Jason: A Romance
Page 24
XXIV
THE JOINT IN THE ARMOR
Ste. Marie put down a book as O'Hara came into the room and rose to meethis visitor.
"I'm compelled," said the Irishman, "to put you on your honor to-day ifyou are to go out as usual. Michel has been sent on an errand, and I ambusy with letters. I shall have to put you on your honor not to make anyeffort to escape. Is that agreed to? I shall trust you altogether. Youcould manage to scramble over the wall somehow, I suppose, and get cleanaway, but I think you won't try it if you give your word."
"I give my word gladly," said Ste. Marie. "And thanks very much. You'vebeen uncommonly kind to me here. I--regret more than I can say thatwe--that we find ourselves on opposite sides, as it were. I wish we werefighting for the same cause."
The Irishman looked at the younger man sharply for an instant, and hemade as if he would speak, but seemed to think better of it. In the endhe said:
"Yes, quite so. Quite so. Of course you understand that anyconsideration I have used toward you has been by way of making amendsfor--for an unfortunate occurrence."
Ste. Marie laughed.
"The poison," said he. "Yes, I know. And of course I know who was at thebottom of that. By the way, I met Stewart in the garden the other day.Did he tell you? He was rather nervous and tried to shoot me, but he hadleft his revolver at the house--at least it wasn't in his pocket when hereached for it."
O'Hara's hard face twitched suddenly, as if in anger, and he gave anexclamation under his breath, so the younger man inferred that "oldCharlie" had not spoken of their encounter. And after that the Irishmanonce more turned a sharp, frowning glance upon his prisoner as if hewere puzzled about something. But, as before, he stopped short of speechand at last turned away.
"Just a moment!" said the younger man. He asked: "Is it fair to inquirehow long I may expect to be confined here? I don't want to presume uponyour good-nature too far, but if you could tell me I should be glad toknow."
The Irishman hesitated a moment and then said:--
"I don't know why I shouldn't answer that. It can't help you, so far asI can see, to do anything that would hinder us. You'll stay until ArthurBenham comes of age, which will be in about two months from now."
"Yes," said the other. "Thanks. I thought so. Until young Arthur comesof age and receives his patrimony--or until old David Stewart dies. Ofcourse that might happen at any hour."
The Irishman said: "I don't quite see what--Ah, yes, to be sure! Yes, Isee. Well, I should count upon eight weeks if I were you. In eight weeksthe boy will be independent of them all, and we shall go to England forthe wedding."
"The wedding?" cried Ste. Marie. "What wedding?--Ah!"
"Arthur Benham and my daughter are to be married," said O'Hara, "so soonas he reaches his majority. I thought you knew that."
In a very vague fashion he realized that he had expected it. And stillthe definite words came to him with a shock which was like a physicalblow, and he turned his back with a man's natural instinct to hide hisfeeling. Certainly that was the logical conclusion to be drawn fromknown premises. That was to be the O'Haras' reward for their labor. ToStewart the great fortune, to the O'Haras a good marriage for the girland an assured future. That was reward enough surely for a few weeks ofangling and decoying and luring and lying. That was what she had meant,on the day before, by saying that she could see all the to-morrows. Herealized that he must have been expecting something like this, but thethought turned him sick, nevertheless. He could not forget the girl ashe had come to know her during the past week. He could not face with anycalmness the thought of her as the adventuress who had lured poor ArthurBenham on to destruction. It was an impossible thought. He could havelaughed at it in scornful anger, and yet--What else was she?
He began to realize that his action in turning his back upon the otherman in the middle of a conversation must look very odd, and he facedround again trying to drive from his expression the pain and distresswhich he knew must be there, plain to see. But he need not have troubledhimself, for the other man was standing before the next window andlooking out into the morning sunlight, and his hard, bony face had soaltered that Ste. Marie stared at him with open amazement. He thoughtO'Hara must be ill.
"I want to see her married!" cried the Irishman, suddenly, and it was anew voice, a voice Ste. Marie did not know. It shook a little with anemotion that sat uncouthly upon this grim, stern man.
"I want to see her married and safe!" he said. "I want her to be rid ofthis damnable, roving, cheap existence. I want her to be rid of me andmy rotten friends and my rotten life."
He chafed his hands together before him, and his tired eyes fixedthemselves upon something that he seemed to see out of the window andglared at it fiercely.
"I should like," said he, "to die on the day after her wedding, and sobe out of her way forever. I don't want her to have any shadows castover her from the past. I don't want her to open closet doors and findskeletons there. I want her to be free--free to live the sort of lifeshe was born to and has a right to."
He turned sharply upon the younger man.
"You've seen her!" he cried. "You've talked to her; you know her! Thinkof that girl dragged about Europe with me ever since she was a littlechild! Think of the people she's had to know, the things she's had tosee! Do you wonder that I want to have her free of it all, married andsafe and comfortable and in peace? Do you? I tell you it has driven meas nearly mad as a man can be. But I couldn't go mad, because I had totake care of her. I couldn't even die, because she'd have been leftalone without any one to look out for her. She wouldn't leave me. Icould have settled her somewhere in some quiet place where she'd havebeen quit at least of shady, rotten people, but she wouldn't have it.She's stuck to me always, through good times and bad. She's kept myheart up when I'd have been ready to cut my throat if I'd been alone.She's been the--bravest and faithfulest--Well, I--And look at her! Lookat her now! Think of what she's had to see and know--the people she'shad to live with--and look at her! Has any of it stuck to her? Has itcheapened her in any littlest way? No, by God! She has come through itall like a--like a Sister of Charity through a city slum--like an angelthrough the dark."
The Irishman broke off speaking, for his voice was beyond control, butafter a moment he went on again, more calmly:
"This boy, this young Benham, is a fool, but he's not a mean fool.She'll make a man of him. And, married to him, she'll have the comfortsthat she ought to have and the care and--freedom. She'll have a chanceto live the life that she has a right to, among the sort of people shehas a right to know. I'm not afraid for her. She'll do her part andmore. She'll hold up her head among duchesses, that girl. I'm not afraidfor her."
He said this last sentence over several times, standing before thewindow and staring out at the sun upon the tree-tops.
"I'm not afraid for her.... I'm not afraid for her."
He seemed to have forgotten that the younger man was in the room, for hedid not look toward him again or pay him any attention for a long while.He only gazed out of the window into the fresh morning sunlight, and hisface worked and quivered and his lean hands chafed restlessly togetherbefore him. But at last he seemed to realize where he was, for he turnedwith a sudden start and stared at Ste. Marie, frowning as if the youngerman were some one he had never seen before. He said:
"Ah, yes, yes. You were wanting to go out into the garden. Yes, quiteso. I--I was thinking of something else. I seem to be absent-minded oflate. Don't let me keep you here."
He seemed a little embarrassed and ill at ease, and Ste. Marie said:
"Oh, thanks. There's no hurry. However, I'll go, I think. It's aftereleven. I understand that I'm on my honor not to climb over the wall orburrow under it or batter it down. That's understood. I--"
He felt that he ought to say something in acknowledgment of O'Hara'slong speech about his daughter, but he could think of nothing to say,and, besides, the Irishman seemed not to expect any comment upon hisstrange outburst. So, in the end, Ste. Mari
e nodded and went out of theroom without further ceremony.
He had been astonished almost beyond words at that sudden andunlooked-for breakdown of the other man's impregnable reserve, and dimlyhe realized that it must have come out of some very extraordinarynervous strain, but he himself had been in no state to give theIrishman's words the attention and thought that he would have given themat another time. His mind, his whole field of mental vision, had beenfull of one great fact--_the girl was to be married to young ArthurBenham_. The thing loomed gigantic before him, and in some strange wayterrifying. He could neither see nor think beyond it. O'Hara's burst ofconfidence had reached his ears very faintly, as if from a greatdistance--poignant but only half-comprehended words to be reflected uponlater in their own time.
He stumbled down the ill-lighted stair with fixed, wide, unseeing eyes,and he said one sentence over and over aloud, as the Irishman standingbeside the window had said another.
"She is going to be married. She is going to be married."
It would seem that he must have forgotten his previous half-suspicion ofthe fact. It would seem to have remained, as at the first hearing, agreat and appalling shock, thunderous out of a blue sky.
Below, in the open, his feet led him mechanically straight down underthe trees, through the tangle of shrubbery beyond, and so to the wallunder the cedar. Arrived there, he awoke all at once to his task, andwith a sort of frowning anger shook off the dream which enveloped him.His eyes sharpened and grew keen and eager. He said:
"The last arrow! God send it reached home!" and so went in under thelilac shrubs.
He was there longer than usual; unhampered now, he may have made alarger search, but when at last he emerged Ste. Marie's hands were overhis face and his feet dragged slowly like an old man's feet.
Without knowing that he had stirred he found himself some distance away,standing still beside a chestnut-tree. A great wave of depression andfear and hopelessness swept him, and he shivered under it. He had aninstant's wild panic, and mad, desperate thoughts surged upon him. Hesaw utter failure confronting him. He saw himself as helpless as alittle child, his feeble efforts already spent for naught, and, like alittle child, he was afraid. He would have rushed at that grimencircling wall and fought his way up and over it, but even as theimpulse raced to his feet the momentary madness left him and he turnedaway. He could not do a dishonorable thing even for all he held dearest.
He walked on in the direction which lay before him, but he took no heedof where he went, and Mlle. Coira O'Hara spoke to him twice before heheard or saw her.
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