince of some great Russian house, Johnny, and I am n.o.body."

"What am I, Kitty? Less than n.o.body--a homeless outcast, with only you and Cutty. An American! Well, when I'm that it will be different; I'll be somebody. G.o.d forgive me if I do not give it absolute loyalty, this new country!... Never call me anything but Johnny."

"Johnny." Anywhere, whatever he willed her to be.

"I'm a child, Kitty. I want to grow up--if I can--to be an American, something like that ripping old thoroughbred yonder."

Cutty! Johnny wanted to be something like Cutty. Johnny would have to grow up to be his own true self; for n.o.body could ever be like Cutty. He was as high and far away from the average man as this apartment was from hers. Would he understand her att.i.tude? Could she say anything until it would be too late for him to interfere? She was this man's woman. She would have her span of happiness, come ill, come good, even if it hurt Cutty, whom she loved in another fas.h.i.+on. But for Johnny dropping through that trap she might never have really known, married Cutty, and been happy. Happy until one or the other died; never gloriously, never furiously, but mildly happy; perhaps understanding each other far better than Johnny and she would understand each other. The average woman's lot. But to give her heart, her mind, her body in a whirlwind of emotions, absolute surrender, to know for once the highest state of exaltation--to love!

All this tender exchange with half a dozen feet between them. Kitty had not stirred from the far side of the tea cart, and he had not opened his arms. She had given herself with magnificent abandon; for the present that satisfied her instincts. As for him, he was not quite sure this miracle might not be a dream, and one false move might cause her to vanish.

"Johnny, who is Olga?" The question was irrepressible. Perhaps it was the last shred of caution binding her. All of him or none of him. There must be no other woman intervening.

Hawksley stiffened in his chair. His hands closed convulsively and his eyes lost their brightness. "Johnny?" Kitty ran round the tea cart.

"What is it?" She knelt beside the chair, alarmed, for the horror had returned to his face. "What did they do to you back there?" She clasped one of his hands tensely in hers.

"In my dreams at night!" he said, staring into s.p.a.ce. "I could run away from my pursuers, but I could not run away from my dreams! Torches and hobnailed boots!... They trampled on her; and I, up there in the gallery with those d.a.m.ned emeralds in my hands! Ah, if I hadn't gone for them, if I hadn't thought of the extra comforts their sale would bring! There would have been time then, Kitty. I had all the other jewels in the pouch. Horses were ready for us to flee on, loyal servants ready to help us; but I thought of the drums. A few more worldly comforts--with h.e.l.l forcing in the doors!

"I didn't tell her where I was going. When I came back it was to see her die! They saw me, and yelled. I ran away. I hadn't the courage to go down there and die with her! She thought I was in that h.e.l.l pit. She went down there to die with me and died horribly, alone! Ah, if I could only shut it out, forget! Olga, my tender young sister, Kitty, the last one of my race I could love. And I ran away like a yellow dog, like a yellow dog! I don't know where her grave is, and I could not seek it if I did! I dared not write Stefani; tell him I had seen Olga go down under Karlov's heels, and then ran away!... Day by day to feel those stones against my heart!"

Nothing is more terrible to a woman than the sight of a brave man weeping. For she knew that he was brave. The sudden recollection of the emeralds; a little more comfort for himself and sister if they were permitted to escape. Not a cowardly instinct, not even a greedy one; a normal desire to fortify them additionally against an unknown future, and he had surrendered to it impulsively, without explaining to Olga where he was going.

"Johnny, Johnny, you mustn't!" She sprang up, seizing his head and wildly kissing him. "You mustn't! G.o.d understands, and Olga. Oh, you mustn't sob like that! You are tearing my heart to pieces!"

"I ran away like a yellow dog! I didn't go down there and die with her!"

"You didn't run away to-night when you offered your life for my liberty.

Johnny, you mustn't!"

Under her tender ministrations the sobs began to die away and soon resolved into little catching gasps. He was weak and spent from his injuries; otherwise he would not have given way like this, discovered to her what she had not known before, that in every man, however strong and valiant he may be, there is a little child.

"It has been burning me up, Kitty."

"I know, I know! It is because you have a soul full of beautiful things, Johnny. G.o.d held you back from dying with Olga because He knew I needed you."

"You will marry me, knowing that I did this thing?"

Marry him! A door to some blinding radiance opened, and she could not see for a little while. Marry him! What a miserable wretch she was to think that he would want her otherwise! Johnny Two-Hawks, fiddling in front of the Metropolitan Opera House, to fill a poor blind man's cup!

"Yes, Johnny. Now, yesterdays never were. For us there is nothing but to-morrows. Out there, in the great country--where souls as well as bodies may stretch themselves--we'll start all over again. You will be the cowman and I'll be the kitchen wench. As in the beginning, so it will always be hereafter, I'll cook your bacon and eggs."

She pulled his chair round and pushed it toward a window, dropped beside it and laid her cheek against his hand.

"Let us look at the stars, Johnny. They know." Kuroki, having arrived with coffee and sandwiches, paused on the threshold, gazed, wheeled right about face, and returned to the kitchen.

By and by Kitty looked up into Hawksley's face. He was asleep. She got up carefully, lightly kissed the top of his head--the old wound--and crossed to Cutty's door. She must tell dear old Cutty of the wonderful happiness that was going to be hers. She opened the study door, but did not enter at once. Asleep on his arms. Why, he hadn't even opened that Ali Baba's bag! Tired out--done in, as Johnny Two-Hawks called it in his English fas.h.i.+on. She waited; but as he did not stir she approached with noiseless step. The light poured full upon his head. How gray he was! A boundless pity surged over her that this tender, valiant knight should have missed what first her mother had known--now she herself--requited love. To have everything in the world without that was to have nothing.

She would not wake him; she would let him sleep until Captain Harrison came. Lightly she touched the gray head with her lips and stole from the study.

"Oh, Molly, Molly!" Cutty whispered into his rigid fingers.

And so they were married, in the apartment, at the top of the world, on a May night thick with stars. It was not a wedding; it was a marriage.

The world never knew because it was none of the world's business. Who was Kitty Conover? A n.o.body. Who was John Hawksley? Something to be.

Out of the storm into the calm; which is something of a reversal.

Generally in love affairs happiness is found in the approach to the marriage contract; the disillusions come afterward. It was therefore logical that Kitty and her lover should be happy, as they had run the gamut of test and fire beforehand.

The young people were to leave for the West soon after the supper for three. At midnight Cutty's s.h.i.+p would be boring down the bay. Did Kitty regret, even a little, the rice and old shoes, the bridesmaids and cake, so dear to the female of the species? She did not. Did she think occasionally of the splendour of the t.i.tle that was hers? She did. To her mind Mrs. John Hawksley was incomparably above and beyond anything in that Bible of autocracy--the Almanach de Gotha.

After supper Cutty brought in the old Amati.

"Play," he said, lighting his pipe.

So Hawksley played--played as he never had played before and perhaps as he would never play again. We reach zenith sometimes, but we never stay there. But he was not playing to Cutty. Slate-blue eyes, two books with endless pages, the soul of this wife of his. He had come through. The miracle had been accomplished. Love.

Kitty smiled and smiled, the doors of her soul thrown wide to absorb this magic message. Love.

Cutty smoked on, with his eyes closed. He heard it, too. Love.

"Well," he said, sighing, "I see innovations out there in Montana. The round-up will be different. The Pied Fiddler of Bar-K will stand in the corral and fiddle, and the bossies will come galloping in, two by two--and a few jackrabbits!" He laughed. "John, the Amati is yours conditionally. If after one year it is not reclaimed it becomes yours automatically. My wedding present. Remember, next winter, if G.o.d wills, you'll come and visit me."

"As if we could forget!" cried Kitty, embracing Cutty, who accepted the embrace stoically. "I'll be needing clothes, and Johnny will have to have his hair cut. Oh, Cutty, I'm so foolishly happy!"

"Time we started for the choo-choo. Time-tables have no souls. But, Lord, what a racket we've had!"

"Well, rather!"--from Hawksley.

"Bo, listen to me. Out there you must remember that 'bally' and 'ripping' and 'rather' are premeditated insults. Gee-whiz! but I'd like a look-see when you say to your rough-and-readies: 'Bally rotten weather. What?' They'll shoot you up."

More banter; which fooled none of the three, as each understood the other perfectly. The hour of separation was at hand, and they were fortifying their courage.

"Funny old top," was Hawksley's comment as they stood before the train gate. "Three months gone we were strangers."

"And now--" began Cutty.

"With hoops of steel!" interrupted Kitty. "You must write, Cutty, and Johnny and I will be prompt."

"You'll get one from the Azores."

"Train going west!"

"Good luck, children!" Cutty pressed Hawksley's hand and pecked at Kitty's cheek. "Shan't go through with you to the car. Kuroki is waiting. Good-bye!"

The redcaps seized the luggage, and Hawksley and his bride followed them through the gate. Because he was tall Cutty could see them until they reached the b.u.mper. Funny old world, for a fact. Next time they met the wounds would be healed--Hawksley's head and old Cutty's heart. Queer how he felt his fifty-two. He began to recognize one of the truths that had pa.s.sed by: One did not sense age if one ran with the familiar pack.

But for an old-timer to jog along for a few weeks with youth! That was it--the youth of these two had knocked his conceit into a c.o.c.ked hat.

"Poor dear old Cutty!" said Kitty.