“Tell them? Tell them nothing. Let ’em swallow their own spittle.”
For a long hour the three consulted. The Reverend Theron Strang was sent for, came, remained for five minutes, and emerged with a face both grave and happy. He had nothing to say except that Mr. Latham had renewed and increased his subscription to the Presbyterian Church. The parson’s salary would be paid again in full.
Rumor ran wild. It was said that Genter Latham was drawing a new will. It was said that he had professed repentance of his sins and would join the church as full communicant. It was said that he had instructed Lawyer Upcraft to secure Horace Amlie’s full restoration to medical practice and privilege. It was whispered that, knowing himself to be a stricken man, and in fear of death, he was doing what he could to right a grievous wrong inflicted upon the young physician.
Lawyer Upcraft came out. He had nothing to say. His face was so sour that Carlisle Sneed observed that he looked like he’d bit into a green pawpaw.
All that morning the magnate was closeted with the physician. At noon Horace sent for his gig and drove him home, remaining for dinner. Later he sent out for Aunt Minnie Duryea. It became known that the effort had been too much for Mr. Latham’s overstrained powers and that he had suffered a stroke. On leaving to obtain some remedies from his office, Dr. Amlie relaxed his reticence enough to admit that much. Mr. Latham might live or he might die; he would never again be the man he was.
Straightway the attitude of the village toward the Amlies radically altered. Mr. Latham’s open and deliberate advertisement of his restored favor to Horace reinstated them as by fiat. Solicitous attentions surrounded Dinty. The older women went out of their way to shower her with courtesies. Comfit-munchers paid visits to the house, putting sly and eager questions which elicited a minimum of information. It all made Dinty queasy. She had no taste for a fawning Palmyra.
Horace’s practice boomed. In the wake of the epidemic, now safely past, there came an outbreak of minor ailments, largely nervous. The office slate filled up. The physician recklessly accepted every call. It was blatantly illegal, but what did that matter now? As well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. He was avid to lay up all the money possible for Dinty against the time when his support should be removed. For he did not deceive himself as to the immediate peril of his position. Genter Latham was a broken man. Even though he lived, his protection must soon become ineffectual. There would then be nothing to restrain Murchison from instigating Horace’s prosecution for the violation of Wealthia Latham’s grave. That the purpose of the Albany trip had been to report to the State Board and enlist their aid, Horace had not the slightest doubt. He was living beneath a suspended sword.
What made life continuously difficult was his resolution to deceive Dinty and protect her happiness to the last possible moment. For she was happy again.
Lavender’s blue, diddle-diddle.
Lavender’s green …
she sang at her work in the kitchen over which she now held undisputed sway, Unk Zeb having carried his secrecy and his terrors back to his No’th Cahlina.
Everything was lovely in a fair and friendly world for Horace Amlie’s wife. The threat of Mr. Latham’s powerful enmity was removed. If Horace chose to be close-mouthed about the reasons, she refused to let that disturb her renewed satisfaction with life. One fine piece of news she had: the note at the bank had been forgiven, principal and interest. They were free of debt. All their surplus, which had taken a most enheartening spurt, could now be devoted to the cobblestone house fund.
Never had Horace been more tender, more solicitous toward her. In all ways he was perfect except for his secretiveness. With wifely instinct she felt always that understrain of concealment. Or was that her own conscience, guilty by reason of her unconfessed spying? Then, too, he had taken to sitting up late in his office, arranging and docketing papers, like a man in expectation of death. But he laughed off any suggestion of impaired health. Indeed, he seemed in the pink of condition, except that he slept uncertainly, tossed and sometimes muttered unintelligible plaints. Frequently she caught him unawares, gazing at her with a regard so wistful, so hungry, yet so grievous that her heart stirred.
The explanation came to her in a flash. It was his disappointment over their childlessness. He had always wanted a family. Very well, that lack was easily remedied; he should have it. Now that they were debt-free and her fancy could see the little leaden eagles, beckoning with uplifted wings from the side-glasses of the cobblestone house, there was no reason for further delay.
Lavender’s blue, diddle-diddle.
Lavender’s green.
Babies are sweet, diddle-diddle.
Five—Ten—Fifteen.
warbled Dinty in a crescendo of ambition.
Daily Horace visited Genter Latham, who was up from his bed in a week but kept to his house except to totter about the garden upon two canes. The shock of that interview in the library, well though he had supported it at the time, had undermined him. It was doubtful, Horace told Dinty, whether he would outlast the year.
Two weeks passed, and three, and Dr. Gail Murchison was still absent from his diminishing practice. The strain of waiting wore upon Horace Amlie’s nerves. Learning from the Sentinel that the absent physician had indicated the probability of an early return, Horace set Dad Hinch on watch for the westbound packets as they arrived.
On a thundery Tuesday morning the Human Teapot brought the expected news: Dr. Murchison had debarked from the Chief Engineer. Carpetbag in hand, he had gone direct to Lawyer Upcraft’s office. The pair were still in consultation when Dad reported.
All Horace’s resolution was needed to hold him to his professional engagements that day. He had now but one desire: to face Murchison and know the worst. Quite probably, he thought, there would be an offer of compromise, a bargain whereby he would be permanently exiled from town as the price of his rival’s silence. None of it for him! Even for Dinty’s sake, he could not accept so cowardly a composition. To accede to such terms would be to put himself under the threat of further blackmail. If prison it must be, and separation from Dinty, he would find the fortitude to face it. After all, they were young. There would still be time to build a life together.
Having taken care of his crowding office calls and with an hour left before supper time, Horace washed up, donned his broadcoat and beaver, took his silverheaded cane, and called at the Murchison office.
Dr. Murchison was out.
When would he be back?
The house-hussey who did for him could not say.
The next call was at Ephraim Upcraft’s house. The Honest Lawyer was also absent. Was he expected back soon? No, not until next day probably. Mrs. Upcraft vouchsafed the information that her husband and Dr. Murchison had set out for Canandaigua some hours before, in the Upcraft rig. Was there a leer on her face as she imparted the news? Horace thought so. She had never liked him.
It was clear enough now. After hearing Murchison’s report on his interview with the State Medical Society representatives, the lawyer had taken his client to see the district attorney in Canandaigua. Horace assumed that the State Medical authorities had fallen in with the Murchison plan and agreed to support the prosecution. What else could they do? Grave-robbery was a dire offense. Similarly there would be but one course for the district attorney to follow. Horace’s respite was over. He might expect arrest any time within the next few days, possibly on the morrow.
Up to a point, his reasoning was correct. The purpose of the Canandaigua trip was to inspire criminal action against Dr. Horace Amlie though not, of course, upon the grounds which he assumed. Nor were the two agents over-sanguine of success. For the State Medical Society had received Dr. Gail Murchison’s request that it officially procure the arrest of Horace Amlie for the illegal practice of medicine with a chilling lack of enthusiasm. Thanks to the militant advocacy of Dr. Vought, that body was well informed as to the accused medico’s “unsparing, heroic and successful efforts to save Palmyra and i
ts vicinage from the devastations of a horrible scourge” (the rhetoric being the Rochester man’s) and was heartily disinclined to any punitive measures. In fact, the flea with which Dr. Murchison left after his protracted and abortive efforts whispered in the ear which it occupied that the Board was preparing to reinstate the brash flouter of its former edict.
Notwithstanding, Lawyer Upcraft, upon consideration of the status, gave opinion that they might still incite young Hedges, the prosecutor, to take action on his own initiative. Just about the time when Horace was going wretchedly home to his supper, Mr. Hedges was informing the two emissaries that he wouldn’t touch the case with the charred end of a hickory poker unless the medical authorities made the first move. Thereupon the callers repaired to the Hardy Angler on the bank of the outlet and so effectually drowned their disappointment that, driving home by moonlight, they up-ended two logs of the corduroy pike, tipped over the rig, and broke Old Murch’s arm, which Horace set the next day and never charged him a penny out of professional courtesy.
But before that, much had happened.
Still resolute to tell Dinty nothing—poor child! she would know soon enough—Horace went home to his supper wearing a mask of determined cheerfulness. He heard Dinty singing as she dished up the meal. It was a particularly tasty supper, directed to Horace’s special appetites and garnished with a pint of currant wine. Dinty was celebrating the return of prosperity. Through the repast, the master of the house maintained his air of light-heartedness. Only when his helpmeet had left to wash up did he lapse into a blue reverie.
He did not hear her come in from the kitchen until she was standing before him with a challenge.
“What makes you look so glum, darling?”
“Eh? What’s that? Glum? I’m not.”
“You are. And you’re trying to hide it from me. Is one of your cases worrying you?”
“No, no, indeed!”
“You needn’t be so hearty about it,” she observed, eying him with suspicion.
“Don’t you think we might have another bottle of that very tasty wine?” he insinuated, clinging to the note of festivity.
“Later, maybe. I want to talk to you seriously.” She came and perched lightly on his knee. “Doc, I’ve been thinking.”
He rallied to the point of cautioning her against mental excess. She stuck out a small, pink tongue at him, retracted it, and employed it in saying with slightly smug satisfaction,
“We’re getting to be people of substance, aren’t we, darling?”
“You might say so.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking,” she repeated. “I think it’s time we had a baby.”
The sudden contraction of his muscles almost dislodged her. She stared, aghast, into his face which seemed to have frozen.
“You don’t want me to have a baby?” she faltered.
“No.” It was a cry of pain.
“Why not?”
“We—we can’t afford it. It isn’t—it wouldn’t …”
She rose and stood, looking gravely down at him. “Darling, what is it? There’s something. Tell me.” As he kept silent she added softly, “Is it terrible?”
“Yes.”
“Have you stopped loving me?”
“God! No!”
“Then it can’t be very terrible.”
He drew her back into his arms, pressing her face against his. “Dinty, I may have to leave you.”
“Why? Where are you going?”
“To prison.”
She gave a little gasp, pushing herself back from him. “Is it Genter Latham? It can’t be! I thought that was all over, all made up. Isn’t it?”
“It isn’t Latham. Dinty, I’ve committed a crime.”
In his misery and his absorption he did not heed her half-whispered “I know.” Carefully and with such suppression of the horror as he could compass, he told her of the exhumation and the result of the autopsy.
“That’s what you took to Mr. Latham’s house,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
“But, darling,” she cried, “that wasn’t a crime. Nobody could blame you for that. Not Mr. Latham, anyway. You said, yourself, he wasn’t going to do anything to you.”
“It is a crime,” he insisted. “I’d do the same thing again in the same circumstances. But that doesn’t alter the fact that I’m a criminal.”
“I don’t understand,” she said piteously. “Nobody knows but Mr. Latham and Dad Hinch. You can trust Dad, can’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s going to send you to prison, then?”
“Murchison. He was spying—he or his man or both of them—and saw it all. Next day he started for Albany.”
“Oh, Doc! Are you sure about it?”
“Dad Hinch saw them moving on the hilltop.”
“Where?” she gasped. “What part of the hill?”
“Just above the steeple.”
“Nobody was there. There couldn’t have been.”
“There was, I tell you. Dad went up next day and found where the shrubbery was broken. He thought there were two people.”
Dinty said in a small, broken voice, “There were. Tip and I.” Then, at the look on his face she quavered, “You aren’t mad with me, are you, Doc? I’d never have followed you, only …”
She stopped because she was being violently shaken and, presently, as violently kissed. Again and again he made her repeat that no other person could possibly have been on summit or slope without their discovering him. Assured at length, he said,
“Where’s that bottle of wine, Puss? I need it.”
As they sipped it, they went through the entire course of the tragic events from the first. Dinty regarded her husband with something like awe.
“It must have been dreadful,” said she, “having to face down Genter Latham with that Thing.”
“I never in my life so hated to do anything. But it meant our whole future, yours and mine. How else could I convince him?”
She pondered. “Do you think Wealthy knew what had happened to her?”
“How could she? After the terror of being pregnant, think what a blessed relief it must have been when nothing came of it. No, she was honest in her denials at the last, whatever she may have been at first. How bitterly she must have regretted having told Kinsey Hayne …! What’s the matter, my sweet?”
Slowly, effortfully she said, “There’s one other thing, Horace. I don’t know whether I ought to tell you even now.”
“Hasn’t there been enough concealment? We’d better clear this up once and for all.”
“Darling, Kinsey was never Wealthy’s paramour.”
“Not Hayne! Are you crazy, Dinty? Who else could it have been?”
“Silverhorn.”
“I told you that it is medically impossible he should have been the father.”
“But it isn’t, darling. I read that article. Ask Dr. Vought. He’s sent me another article proving that the man in the Eclectic didn’t know what he was talking about.” She ran to get it, thrust it into his shaking hand.
As he read, his face grew still and gray. “Ramsey,” he whispered. “Then it was Ramsey. The bugle over the grave!”
“You wouldn’t listen to me.” Dinty was not above preening herself a bit. But at the twisted anguish of his expression, she ran to him.
“I’d have written to Colonel Hayne but for you. I accused poor Hayne. I’m responsible for his death.”
“You aren’t! You aren’t!” she cried passionately. “Oh, I was afraid of that! It’s not true. You’re not to blame. Wealthy confessed to that. He was as infatuated with her as she was with Silverhorn. After that he didn’t want to live.”
There was a long silence. Horace sighed and said,
“Dinty?”
“Yes, darling?”
“Do you think we can put this out of our minds by never speaking or thinking of it again?”
She fell back upon her favorite apothegm. “You never can tell till you try,”
she said. “And now,” she asked meekly, “can I have my baby?”
“You can have ten,” said Horace.
Dinty did not have ten children. But she did have six, which was a respectable average for those days, and she raised them all to maturity, which was little less than a miracle. The Amlies never built their cobblestone house with the leaded side-glasses. There was no need to. Genter Latham’s will left his mansion to, “My beloved and lamented daughter’s loyal friend, Araminta Amlie,” and Dinty put in her own eagles, to taste.
Horace prospered mightily, became dogmatic with riches and success, and laid down the medical laws for village, town and surrounding countryside with an authority hardly less autocratic than Genter Latham’s own.
Once thereafter they saw Silverhorn Ramsey. He was aged beyond his years, seamed and sodden with debauchery, but preserving still some imperishable glamour of his vitality. He was again in the lake trade, had bought a smart and able two-masted sloop, and (as he told them with a wink) could deliver them the finest old-country goods from Canada without the burden of import taxes. When the Dark Beauty was wrecked in one of Ontario’s furious gales, her master brought an injured sailor ashore on his back, and himself perished, exhausted among the rocks.
Westward the star of empire shimmered along the reaches of Governor Clinton’s Ditch. Rochester took pre-eminence over Palmyra, then Buffalo. There came a day when, incredibly, the Grand Canal, that utmost achievement of Man the Engineer, diminished to a negligible agency of the nation’s traffic, as the swift trains sped, hooting disdainfully, across an expanding land. Today Palmyra fulfills its quiet destiny, toiling and sleeping beside its inland waters, one of a thousand small communities, pioneers and monuments of a past in which they played an ardent part in the growth of a new America.
To the memory of
DEACON ABNER ADAMS
who did his bit, made his pile
and left his name upon a section
of the Big Ditch, this book is
piously inscribed by his
great-grandson.
Canal Town Page 55
