by Don Marquis
CHAPTER XXII
So many different kinds of feeling had been chasing around inside of methat I had numb spots in my emotional ornaments and intellectual organs.The room cleared out of everybody but Doctor Kirby and Colonel Tom andme. But the sound of the crowd going into the road, and their footstepsdying away, and then after that their voices quitting, all made but verylittle sense to me. I could scarcely realize that the danger was over.
I hadn't been paying much attention to Doctor Kirby while the colonelwas making that grandstand play of his'n, and getting away with it.Doctor Kirby was setting in his chair with his head sort of sunk on hischest. I guess he was having a hard time himself to realize that allthe danger was past. But mebby it wasn't that--he looked like he mightreally of forgot where he was fur a minute, and might be thinking ofsomething that had happened a long time ago.
The colonel was leaning up agin the teacher's desk, smoking and lookingat Doctor Kirby. Doctor Kirby turns around toward the colonel.
"You have saved my life," he says, getting up out of his chair, likehe had a notion to step over and thank him fur it, but was somehow notquite sure how that would be took.
The colonel looks at him silent fur a second, and then he says, withoutsmiling:
"Do you flatter yourself it was because I think it worth anything?"
The doctor don't answer, and then the colonel says:
"Has it occurred to you that I may have saved it because I want it?"
"WANT it?"
"Do you know of any one who has a better right to TAKE it than I have?Perhaps I saved it because it BELONGS to me--do you suppose I want anyone else to kill what I have the best right to kill?"
"Tom," says Doctor Kirby, really puzzled, to judge from his actions, "Idon't understand what makes you say you have the right to take my life."
"Dave, where is my sister buried?" asts Colonel Tom.
"Buried?" says Doctor Kirby. "My God, Tom, is she DEAD?"
"I ask you," says Colonel Tom.
"And I ask you," says Doctor Kirby.
And they looked at each other, both wonderized, and trying tounderstand. And it busted on me all at oncet who them two men reallywas.
I orter knowed it sooner. When the colonel was first called Colonel TomBuckner it struck me I knowed the name, and knowed something about it.But things which was my own consarns was attracting my attention so hardI couldn't remember what it was I orter know about that name. Then Iseen him and Doctor Kirby knowed each other when they got that firstsquare look. That orter of put me on the track, that and a lot of otherthings that had happened before. But I didn't piece things together likeI orter done.
It wasn't until Colonel Tom Buckner called him "Dave" and ast him abouthis sister that I seen who Doctor Kirby must really be.
HE WAS THAT THERE DAVID ARMSTRONG!
And the brother of the girl he had run off with had jest saved his life.By the way he was talking, he had saved it simply because he thought hehad the first call on what to do with it.
"Where is she?" asts Colonel Tom.
"I ask you," says Doctor Kirby--or David Armstrong--agin.
Well, I thinks to myself, here is where Daniel puts one acrost theplate. And I breaks in:
"You both got another guess coming," I says. "She ain't buriedanywheres. She ain't even dead. She's living in a little town in Indianycalled Athens--or she was about eighteen months ago."
They both looks at me like they thinks I am crazy.
"What do you know about it?" says Doctor Kirby.
"Are you David Armstrong?" says I.
"Yes," says he.
"Well," I says, "you spent four or five days within a stone's throw ofher a year ago last summer, and she knowed it was you and hid herselfaway from you."
Then I tells them about how I first happened to hear of David Armstrong,and all I had hearn from Martha. And how I had stayed at the Davisesin Tennessee and got some more of the same story from George, the oldnigger there.
"But, Danny," says the doctor, "why didn't you tell me all this?"
I was jest going to say that not knowing he was that there DavidArmstrong I didn't think it any of his business, when Colonel Tom, hesays to Doctor Kirby--I mean to David Armstrong:
"Why should you be concerned as to her whereabouts? You ruined her lifeand then deserted her."
Doctor Kirby--I mean David Armstrong--stands there with the blood goingup his face into his forehead slow and red.
"Tom," he says, "you and I seem to be working at cross purposes. Maybeit would help some if you would tell me just how badly you think Itreated Lucy."
"You ruined her life, and then deserted her," says Colonel Tom agin,looking at him hard.
"I DIDN'T desert her," said Doctor Kirby. "She got disgusted and leftME. Left me without a chance to explain myself. As far as ruining herlife is concerned, I suppose that when I married her--"
"Married her!" cries out the colonel. And David Armstrong stares at himwith his mouth open.
"My God! Tom," he says, "did you think--?"
And they both come to another standstill. And then they talked some moreand only got more mixed up than ever. Fur the doctor thinks she has lefthim, and Colonel Tom thinks he has left her.
"Tom," says the doctor, "suppose you let me tell my story, and you'llsee why Lucy left me."
Him and Colonel Tom had been chums together when they went throughPrinceton, it seems--I picked that up from the talk and some of hisstory I learned afterward. He had come from Ohio in the beginning, andhis dad had had considerable money. Which he had enjoyed spending of it,and when he was a young feller never liked to work at nothing else. Itsuited him. Colonel Tom, he was considerable like him in that way. Sothey was good pals when they was to that school together. They both quitabout the same time. A couple of years after that, when they wasboth about twenty-five or six years old, they run acrost each otheraccidental in New York one autumn.
The doctor, he was there figgering on going to work at something orother, but they was so many things to do he was finding it hard to makea choice. His father was dead by that time, and looking fur a job inNew York, the way he had been doing it, was awful expensive, and he wasrunning short of money. His father had let him spend so much whilsthe was alive he was very disappointed to find out he couldn't keep onforever looking fur work that-a-way.
So Colonel Tom says why not come down home into Tennessee with him fura while, and they will both try and figger out what he orter go to workat. It was the fall of the year, and they was purty good hunting aroundthere where Colonel Tom lived, and Dave hadn't never been South any, andso he goes. He figgers he better take a good, long vacation, anyhow. Furif he goes to work that winter or the next spring, and ties up with somejob that keeps him in an office, there may be months and months pass bybefore he has another chance at a vacation. That is the worst part of ajob--I found that out myself--you never can tell when you are going toget shut of it, once you are fool enough to start in.
In Tennessee he had met Miss Lucy. Which her wedding to Prent McMakinwas billed fur to come off about the first of November, jest a monthaway.
"I don't know whether I ever told you or not," says the doctor, "but Iwas engaged to be married myself, Tom, when I went down to your place.That was what started all the trouble.
"You know engagements are like vaccination--sometimes they take, andsometimes they don't. Of course, I had thought at one time I was in lovewith this girl I was engaged to. When I found out I wasn't, I shouldhave told her so right away. But I didn't. I thought that she wouldget tired of me after a while and turn me loose. I gave her plenty ofchances to turn me loose. I wanted her to break the engagement insteadof me. But she wouldn't take the hints. She hung on like an Ohio GrandArmy veteran to a country post-office. About half the time I didn't readher letters, and about nineteen twentieths of the time I didn't answerthem. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. But it isn'tso--it makes them all the fonder of you. I got into the habit ofthinking that while
Emma might be engaged to me, I wasn't engaged toEmma. Not but what Emma was a nice girl, you know, but--
"Well, I met Lucy. We fell in love with each other. It just happened.I kept intending to write to the other girl and tell her plainly thateverything was off. But I kept postponing it. It seemed like a deuce ofa hard job to tackle.
"But, finally, I did write her. That was the very day Lucy promised tothrow Prent McMakin over and marry me. You know how determined all yourpeople were that Lucy should marry McMakin, Tom. They had brought her upwith the idea that she was going to, and, of course, she was bored withhim for that reason.
"We decided the best plan would be to slip away quietly and get married.We knew it would raise a row. But there was bound to be a row anyhowwhen they found she intended to marry me instead of McMakin. So wefigured we might just as well be away from there.
"We left your place early on the morning of October 31, 1888--do youremember the date, Tom? We took the train for Clarksville, Tennessee,and got there about two o'clock that afternoon. I suppose you have beenin that interesting centre of the tobacco industry. If you have you mayremember that the courthouse of Montgomery County is right across thestreet from the best hotel. I got a license and a preacher without anytrouble, and we were married in the hotel parlour that afternoon. One ofthe hotel clerks and the county clerk himself were the witnesses.
"We went to Cincinnati and from there to Chicago. There we got rooms outon the South Side--Hyde Park, they called it. And I got me a job. I hadsome money left, but not enough to buy kohinoors and race-horses with.Beside, I really wanted to get to work--wanted it for the first timein my life. You remember young Clayton in our class? He and some otherenterprising citizens had a building and loan association. Such thingsare no doubt immoral, but I went to work for him.
"We had been in Chicago a week when Lucy wrote home what she had done,and begged forgiveness for being so abrupt about it. At least, I supposethat is what she wrote. It was--"
"I remember exactly what she wrote," says Colonel Tom.
"I never knew exactly," says the doctor. "The same mail that broughtword from you that your grandfather had had some sort of a stroke, as aconsequence of our elopement, brought also two letters from Emma. Theyhad been forwarded from New York to Tennessee, and you had forwardedthem to Chicago.
"Those letters began the trouble. You see, I hadn't told Emma when Iwrote breaking off the engagement that I was going to get married thenext day. And Emma hadn't received my letter, or else had made up hermind to ignore it. Anyhow, those letters were regular love-letters.
"I hadn't really read one of Emma's letters for months. But somehowI couldn't help reading these. I had forgotten what a gift for theexpression of sentiment Emma had. She fairly revelled in it, Tom. Thoseletters were simply writhing with clinging female adjectives. TheySQUIRMED with affection.
"You may remember that Lucy was a rather jealous sort of a person.Right in the midst of her alarm and grief and self-reproach over hergrandfather, and in the midst of my efforts to comfort her, she spiedthe feminine handwriting on those two letters. I had glanced throughthem hurriedly, and laid them on the table.
"Tom, I was in bad. The dates on them, you know, were so RECENT. Ididn't want Lucy to read them. But I didn't dare to ACT as if I didn'twant her to. So I handed them over.
"I suppose--to a bride who had only been married a little more than aweek--and who had hurt her grandfather nearly to death in the marrying,those letters must have sounded rather odd. I tried to explain. Butall my explanations only seemed to make the case worse for me. Lucy wasfuriously jealous. We really had a devil of a row before we were throughwith it. I tried to tell her that I loved no one but her. She pointedout that I must have said much the same sort of thing to Emma. She saidshe was almost as sorry for Emma as she was for herself. When Lucygot through with me, Tom, I looked like thirty cents and felt liketwenty-five of that was plugged.
"I didn't have sense enough to know that it was most of it grief overher grandfather, and nerves and hysteria, and the fact that she wasonly eighteen years old and lonely, and that being a bride had a certainamount to do with it. She had told me that I was a beast, and made mefeel like one; and I took the whole thing hard and believed her. I madea fine, five-act tragedy out of a jealous fit I might have softened intocomedy if I had had the wit.
"I wasn't so very old myself, and I hadn't ever been married before. Ishould have kept my mouth shut until it was all over, and then when shebegan to cry I should have coaxed her up and made her feel like I wasthe only solid thing to hang on to in the whole world.
"But the bottom had dropped out of the universe for me. She had said shehated me. I was fool enough to believe her. I went downtown and beganto drink. I come home late that night. The poor girl had been waiting upfor me--waiting for hours, and becoming more and more frightened when Ididn't show up. She was over her jealous fit, I suppose. If I had comehome in good shape, or in anything like it, we would have made up thenand there. But my condition stopped all that. I wasn't so drunk but thatI saw her face change when she let me in. She was disgusted.
"In the morning I was sick and feverish. I was more than disgusted withmyself. I was in despair. If she had hated me before--and she had saidshe did--what must she do now? It seemed to me that I had sunk so farbeneath her that it would take years to get back. It didn't seem worthwhile making any plea for myself. You see, I was young and had seriousstreaks all through me. So when she told me that she had written homeagain, and was going back--was going to leave me, I didn't see thatit was only a bluff. I didn't see that she was really only waiting toforgive me, if I gave her a chance. I started downtown to the buildingand loan office, wondering when she would leave, and if there wasanything I could do to make her change her mind. I must repeat againthat I was a fool--that I needed only to speak one word, had I but knownit.
"If I had gone straight to work, everything might have come around allright even then. But I didn't. I had that what's-the-use feeling. And Istopped in at the Palmer House bar to get something to sort of pull metogether.
"While I was there, who should come up to the bar and order a drink butPrent McMakin."
"Yes!" says Colonel Tom, as near excited as he ever got.
"Yes," says Armstrong, "nobody else. We saw each other in the mirrorbehind the bar. I don't know whether you ever noticed it or not, Tom,but McMakin's eyes had a way of looking almost like cross-eyes when hewas startled or excited. They were a good deal too near together at anytime. He gave me such a look when our eyes met in the mirror that, foran instant, I thought that he intended to do me some mischief--shoot me,you know, for taking his bride-to-be away from him, or some fool thinglike that. But as we turned toward each other I saw he had no intentionof that sort."
"Hadn't he?" says Colonel Tom, mighty interested.
"No," says the doctor, looking at Colonel Tom very puzzled, "did youthink he had?"
"Yes, I did," says the colonel, right thoughtful.
"On the contrary," says Armstrong, "we had a drink together. And hecongratulated me. Made me quite a little speech, in fact; one of theflowery kind, you know, Tom, and said that he bore me no rancour, andall that."
"The deuce he did!" says Colonel Tom, very low, like he was talking tohimself. "And then what?"
"Then," says the doctor, "then--let me see--it's all a long time ago,you know, and McMakin's part in the whole thing isn't really important."
"I'm not so sure it isn't important," says the colonel, "but go on."
"Then," says Armstrong, "we had another drink together. In fact, alot of them. We got awfully friendly. And like a fool I told him of myquarrel with Lucy."
"LIKE a fool," says Colonel Tom, nodding his head. "Go on."
"There isn't much more to tell," says the doctor, "except that I madea worse idiot of myself yet, and left McMakin about two o'clock in theafternoon, as near as I can recollect. Somewhere about ten o'clock thatnight I went home. Lucy was gone. I haven't seen her since."
"Dave," says Colonel Tom, "did McMakin happen to mention to you, thatday, just why he was in Chicago?"
"I suppose so," says the doctor. "I don't know. Maybe not. That wastwenty years ago. Why?"
"Because," says Colonel Tom, very grim and quiet, "because your firstthought as to his intention when he met you in the bar was MY ideaalso. I thought he went to Chicago to settle with you. You see, I got toChicago that same afternoon."
"The same day?"
"Yes. We were to have come together. But I missed the train, and he gotthere a day ahead of me. He was waiting at the hotel for me to join him,and then we were going to look you up together. He found you first and Inever did find you."
"But I don't exactly understand," says the doctor. "You say he had theidea of shooting me."
"I don't understand everything myself," says Colonel Tom. "But I dounderstand that Prent McMakin must have played some sort of a two-facedgame. He never said a word to me about having seen you.
"Listen," he goes on. "When you and Lucy ran away it nearly killed ourgrandfather. In fact, it finally did kill him. When we got Lucy's letterthat told you were in Chicago I went up to bring her back home. Wedidn't know what we were going to do, McMakin and I, but we were bothagreed that you needed killing. And he swore that he would marry Lucyanyhow, even--"
"MARRY HER!" sings out the doctor, "but we WERE married."
"Dave," Colonel Tom says very slow and steady, "you keep SAYING you weremarried. But it's strange--it's right STRANGE about that marriage."
And he looked at the doctor hard and close, like he would drag the truthout of him, and the doctor met his look free and open. You would ofthought Colonel Tom was saying with his look: "You MUST tell me thetruth." And the doctor with his was answering: "I HAVE told you thetruth."
"But, Tom," says the doctor, "that letter she wrote you from Chicagomust--"
"Do you know what Lucy wrote?" interrupts Colonel Tom. "I rememberexactly. It was simply: 'FORGIVE ME. I LOVED HIM SO. I AM HAPPY. I KNOWIT IS WRONG, BUT I LOVE HIM SO YOU MUST FORGIVE ME.'"
"But couldn't you tell from THAT we were married?" cries out the doctor.
"She didn't mention it," says Colonel Tom.
"She supposed that her own family had enough faith in her to take it forgranted," says the doctor, very scornful, his face getting red.
"But wait, Dave," says Colonel Tom, quiet and cool. "Don't bluster withme. There are still a lot of things to be explained. And that marriageis one of them.
"To go back a bit. You say you got to the house somewhere around teno'clock that evening and found Lucy gone. Do you remember the day of themonth?"
"It was November 14, 1888."
"Exactly," says Colonel Tom. "I got to Chicago at six o'clock of thatvery day. And I went at once to the address in Lucy's letter. I gotthere between seven and eight o'clock. She was gone. My thought was thatyou must have got wind of my coming and persuaded her to leave with youin order to avoid me--although I didn't see how you could know when Iwould get there, either, when I thought it over."
"And you have never seen her since," says Armstrong, pondering.
"I HAVE seen her since," says Colonel Tom, "and that is one thing thatmakes me say your story needs further explanation."
"But where--when--did you see her?" asts the doctor, mighty excited.
"I am coming to that. I went back home again. And in July of the nextyear I heard from her."
"Heard from her?"
"By letter. She was in Galesburg, Illinois, if you know where that is.She was living there alone. And she was almost destitute. I wrote her tocome home. She would not. But she had to live. I got rid of some of ourproperty in Tennessee, and took enough cash up there with me to fix her,in a decent sort of way, for the rest of her life, and put it in thebank. I was with her there for ten days; then I went back home to getAunt Lucy Davis to help me in another effort to persuade her to return.But when I got back North with Aunt Lucy she had gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes, and when we returned without her to Tennessee there was a lettertelling us not to try to find her. We thought--I thought--that she mighthave taken up with you once again."
"But, my God! Tom," the doctor busts out, "you were with her ten daysthere in Galesburg! Didn't she tell you then--couldn't you tell from theway she acted--that she had married me?"
"That's the odd thing, Dave," says the colonel, very slow andthoughtful. "That's what is so very strange about it all. I merelyassumed by my attitude that you were not married, and she let me assumeit without a protest."
"But did you ask her?"
"Ask her? No. Can't you see that there was no reason why I should askher? I was sure. And being sure of it, naturally I didn't talk about itto her. You can understand that I wouldn't, can't you? In fact, I nevermentioned you to her. She never mentioned you to me."
"You must have mistaken her, Tom."
"I don't think it's possible, Dave," said the colonel. "You can mistakewords and explanations a good deal easier than you can mistake anatmosphere. No, Dave, I tell you that there's something odd aboutit--married or not, Lucy didn't BELIEVE herself married the last time Isaw her."
"But she MUST have known," says the doctor, as much to himself as to thecolonel. "She MUST have known." Any one could of told by the way he saidit that he wasn't lying. I could see that Colonel Tom believed in him,too. They was both sicking their intellects onto the job of figgeringout how it was Lucy didn't know. Finally the doctor says verythoughtful:
"Whatever became of Prentiss McMakin, Tom?"
"Dead," says Colonel Tom, "quite a while ago."
"H-m," says the doctor, still thinking hard. And then looks at ColonelTom like they was an idea in his head. Which he don't speak her out. ButColonel Tom seems to understand.
"Yes," he says, nodding his head. "I think you are on the right tracknow. Yes--I shouldn't wonder."
Well, they puts this and that together, and they agrees that whateverhappened to make things hard to explain must of happened on that daythat Prentiss McMakin met the doctor in the bar-room, and didn't shoothim, as he had made his brags he would. Must of happened between thetime that afternoon when Prentiss McMakin left the doctor and the timeColonel Tom went out to see his sister and found she had went. Must ofhappened somehow through Prent McMakin.
We goes home with Colonel Tom that night. And the next day all three ofus is on our way to Athens, Indiany, where I had seen Miss Lucy at.
