Читать книгу: «The Forbidden Way», страница 18
Jeff sank heavily in a chair and buried his face in his hands.
"What do the doctors say?" asked Camilla anxiously.
"That he's very sick – that's all. Nobody can tell. I've wired Chicago for a specialist. We can only wait and hope. It's pretty desperate – I know that. He's an old man – and he's grown older lately."
Cort stopped speaking and walked to the window, while Camilla watched him pityingly. He wasn't like the old Cort she used to know, and yet there was something inexpressively appealing in his gentleness which reminded her of the moods in him she had liked the best. She glanced at Jeff. His head was still buried in his hands, and he had not moved. But Camilla knew that this startling revelation was causing a rearrangement of all Jeff's ideas. In that moment she prayed that Jeff's bitterness might be sweetened – that the tragedy which had suddenly stalked among them might soften his heart to pity for the old man who was his father and his enemy.
Cortland turned and spoke with an effort.
"Will you go back with me, Jeff? When he first recovered consciousness he spoke your name. He has been asking for you ever since. He wants – "
Jeff's eyes peered above his trembling fingers.
"He asked – for me?" he said hoarsely.
"Yes – he wants to see you."
Jeff's head sank into his hands again.
"He wants – to see me? I can't – seem to realize – "
"It's true – he asked me to bring you."
There was a long period of silence, during which Jeff's long, bony fingers clasped and unclasped back of his head as he struggled with himself. "I can't," he groaned at last. "I can't. It has been too long – too much." He straightened in disorder and went on wildly: "Why, he has dogged my steps for months – used all his genius and cunning to do away with me – tried to rid himself of me as he did years ago – and even hired men to swear my liberty away." His head dropped into his hands again and he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "No, I can't, Cort. I can't. It's too much to ask – too much."
Cortland stood in the middle of the floor, his arms folded, head bent, waiting for the storm to pass, his own pain engulfed in the greater pain of the man before him. He did not try to answer Jeff, for there was no answer to be made. It was not a moment for words, and he knew he had no right even to petition. It was a matter for Jeff's heart alone – a heart so long embittered that even if it refused this charity, Cortland could not find it in his own heart to condemn.
With a glance at Cortland, Camilla went over to Jeff and laid her fingers lightly on his shoulder.
"Jeff," she said with gentle firmness, "you must go – to your father." But, as he did not move, she went on. "You forget – he did not know. Perhaps if he had known he would have tried to make atonement before. Do you realize what it means for a man like General Bent to make such a request at such a time? You can't refuse, Jeff. You can't."
Jeff moved his head and stared for a long time at the fireplace, his fingers clenched on the chair arms, turning at last to Cortland.
"Do you – do you think he'll die?" he asked. "What do they say?"
"His heart is bad," said Cort gravely. "I don't know – a man of father's years seldom recovers from a thing like that – "
But it was Camilla who interposed. She stepped between the two men and took Jeff Ly the arm. "Cort can't go back without you, Jeff," she said passionately. "Don't you see that? He can't. You've got to go. If your father died to-night you'd never forgive yourself. He may have done you a wrong, but God knows he's trying to right it now. You've got to let him." Cortland watched them a moment, then suddenly straightened and glanced at his watch.
"I can't stay here any longer," he said. "I've got to go back to him. There is much to be done, and I'm the only one to do it. This is my last plea – not that of a dying man's son for his father, but of a brother to a brother for the father of both. Come back with me – Jeff. Not for his sake – but for your own. It is your own blood that is calling you – pitifully – you can't refuse."
Jeff struggled heavily to his feet and passed his hands across his eyes, and then, with a sudden sharp intake of his breath, he turned to Cortland, his lips trembling.
"I'll go," he said hoarsely. "If he wants me, I'll go, Cort. Something is drawing me – something inside of me that awoke when you told me what had happened. I've been fighting against it, the habit of thirty years was fighting it, but I've got to go. I'd be cursed if I didn't. You're sure he really wants me, Cort?"
CHAPTER XXVII
GENERAL BENT
The room at the hotel into which Cortland showed them was a part of General Bent's own suite. Curtis Janney and a doctor consulted near the window, and a nurse from the hospital, in her white linen uniform and cap, hovered near. Jeff's questioning gaze sought the crack of the door of the darkened room adjoining.
"I think you may go in, Mr. Bent," said the doctor to Cortland. "He's conscious at longer intervals now. It looks very much more hopeful, sir. He still asks for Mr. Wray."
Cortland followed the doctor into the sick room, while Janney joined Jeff and Camilla and waited.
"Will he – get over it, Mr. Janney?" Camilla asked softly.
"Oh, I think so now – we didn't at first. Only one side is affected. He can even move the hand a little. Of course, it may be a long time."
Jeff listened in a daze. The baby stare had come into his eyes again, and it moved from one object in the room to another – always returning to the door of the darkened room into which Cortland had vanished. There was an odor of medicine, the sound of crackling ice, and now the murmur of voices. A moment later one of the nurses appeared in the doorway.
"Mr. Wray," she said, "you may come in."
And Jeff entered, passing Cortland, who stood with bowed head at the door. In the darkness he could just make out the white figure of the old man propped up against the pillows. He breathed with difficulty, and Jeff, unused to scenes of sickness, felt all his heart go out in pity for the helpless old man who was calling for him.
"Is he here?" the General murmured. "Is he here?"
Jeff moved quietly around the bed to the chair which the nurse had placed for him, "Yes, sir," he said huskily. "It's Jeff."
The General's right hand groped feebly along the covers, and Jeff took it in both of his own. "Cort told me you wanted me, sir."
"I'm glad – very glad." He turned his head and tried to smile. "It was – so – so sudden – the news," he said with an effort, "to find out – "
"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't want you to know."
"I'm glad to know. It makes me – happy. I've been trying for so many years to find you."
"You tried?" in astonishment.
"Yes, I didn't know anything about – about having a son – until it was too late. One of my associates – in the West – told me later. I tried to find out – where they had taken you, but the nurse in the hospital – had gone – and there was no record of her – or of – of you." He spoke with a great effort, striving against the drowsiness which from time to time attacked him. "They did things – differently in those days. She – your mother – never mentioned my name. We had had a quarrel – a serious quarrel – just after we were married – "
"Married?" Jeff leaned forward over the white coverlid toward the old man's distorted face. "You were married?" he whispered, awe-stricken.
"Yes, married, Jeff – married – I – I have the papers – at home – I'll show them to you – "
Jeff bent his head suddenly over the old man's lean fingers and kissed them impulsively.
"Married!" he murmured, "Thank God! Thank God for that."
The General's eyes followed him plaintively, while he struggled for breath. "Yes, it's true. In Topeka – Kansas. That's what I wanted to tell you. I couldn't go – I couldn't die without letting you know that. It didn't matter to her – she could forget. I did her a wrong, but not a great wrong, as I did you. I've thought about you all these years, Jeff. It's my secret – I've kept it a long time – "
He sank back into his pillows, exhausted, breathing heavily again, and the doctor who had stood in the doorway came forward. "I think you had better rest, General. Mr. Wray can come in later." But the General resolutely waved him aside with a movement that suggested his old authority.
"No, not yet – I'm better – I'll sleep again in a moment." And, as the doctor withdrew, the old man's grasp on Jeff's hand grew tighter. "They took you away from the hospital – without even giving you a name."
"Yes, sir – I had no name but the one they gave me." Jeff tried to make him stop talking, but he went on, striving desperately:
"I had men working – to try and find you. I've their reports at home – you shall see them. I want you to know that I did all I could. We got the name of the nurse."
"Mrs. Nixon?"
"I think – no," he said confusedly. "I can't remember – she disappeared – "
"Yes, sir. She married again and went to Texas. She took me with her."
Bent's eyes searched Jeff's piteously. "That was it," he whispered, "that was it. That's my excuse – I tried, you know I tried, don't you? It has been my burden for years – more even lately – than when I was younger – the wrong I had done you. Say that you understand – won't you – my – my – son?"
The tears had come into Jeff's eyes, welled forth like the gush of water in a dry fountain, and fell upon the old wrinkled fingers.
"I do, sir – I do."
The General's hand left the coverlid and rested for a moment on Jeff's shoulder.
"I hoped you would. I've always hoped you'd forgive me when you knew."
Jeff straightened and brushed his eyes. "There's nothing to forgive. I – I only want you to get well – you will, sir. They say you're better."
"Yes, Jeff, better – better already – but I'm very tired. I think – I think – I can sleep now – but don't go away – don't go," and he sank back in a state of coma.
General Bent recovered. The stroke was a slight one, and he gained strength and the use of his faculties rapidly. But Time had served its notice of dispossession, and they all knew that the hour had come when the management of Bent's great business interests must pass to younger hands. Within a few weeks he was permitted to sit up for an hour each day, and with Cortland's help took up the loose ends of the most urgent business. But he tired easily, and it was evident to them all that the days of his activity were ended.
In spite of it all, a great calm had fallen over the General's spirit. The quick decision, the incisive judgment, were still his – for one doesn't forget in a moment the habits of a lifetime of command – but his tones were softer, his manner more gentle, and in his eyes there had dawned a soft light of toleration and benignity which became him strangely.
Gladys, who had come on from Lakewood, was with him constantly and watched these changes in her father with timid wonder. He had never been one to confide in his children, and it required some readjustment of her relations with him to accept the quiet appeal of his eyes and the sympathy and appreciation which she found in his newly begotten tenderness. In Cortland, too, she saw a great change, and it surprised her to discover the resolute, unobtrusive way in which he met his responsibilities, both functional and moral. Jeff and Camilla, aware of their anomalous position, had decided to leave the hotel and go back to Mesa City as soon as General Bent grew better. It was Cortland who prevailed on them to stay.
"We're all one family now, Jeff," he said firmly, "one and indivisible. Gladys and I are of a mind on that, and father wishes it so. Your claim on him comes before ours – we don't forget that – we don't want to forget it."
Jeff, unable to reply, only grasped him by the hand. And then, with Larry's help, the two of them plunged into the business of straightening out the tangle in the General's affairs and Jeff's. It was a matter of moment with Cortland to give the Saguache Short Line a proper schedule at once, and so by his dispensation on the twenty-fifth of May, as Jeff had boasted (he thought of it now), trains were running from Pueblo to Saguache. The Denver and Western, too, restored its old schedule from Kinney, and the Saguache Mountain Development Company resumed its business by really developing.
In the absence of his two sons, Camilla and Gladys sat with the old man, reading or talking to him as the fancy seized him to have them do. He liked to lie on a couch at the window and look out toward the mountains beyond which Jeff's interests lay, while Camilla told him of her husband's early struggles in the Valley. He questioned her eagerly, often repeating himself, while she told him of the "Watch Us Grow" sign, of the failure of Mesa City, and of its rejuvenescence.
"Perhaps, after all," the old man would sigh, "perhaps it did him no harm. It makes me very happy, child." He didn't say what made him happy, but Camilla knew.
Then there came a day when the General was pronounced out of all danger and capable of resuming a small share of his old responsibilities. On that day new articles of partnership were drawn for the firm of Bent & Company, into which Jeff Wray was now admitted. The "Lone Tree" mine and the Saguache Smelter figured in the transaction. Mrs. Cheyne, who had a wise corner in her pretty head, refused to accept the money which had been advanced to Jeff Wray, and now insisted on bonds of the Development Company and stock in the Short Line. Lawrence Berkely, whose peace had been made with Curtis Janney, now became the Western representative of the Amalgamated Reduction Company, with Pete Mulrennan as actual head of the Mesa City plant. It was from General Bent that all of the plans emanated, and Curtis Janney without difficulty succeeded in arranging matters in New York. He took a sardonic pleasure in reminding the General that he had once suggested the advisability of using Jeff's talents for the benefit of their company – and accepted these plans as a slight tribute to his own wisdom.
General Bent wanted to go up to Mesa City to see the mine, but it was thought best by the doctors to send him East to a lower altitude, and so, about the middle of June, Cortland took him to New York, leaving Jeff and Camilla to stay for a while at Mesa City, where Camilla could watch the building of "Glen Irwin." She could not find it in her heart to give up the West – not altogether. Later on they would spend their summers there – up in the mountains – Jeff's mountains.
CHAPTER XXVIII
HOUSEHOLD GODS – AND GODDESSES
The years which followed seemed very short ones to Camilla – a time of quiet delight, of restitution, and fulfillment. General Bent had wanted them to come and live with him in the old house down in Madison Avenue, and Jeff, in his whole-hearted way, had given him the promise, but it was Camilla who had thought it wisest for them to have an establishment of their own. The house was just off the avenue near the Park, a rented place, for Camilla had not yet arrived at the state of mind to consider New York their home. But most of Jeff's time was now spent in New York – seven months of the year at least – and she was beginning to learn with reluctance that before long only their summers could be spent at "Glen Irwin." On certain afternoons Camilla sat in the library downstairs with her embroidery frame (she always seemed to be sewing now), her lap covered with thin, flimsy fabrics, the borders of which she was embellishing. They were very tiny pieces of material, apparently shapeless, but from time to time she held them at arm's length before her, her head on one side, and smiled approval of her own handiwork. It was here that Jeff liked to find her – thus occupied. He had not even contracted the habit of stopping at a club on the way uptown, and unless he was detained on important matters she knew when she would hear the sound of his key in the latch outside.
Mrs. Wray had made it known that she was not at home except to the chosen few. The General came on certain days for his "toddy," Gladys on the way home from "teaing it," Mrs. Rumsen, Dolly Haviland, and Rita Cheyne, each for a peep behind the curtain.
Rita Cheyne came oftenest and stayed longest. She had no social responsibilities, she claimed, except that of seeing the small garments in Camilla's lap made successfully. She was hopelessly bored, more demurely cheerful, more buoyantly pessimistic than ever.
"What a joy it must be," she sighed, "to have an object in life. My objects are all subjective. I have a dreadful fear that I'm getting to be a philosopher."
Camilla bit off her thread and smiled.
"Platonic?" she asked.
"I'm afraid so. I used to take such desperate fancies to people. I used to want to make people like me whether they wanted to or not. Now I'm really indifferent. I actually don't care whether my hat is on straight or not. It's such a pity. I used to like to be svelte, fluffy, and smartly groomed. I didn't mind suffering the tortures of the rack if I knew I was effective. Now – I'm positively dowdy. I don't care what I wear so long as I'm comfortable – and I'm actually getting fat, Camilla! The horror of it!"
Camilla looked up at the exquisite afternoon frock, which fitted her slender figure as only one made by Patrain could, and smiled.
"Yes, Rita, positively corpulent. It's a pity. You really had a good figure once."
"The worst of it is that I don't seem to care," she went on, oblivious. "I used to love to dress for moods – for my moods and for other people's. I thought that Art could solve every problem that came to me. Art!" she sniffed contemptuously. "Art in a woman is merely a confession of inefficiency. I used to think that Art was immortal. Now I find that only Nature is."
Camilla lifted the tiny sacque with its absurd blue silk cuffs and examined it with a satisfied air. When she had finished she leaned over to Rita and whispered with the air of an oracle:
"Nature is– immortal."
"It is. You're right," she sighed. "But it's my nature to be merely mortal – and I'm going to die very hard. I must continue to hide my inefficiencies – by Art."
"You're not inefficient," Camilla corrected. "You're merely feminine – extravagantly feminine – "
"Yes, feminine – but not womanly. Oh, I know what I am!" she concluded fiercely.
"You're a darling!" said Camilla softly. "You're very much more womanly than you want people to think you are. Why should you take such a delight in these?" Camilla laid a hand on the wicker basket beside her.
Rita took up one of the tiny garments and examined it with minute interest.
"It's very pretty, isn't it? But quite silly. Imagine anything so tiny! What a lot of trouble you take. And you've made them all yourself. They're really exquisite."
"They're Art's tribute to Nature, Rita," said Camilla with an air of finality.
Mrs. Cheyne sighed.
"My mission in life is ended, Camilla. I'm quite sure of it now. You've convinced me. I'm actually envious of a woman who sits by the fire and sews baby-clothes. Your industry is a reproach – your smile a reproof and your happiness a condemnation. I know you're right. You've really solved the problem, and I haven't. I never will. I'm past that now. I'm going to grow old ungracefully, yielding the smallest fraction of an inch at a time to the inevitable. I'm going to be stout, I know it – and probably dumpy. I could weep, Camilla."
"Who's talking of weeping here?" said a voice. And General Bent, with his stick, came thumping in. "Oh – you, Rita?" he laughed. "Women never cry unless there's something to be gained by it." Rita offered him her cheek, and Camilla rang for tea. In a moment Mrs. Rumsen came in.
"I knew you were here, Rita," she said, bending her tall figure for a caress.
"How?"
"Teddy Wetherby's machine – at the corner – and Teddy."
"Is he waiting still? Such a nice boy – but absolutely oblivious of the passage of time."
"I thought you'd given up your kindergarten, Rita," put in Camilla, laughing.
"I have. But Teddy is my prize pupil. He's taking a post-graduate course." And, when they all laughed at her, she turned on them severely. "I won't have you laughing at Teddy. He's really an angel."
"I'm going to tell his mother," said Mrs. Rumsen.
Rita took her tea cup and sank back in her chair absently. "Oh, well – perhaps you'd better," she said. "I'm going in for square-toed shoes and settlement meetings."
The General grunted and sipped his Scotch, but when Jeff and Cortland came in the women were still laughing at Mrs. Cheyne. Jeff walked across the room to his wife and kissed her.
"Father – Aunt Caroline – Hello! Rita."
"Well, sir – " from Camilla, "please give an account of yourself."
"You'll have to speak to Cort. We stopped in at the Club for a minute. Cheyne was there and Hal Dulaney, Perot, Steve Gillis, Douglas Warrington, and two or three others. They wanted us to stay for dinner. But we didn't."
"Of course not," said Camilla so decisively that Rita Cheyne laughed.
"There!" she said pityingly. "Oh, Jeff! a subject and a slave as well! Aren't you really going to let him go, Camilla?"
Camilla looked up into Jeff's face with a heavenly smile.
"Of course – if he wants to."
"But I don't want to," said Jeff, sinking into a chair with a comfortable sigh. "This is good enough for me. Besides," he added mischievously, "it looked like a meeting."
"What kind of a meeting?"
"Of the Rita Cheyne Protective Association."
"Jeff, you're horrid!" said Rita, but she laughed.
"I'm not," he said calmly. "They have my full sympathy and support. I told 'em so."
"Your sins are finding you out, my dear cousin," chuckled the General. "They always do in the end."
"Oh, you're hopeless —all of you," sighed the culprit, setting down her tea cup.
Cortland finished his drink in leisurely fashion and dropped into the vacant chair beside his father. "Well, we put it over," he said quietly.
"The bond issue?"
"Yes, sir – we had a fight in the board, but we got McIntyre's vote at last and jammed it through – that was all we needed."
"I didn't think it was possible," the old man exclaimed.
"It wasn't easy, but Jeff managed it."
"I didn't sir," Jeff interposed. "Cort did the whole thing. We've made him president. We made it unanimous in the end."
"By George, Cort, I'm proud of you. I always knew you had the stuff in you if we ever woke you up."
"Oh, I guess I'm awake all right. A fellow has to be down there." He leaned forward and picked up an article on the work basket.
"Where's His Majesty?" he asked of Mrs. Wray.
Camilla glanced at the clock.
"Asleep, I hope. He's been very dissipated lately. He was up yesterday until seven."
"Takes after his father," said Mrs. Cheyne scornfully.
At that moment a small cry was heard upstairs, and Camilla flew. "The lamb!" she cried, and from the hall they heard her telling the trained nurse to bring the infant down. At the bottom of the steps she met them and bore him triumphantly in. He was a very small person with large round blue eyes that stared like Jeff's. They looked at nobody in particular, and yet they were filled with the wisdom of the ages.
"What a little owl he is!" said Rita, but when she jangled her gold purse before his eyes he seized it with both hands and gurgled exultantly.
"He knows a good thing when he sees it," laughed Cort. "Got the gold fever, too."
"What a shame!" said Camilla indignantly. "He hasn't any kind of a fever, have you, Cornelius?"
The child said, "Da!"
"Didn't I tell you? He knows."
"He has such fuzzy pink hair!" said Cort, rubbing it the wrong way. "Do you think it will stay pink?"
"You sha'n't be godfather to my son if you say another word, Cortland. Here, nurse, take him. They sha'n't abuse him any longer." She pressed her lips rapturously against his rosy cheek and released him. Mrs. Rumsen gazed through her lorgnon, while the infant, with a cry of delight, pulled the glasses from the General's nose.
"No respect for age! None at all!" said Mrs. Rumsen.
After a while they all went away – Rita Cheyne to her post-graduate pupil, Mrs. Rumsen to her brougham, and Cort and his father to the walk downtown, leaving Camilla and Jeff sitting at the fireside alone. One armchair was big enough for them both. She sat on his knees and leaned back against him, close in the shelter of his arms.
"You didn't want to stay out to dinner, did you, Jeff?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," he said, "of course I did. I'm very fond of dining out."
She laughed contentedly. They had dined out only once this winter, and that was at his father's house. There was a long silence.
"Poor Rita," she sighed at last, "what's to become of her? She's not really happy, Jeff. I sometimes think – " she paused.
"What?"
"That she still thinks of you."
Jeff laughed. "I hope she does. Why, silly?"
"Simply because she never gives me the slightest reason to think that she does."
Jeff rubbed his nose thoughtfully.
"That's one too many for me."
"Don't you know that a woman always judges another woman by the thoughts she suppresses?"
"That's nonsense."
"No, it isn't. I won't have you say that what I think is nonsense."
She turned her head toward him and looked down into his eyes.
"Are you sure you never cared for Rita? Not a little?"
"Sure."
"It was the Forbidden Way, Jeff. Do you like this way —our way – better?"
He held her closer in his arms and that reply seemed adequate. She asked him no more questions until some moments later, and she asked him that one because she always liked the way he answered it.
A sudden loud rasping of the dining-room hangings on their brass rod, and Camilla sprang up hurriedly. She even had time to go to the mantel mirror and rearrange the disorder of her hair before the butler came in to announce dinner.
He was a well-trained servant.
