Money Magic: A Novel

by Hamlin Garland

  CHAPTER XXVI

  ALICE VISITS HANEY

  Alice Heath was dying of something far subtler than "the White Death,"to which Haney so often referred. Tortured by Ben's studied tendernesswhen at her side, she suffered doubly when he was away, knowing all toowell that his keenest pleasure now lay in Bertha's companionship. Herdoubt darkened into despair. In certain moments of exaltation she roseto such heights of impersonal passion as to acknowledge fully,generously, the claims of youth and health--admitting that she andMarshall Haney were the offenders and not the young lovers, whose desirefor happiness was but an irresistible manifestation of the mystic forcewhich binds the generations together.

  "Why do we not quietly take ourselves off and make them happy?" sheasked herself. "Of what selfish quality is our love? Here am I only aspiteful, hopeless invalid--I hate myself, I despise my body andeverything I am. I loathe my wrinkled face, my shrivelled hands, my flatchest. I am fit only to be bride to death. I'm tired of the world--tiredof everything--and yet I do not die. Why can't I die?"

  These moods never soared high enough (or sank quite low enough) topermit the final severing stroke, and she ended each of them in a floodof tears, filled with ever-greater longing for the beautiful young loverwhose heart had wandered away from her. It was hard not to welcome himwhen he came, but infinitely harder to send him away, for life held noother solace, the day no other aim.

  In her saner moments she was aware of her own misdemeanor. She knew thather morbid questioning, her ceaseless grievings were wearing away hervital force, and that no doctor could ever again medicine her to sweetsleep, that no wind or cloud would bring coolness to her burning brain."I am no longer worthy of any man's love," she admitted to her higherself.

  She did not question Ben's honor--he was of those who keep faith. "Hehas no hope of ever being other than the distant lover of Bertha Haney,and he is ready to fulfil his word to me, but I will not permit him tobind himself to me. It would be a crime to lay upon him the burden of awife old before her time, sterile and doomed to a slow decline." Sherevolted, too, at the thought of having a husband, whose heart waselsewhere, whose restless desire could not be held within the circuit ofhis wife's arms--and yet she could not give him up.

  As her flesh lost its weight and her blood its warmth, her mind burnedwith even more mysterious brightness, sending out rays of such periloussublimation that she was able to perceive, as no earthly inhabitantshould do, the jealously guarded secrets of those surrounding her, andon the night of Bertha's struggle against her fate she divined in somesupersensuous way the tumult in the young wife's mind.

  She laughed at first with a cruel, bitter delight, but at last hernobler self conquered and she resolved to have private speech withHaney. She perceived a danger in the ever-deepening passion of the younglovers. She began to fear that their love might soon break over allbarriers, and this she was still sane enough of thought and generousenough of soul to wish to prevent.

  Her decision to act was hastened by a slurring paragraph in the morningpaper wherein veiled allusion was made to "a developing scandal." Shelay abed all the forenoon brooding over it, and when she rose it was todress for her visit to Haney. Sick as she was and almost hysterical withher mood, she ordered a carriage and drove to the gambler's house,hoping to find him alone, determined upon an interview.

  It chanced that he was sitting in his place upon the porch watching thegardener spraying a tree. He greeted his visitor most cordially,inviting her to a seat. "Bertie is down town, but she'll be back soon."

  "I'm glad she is away, Captain Haney, for I have something to say to youalone."

  "Have you, indeed? Very well, I've nothing to do but listen--'tis notfor me to boss the gardener."

  She looked about with uneasy eyes, finding it very difficult to beginher attack. "How much you've improved the place," she remarked,irrelevantly, her voice betraying the deepest agitation.

  He looked at her white face in astonishment. "How are ye, the day,miss?"

  "I'm better, thank you, but a little out of breath--I walked too fast, Ithink."

  "Does the altitude make your heart jump, too?" he asked, solicitously.

  "No, my trouble is all in my mind--I mean my lungs," she answered. Then,with a ghastly attempt at sprightliness, she added: "Now let's have anice long talk about symptoms--it's so comforting. How are _you_ feelingthese days?"

  Haney answered with unwonted dejection. "I'm not so well to-day, worseluck. This is me day for thinkin' the doctors are right. They all agreethat me heart's overworked up here." His dejection was really due toBertha's moody silence.

  "I'm sorry to hear that. Do they think you may live safely atsea-level?"

  "They say so. Me own feeling is that the climate is not to blame. 'Tisage. I'm like a hollow-hearted tree, ready to fall with the first puffof ill wind. I've never been a man since that devil blew me to pieces."

  She put her right hand upon his arm. "Is it not a shame that you and Ishould stand in the way of two fine, wholesome, young people--shuttingthem off from happiness?"

  He turned a glance upon her quite too penetrating to be borne. "Youmane--what?--who?"

  "I mean Bertha."

  "Do I stand in the way of her happiness?"

  She met the question squarely, speaking with tense, drawn lips. "Yes,just as I do in Ben's way. We're neither of us fit to be married, andthey are."

  His eyes wavered. "That's true. I'm no mate for her--and yet I thinkI've made her happy." He was silent a moment, then faltered: "Ye layyour hand on a sore spot--ye do, surely. 'Tis true I've tried to havethe money make up for me other shortcomings." He ended almost humbly.

  "Money can do much, but it can't buy happiness."

  "That's true, too--but 'tis able to buy comfort, and that's next door tohappiness in the long-run, I'm thinkin'. But I'm watchin' her, and Idon't intend to stand in her way, miss. I've told her so, and when theconquering lad comes along I mane to get out of the road."

  "Have you said that?" Her face reached towards his with suddenintensity, and a snakelike brilliancy glittered in her eyes. "You'vegone as far as that?"

  "I have."

  "Then act, for the time has come to make your promise good. Berthaalready loves a man as every girl should love who marries happily, andthe gossips are even now busy with her name."

  He was hard hit, and slowly said: "I don't believe it! Who is theman?--tell me!" He demanded this in a tone that was not to be denied.

  She delivered her sentence quickly. "She loves Ben. Haven't you seen it?She has loved him from their first meeting. I have known it for a longtime, almost from the first; now everybody knows it, and the societyreporters are beginning their innuendoes. The next thing will be herpicture in the sensational press, and a scandal. Don't you know this? Itmust not happen! We must make way for them--you and I. We cumber thepath."

  He sank back into his seat and studied her from beneath his overhangingeyebrows as intently, as alertly, as silently as he was wont to do whenwatching the faces of his opponents in a game of high hazard. There wassomething uncanny, almost elfish, in the woman's voice and eyes, and yeteven before her words were fully uttered the truth stood revealed tohim. His eyes lost their stern glare, his hands, which had clutched thearms of his chair, relaxed. "Are you sure?" he asked again, but moregently. "You've got to be sure," he ended, almost in menace.

  "You may trust a jealous woman," she answered. "I don't blamethem--observe that. We are the ones to blame--we who are crippled and inthe way, and it is our duty to take ourselves off. What is the use ofspoiling their lives just for a few years of selfish gratification ofour own miserable selves?"

  He felt about for comfort. "They are young; they can wait," hestammered, huskily.

  "But they _won't_ wait!" she replied. "Love like theirs can't wait.Don't you understand? They are in danger of forgetting themselves? Can'tyou see it? Ben talks of nothing else, dreams of nothing else but her,and she is fighting temptation every day, and shows it. It's all soplain to me tha
t I can't bear to see them together. They have loved eachother from the very first night they met--I felt it that day we firstrode together. I've watched her grow into Ben's life till she absorbshis every thought. He's a good boy, and I want to keep him so. Herespects your claim, and he is trying to be loyal to me, but he can'thold out. I am ready to sacrifice myself, but that would not save him.He loves your wife, and until you free her he is in danger of wrongingher and himself and you. I've given up. There is nothing more on thisearth for me! What do _you_ expect to gain by holding to a wife'sgarment when she--the woman--is gone?"

  The wildness in her eyes and voice profoundly affected Haney, who waswithout subtlety in affairs of the heart. The women he had known hadbeen mainly coarse-fibred or of brutish directness of passion andpurpose, and this woman's words and tone at once confused and appalledhim. All she said of his unworthiness as a husband was true. He had goneto Sibley at first to win Bertha at less cost than making her hiswife--but of that he had repented, and on his death-bed (as he thought)he had sought to endow her with his gold. Since then he had lived, butonly as half a man. Up to this moment he had hoped to regain his health,but now every hope died within him.

  Part of this he admitted at once, but he ended brokenly: "'Tis a hardtask you set for me. She's the vein of me bosom. 'Tis easy talkin', butthe doin' is like takin' y'r heart in your two hands and throwin' itaway. I knew she liked the lad--I had no doubt the lad liked her--but Idid not believe she'd go to him so. I can't believe it yet--but I willnot stand in her way. As I told her, I did not expect to tie her to anold hulk; I thought I was dying when I married her, and I only had theceremony then to make sure that me money should feed her and protect herfrom the storms of the world. I wanted to take her out of a hole whereshe was sore pressed, and I wanted to make her people comfortable. I'vebrought her to this house. Me money has always been to her hand. Itrejoices me to see her spend it, and I've been hoping that thesethings--me money--would make up for me poor, old, crippled body. I'vebeen a rough man. I lived as men who have no ties have alwayslived--till I met her, then I quit the game. I put aside everything thatcould make her ashamed. I'm no toad, miss--I know she has that in hersoul that can take her out of my level. Were I twenty years younger anda well man I could folly her--but 'tis no use debating now. I'll talkwith her this night--" He paused abruptly and turned upon her withpiercing inquiry: "Have you discussed this with Ben?"

  She was beginning to tremble in face of the storm which she foresawlooming before her. "No--I lacked the courage."

  A faintly bitter smile stirred his upper lip. "Shall I tell him what youhave said to me?"

  "No, no!" she exclaimed, in sudden affright, "I will tell him."

  "Be sure ye do. As for these editors, I have me own way of dealing withthem. I will soon know whether you are right or wrong. Ye're a sickwoman, and such, they say, have queer fancies. You admit you're jealous,and I've heard that jealous women are built of hell-fire and vitriol.Anyhow, you've not shaken me faith in me girl--but ye have in Ben, for Iknow the heart of man. We're all alike when it comes to the question ofwomen."

  "Please don't misunderstand me--it is to keep them both what they are,good and true, that I come to you--we must not tempt them to evil."

  "I understand what you say, miss, and I think you're honest, but you maybe mistaken. I saw her meet-up with fine young fellies in the East; Icould see they admired her--but she turned them down easily. She's noweak-minded chippy, as I know on me own account--the more shame to me."

  "Of course she turns others down, for the reason that Ben fills herheart." She began to weary of her self-imposed task.

  He, too, was tired. "We'll see, we'll see," he repeated musingly, andgazed away towards the cloud-enshrouded peaks in sombre silence--thelines of his lips as sorrowful as those of an old lion dying in thedesert, arrow-smitten and alone. He had forgotten the hand that piercedhis heart.

  Thus dismissed, she rose, her eyes burning like deep opals in theparchment setting of her skin.

  "Life is so cruel!" she said. "I have wished a thousand times that lovehad never come to me. Love means only sorrow at the end. Ben has been mylife, my only interest--and now--as he begins to forget--Oh, I can'tbear it! It will kill me!" She sank back into her chair, and, buryingher face, sobbed with such passion that her slight frame shook in thetempest of it.

  Haney turned and looked at her in silence--profoundly stirred to pity byher sobs, no longer doubting the reality of her despair. When he spokehis voice was brokenly sweet and very tender.

  "'Tis a bitter world, miss, and me heart bleeds for such as you. 'Tiswell ye have a hope of paradise, for, if all you say is true, ye must gofrom this world cheated and hungry like meself. Ye have one comfort thatI have not--'tis not your own doing. Ye've not misspent your life as Ihave done. What does it all show but that life is a game where each man,good or bad, takes his chance. The cards fall against you and against mewithout care of what we are. I can only say I take me chances as I takethe rain and the sun."

  Her paroxysm passed and she rose again, drawing her veil closely overher face. "Good-bye. We will never meet again."

  "Don't say that," he said, struggling painfully to his feet. "Never is along time, and good-bye a cruel, sad word to say. Let's call it 'solong' and better luck."

  "You are not angry with me?" she turned to ask.

  "Not at all, miss--I thank ye fer opening me eyes to me selfishness."

  "Good-bye."

  "So long! And may ye have better luck in the new deal, miss."

  As she turned at the gate she saw him standing as she had left him, hisbrow white and sad and stern, his shoulders drooping as if his strengthand love of life had suddenly been withdrawn.

  While still in this mood she sent word to Ben that she wished to see himat once, and he responded without delay.

  He was appalled by the change in her. Her interview with Haney hadprofoundly weakened her, chilled her. She was like some exquisite lampwhose golden flame had grown suddenly dim, and Fordyce was filled withinstant, remorseful tenderness. His sense of duty sprang to arms, andwithout waiting for her to begin he said: "I hate to think of you as apensioner in this house. You should be in your own home--our home--whereI could take care of you. Come, let me take you out of this privatehospital--that's what it is."

  She struggled piteously to assure him that she would be back to par in afew days, but he was thoroughly alarmed and refused to listen to furtherdelay.

  "Your surroundings are bad, you need a change."

  She read him to the soul, knew that this argument sprang not from love,but from pity and self-accusation; therefore, forcing a light tone, sheanswered: "I don't feel able to take command of a cook and second girljust yet, Bennie dear; besides, you're all wrong about this being a badatmosphere for me. I'm horribly comfortable here, my own sister couldn'tbe kinder than Julia is. No, no, wait a few months longer till you getsettled a little more securely in business; I may pick up a volt or twomore of electricity by that time." Then as she saw his face darken and atremor run over his flesh, she lost her self-control and broke forthwith sudden, bitter intensity: "Why don't you throw me over and marrysome nice girl with a healthy body and sane mind? Why cheat yourself andme?"

  He recoiled before her question, too amazed to do more than exclaimagainst her going on.

  She was not to be checked. "Let us be honest with ourselves. You knowperfectly well I'm never going to get better--I do, if you don't. I maylinger on in this way for years, but I will never be anything but aquerulous invalid. Now that's the bitter truth. You mustn't marry me--Iwon't let you!" Then her mood changed. "And yet it's so hard to go onalone--even for a little way."

  Her eyes closed on her hot tears, her head drooped, and Ben, putting hisarm about her neck and pressing her quivering face against his breast,reproached her very tenderly: "I won't let you say such things,dearest--you must not! You're not yourself to-day."

  "Oh yes, I am! My mind is very clear, too horribly clear. Ben dear, Imean all I
say--you shall not link yourself to me. I have no delusionsnow. I'll never be well again--and you must know it."

  "Oh yes, you will! Don't give up! You're only tired to-day. You'rereally much better than you were last week."

  "No, I'm not! Let us not deceive ourselves any longer. The change ofclimate has not done me good. We waited too long. It has all been amistake. Let me go back to Chester--I'm afraid to die out here. I can'tbear the thought of being buried in this soil. It's so bleak and lonelyand alien. I want to go back to the sweet, kindly hills--perhaps I canreconcile myself to death there--to sink into the earth on this plain istoo dreadful."

  He struggled against the weight of her sorrowful pleadings. "This isonly a mood, dearest; you are over-tired and things look black to you--Ihave such days--everybody has these hours of depression, but we mustfight them. It would be so much better for us both if I were yourhusband, then I could be with you and watch over you every hour. I couldhelp you fight these dismal moods. It would be my hourly care. Come,let's go out and seriously set to work to find a cottage."

  She was silenced for the moment, but when he had finished hiscounter-plea she looked up at him with deep-set glance and quietly said:"Ben, it's all wrong. It was wrong from the very beginning. You arelashing yourself into uttering these beautiful words, and you do notrealize what you are saying. I am too old for you--Now listen--it'strue! I'm twenty years older in spirit. I haven't been really well forten years. You talk of fighting this. Haven't I fought? I've danced whenI should have been in bed. I've had a premonition of early decay foryears--that's why I've been so reckless of my strength. I couldn't bearto let my youth pass dully--and now it's gone! Wait!--I've deceived youin other ways. I've been full of black thoughts, I've been jealous andselfish all along. You deserve the loveliest girl in the world, and itis a cruel shame for me to stand in the way of your happiness just tohave you light my darkness for a few hours. I know what you want tosay--you think you can be happy with me. Ben, it's only your foolishsense of honor that keeps you loyal to me--I don't want that--I won'thave it! Take back your pledge." She pushed away from him and twisted aring from her finger. "Take this, dear boy, you are absolutely free. Goand be happy."

  He drew back from her hand in pain and bewilderment. "Alice, you arecrazy to say such things to me." He studied her with suffering in hiseyes. "You are delirious. I am going to send the doctor to you at once."

  "No, I'm not delirious. I know only too well what I'm saying--I havemade my decision. I will never wear this ring again." She turned hiswords against himself. "You must not marry a crazy woman."

  "I didn't mean that--you know what I meant. All you say is morbid andunreasonable, and I will not listen to it. You are clouded by some sickfancy to-day, and I will go away and send a physician to cure you ofyour madness."

  She thrust the ring into his hand and rose, her face tense, her eyeswonderfully big and luminous. She seemed at the moment to renew herhealth and to recover the imperious grace of her radiant youth as sheexaltedly said: "Now I am free! You must ask me all over again--and whenyou do, I will say _no_."

  He sat looking up at her, too bewildered, too much alarmed to find wordsfor reply. He really thought that she had gone suddenly mad--and yet allthat she said was frightfully reasonable. In his heart he knew that shewas uttering the truth. Their marriage was now impossible--a bridal veilover that face was horrifying to think upon.

  She went on: "Now run away--I'm going to cry in a moment and I don'twant you to see me do it. Please go!"

  He rose stiffly, and when he spoke his voice was quivering with anxiety."I am going to send Julia to you instantly."

  "No, you're not. I won't see her if you do. She can't help me--nobodycan, but you--and I won't let you even see me any more. I'm going hometo Chester to-morrow; so kiss me good-bye--and go."

  He kissed her and went blindly out, their engagement ring tightlyclinched in his hand. It seemed as if a wide, cold, gray cloud had (forthe first time) entirely covered his sunny, youthful world.