Cowperwood listened in silence. His position, in so far as this marital tangle was concerned, as he saw, was very advantageous. He was a convict, constrained by the exigencies of his position to be out of personal contact with his wife for a long period of time to come, which should naturally tend to school her to do without him. When he came out, it would be very easy for her to get a divorce from a convict, particularly if she could allege misconduct with another woman, which he would not deny. At the same time, he hoped to keep Aileen’s name out of it. Mrs. Cowperwood, if she would, could give any false name if he made no contest. Besides, she was not a very strong person, intellectually speaking. He could bend her to his will. There was no need of saying much more now; the ice had been broken, the situation had been put before her, and time should do the rest.
“Don’t be dramatic, Lillian,” he commented, indifferently. “I’m not such a loss to you if you have enough to live on. I don’t think I want to live in Philadelphia if ever I come out of here. My idea now is to go west, and I think I want to go alone. I sha’n’t get married right away again even if you do give me a divorce. I don’t care to take anybody along. It would be better for the children if you would stay here and divorce me. The public would think better of them and you.”
“I’ll not do it,” declared Mrs. Cowperwood, emphatically. “I’ll never do it, never; so there! You can say what you choose. You owe it to me to stick by me and the children after all I’ve done for you, and I’ll not do it. You needn’t ask me any more; I’ll not do it.”
“Very well,” replied Cowperwood, quietly, getting up. “We needn’t talk about it any more now. Your time is nearly up, anyhow.” (Twenty minutes was supposed to be the regular allotment for visitors.) “Perhaps you’ll change your mind sometime.”
She gathered up her muff and the shawl-strap in which she had carried her gifts, and turned to go. It had been her custom to kiss Cowperwood in a make-believe way up to this time, but now she was too angry to make this pretense. And yet she was sorry, too—sorry for herself and, she thought, for him.
“Frank,” she declared, dramatically, at the last moment, “I never saw such a man as you. I don’t believe you have any heart. You’re not worthy of a good wife. You’re worthy of just such a woman as you’re getting. The idea!” Suddenly tears came to her eyes, and she flounced scornfully and yet sorrowfully out.
Cowperwood stood there. At least there would be no more useless kissing between them, he congratulated himself. It was hard in a way, but purely from an emotional point of view. He was not doing her any essential injustice, he reasoned—not an economic one—which was the important thing. She was angry to-day, but she would get over it, and in time might come to see his point of view. Who could tell? At any rate he had made it plain to her what he intended to do and that was something as he saw it. He reminded one of nothing so much, as he stood there, as of a young chicken picking its way out of the shell of an old estate. Although he was in a cell of a penitentiary, with nearly four years more to serve, yet obviously he felt, within himself, that the whole world was still before him. He could go west if he could not reestablish himself in Philadelphia; but he must stay here long enough to win the approval of those who had known him formerly—to obtain, as it were, a letter of credit which he could carry to other parts.
“Hard words break no bones,” he said to himself, as his wife went out. “A man’s never done till he’s done. I’ll show some of these people yet.” Of Bonhag, who came to close the cell door, he asked whether it was going to rain, it looked so dark in the hall.
“It’s sure to before night,” replied Bonhag, who was always wondering over Cowperwood’s tangled affairs as he heard them retailed here and there.
Chapter LVII
The time that Cowperwood spent in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania was exactly thirteen months from the day of his entry to his discharge. The influences which brought about this result were partly of his willing, and partly not. For one thing, some six months after his incarceration, Edward Malia Butler died, expired sitting in his chair in his private office at his home. The conduct of Aileen had been a great strain on him. From the time Cowperwood had been sentenced, and more particularly after the time he had cried on Aileen’s shoulder in prison, she had turned on her father in an almost brutal way. Her attitude, unnatural for a child, was quite explicable as that of a tortured sweetheart. Cowperwood had told her that he thought Butler was using his influence to withhold a pardon for him, even though one were granted to Stener, whose life in prison he had been following with considerable interest; and this had enraged her beyond measure. She lost no chance of being practically insulting to her father, ignoring him on every occasion, refusing as often as possible to eat at the same table, and when she did, sitting next her mother in the place of Norah, with whom she managed to exchange. She refused to sing or play any more when he was present, and persistently ignored the large number of young political aspirants who came to the house, and whose presence in a way had been encouraged for her benefit. Old Butler realized, of course, what it was all about. He said nothing. He could not placate her.
Her mother and brothers did not understand it at all at first. (Mrs. Butler never understood.) But not long after Cowperwood’s incarceration Callum and Owen became aware of what the trouble was. Once, when Owen was coming away from a reception at one of the houses where his growing financial importance made him welcome, he heard one of two men whom he knew casually, say to the other, as they stood at the door adjusting their coats, “You saw where this fellow Cowperwood got four years, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” replied the other. “A clever devil that—wasn’t he? I knew that girl he was in with, too—you know who I mean. Miss Butler—wasn’t that her name?”
Owen was not sure that he had heard right. He did not get the connection until the other guest, opening the door and stepping out, remarked: “Well, old Butler got even, apparently. They say he sent him up.”
Owen’s brow clouded. A hard, contentious look came into his eyes. He had much of his father’s force. What in the devil were they talking about? What Miss Butler did they have in mind? Could this be Aileen or Norah, and how could Cowperwood come to be in with either of them? It could not possibly be Norah, he reflected; she was very much infatuated with a young man whom he knew, and was going to marry him. Aileen had been most friendly with the Cowperwoods, and had often spoken well of the financier. Could it be she? He could not believe it. He thought once of overtaking the two acquaintances and demanding to know what they meant, but when he came out on the step they were already some distance down the street and in the opposite direction from that in which he wished to go. He decided to ask his father about this.
On demand, old Butler confessed at once, but insisted that his son keep silent about it.
“I wish I’d have known,” said Owen, grimly. “I’d have shot the dirty dog.”
“Aisy, aisy,” said Butler. “Yer own life’s worth more than his, and ye’d only be draggin’ the rest of yer family in the dirt with him. He’s had somethin’ to pay him for his dirty trick, and he’ll have more. Just ye say nothin’ to no one. Wait. He’ll be wantin’ to get out in a year or two. Say nothin’ to her aither. Talkin’ won’t help there. She’ll come to her sinses when he’s been away long enough, I’m thinkin’.” Owen had tried to be civil to his sister after that, but since he was a stickler for social perfection and advancement, and so eager to get up in the world himself, he could not understand how she could possibly have done any such thing. He resented bitterly the stumbling-block she had put in his path. Now, among other things, his enemies would have this to throw in his face if they wanted to—and they would want to, trust life for that.
Callum reached his knowledge of the matter in quite another manner, but at about the same time. He was a member of an athletic club which had an attractive building in the city, and a fine country club, where he went occasionally to enjoy the swimming-pool and the Turkish
bath connected with it. One of his friends approached him there in the billiard-room one evening and said, “Say, Butler, you know I’m a good friend of yours, don’t you?”
“Why, certainly, I know it,” replied Callum. “What’s the matter?”
“Well, you know,” said the young individual, whose name was Richard Pethick, looking at Callum with a look of almost strained affection, “I wouldn’t come to you with any story that I thought would hurt your feelings or that you oughtn’t to know about, but I do think you ought to know about this.” He pulled at a high white collar which was choking his neck.
“I know you wouldn’t, Pethick,” replied Callum; very much interested. “What is it? What’s the point?”
“Well, I don’t like to say anything,” replied Pethick, “but that fellow Hibbs is saying things around here about your sister.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Callum, straightening up in the most dynamic way and bethinking him of the approved social procedure in all such cases. He should be very angry. He should demand and exact proper satisfaction in some form or other—by blows very likely if his honor had been in any way impugned. “What is it he says about my sister? What right has he to mention her name here, anyhow? He doesn’t know her.”
Pethick affected to be greatly concerned lest he cause trouble between Callum and Hibbs. He protested that he did not want to, when, in reality, he was dying to tell. At last he came out with, “Why, he’s circulated the yarn that your sister had something to do with this man Cowperwood, who was tried here recently, and that that’s why he’s just gone to prison.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Callum, losing the make-believe of the unimportant, and taking on the serious mien of some one who feels desperately. “He says that, does he? Where is he? I want to see if he’ll say that to me.”
Some of the stern fighting ability of his father showed in his slender, rather refined young face.
“Now, Callum,” insisted Pethick, realizing the genuine storm he had raised, and being a little fearful of the result, “do be careful what you say. You mustn’t have a row in here. You know it’s against the rules. Besides he may be drunk. It’s just some foolish talk he’s heard, I’m sure. Now, for goodness’ sake, don’t get so excited.” Pethick, having evoked the storm, was not a little nervous as to its results in his own case. He, too, as well as Callum, himself as the tale-bearer, might now be involved.
But Callum by now was not so easily restrained. His face was quite pale, and he was moving toward the old English grill-room, where Hibbs happened to be, consuming a brandy-and-soda with a friend of about his own age. Callum entered and called him.
“Oh, Hibbs!” he said.
Hibbs, hearing his voice and seeing him in the door, arose and came over. He was an interesting youth of the collegiate type, educated at Princeton. He had heard the rumor concerning Aileen from various sources—other members of the club, for one—and had ventured to repeat it in Pethick’s presence.
“What’s that you were just saying about my sister?” asked Callum, grimly, looking Hibbs in the eye.
“Why—I—” hesitated Hibbs, who sensed trouble and was eager to avoid it. He was not exceptionally brave and looked it. His hair was straw-colored, his eyes blue, and his cheeks pink. “Why—nothing in particular. Who said I was talking about her?” He looked at Pethick, whom he knew to be the tale-bearer, and the latter exclaimed, excitedly:
“Now don’t you try to deny it, Hibbs. You know I heard you?”
“Well, what did I say?” asked Hibbs, defiantly.
“Well, what did you say?” interrupted Callum, grimly, transferring the conversation to himself. “That’s just what I want to know.”
“Why,” stammered Hibbs, nervously, “I don’t think I’ve said anything that anybody else hasn’t said. I just repeated that some one said that your sister had been very friendly with Mr. Cowperwood. I didn’t say any more than I have heard other people say around here.”
“Oh, you didn’t, did you?” exclaimed Callum, withdrawing his hand from his pocket and slapping Hibbs in the face. He repeated the blow with his left hand, fiercely. “Perhaps that’ll teach you to keep my sister’s name out of your mouth, you pup!”
Hibbs’s arms flew up. He was not without pugilistic training, and he struck back vigorously, striking Callum once in the chest and once in the neck. In an instant the two rooms of this suite were in an uproar. Tables and chairs were overturned by the energy of men attempting to get to the scene of action. The two combatants were quickly separated; sides were taken by the friends of each, excited explanations attempted and defied. Callum was examining the knuckles of his left hand, which were cut from the blow he had delivered. He maintained a gentlemanly calm. Hibbs, very much flustered and excited, insisted that he had been most unreasonably used. The idea of attacking him here. And, anyhow, as he maintained now, Pethick had been both eavesdropping and lying about him. Incidentally, the latter was protesting to others that he had done the only thing which an honorable friend could do. It was a nine days’ wonder in the club, and was only kept out of the newspapers by the most strenuous efforts on the part of the friends of both parties. Callum was so outraged on discovering that there was some foundation for the rumor at the club in a general rumor which prevailed that he tendered his resignation, and never went there again.
“I wish to heaven you hadn’t struck that fellow,” counseled Owen, when the incident was related to him. “It will only make more talk. She ought to leave this place; but she won’t. She’s struck on that fellow yet, and we can’t tell Norah and mother. We will never hear the last of this, you and I—believe me.”
“Damn it, she ought to be made to go,” exclaimed Callum.
“Well, she won’t,” replied Owen. “Father has tried making her, and she won’t go. Just let things stand. He’s in the penitentiary now, and that’s probably the end of him. The public seem to think that father put him there, and that’s something. Maybe we can persuade her to go after a while. I wish to God we had never had sight of that fellow. If ever he comes out, I’ve a good notion to kill him.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do anything like that,” replied Callum. “It’s useless. It would only stir things up afresh. He’s done for, anyhow.”
They planned to urge Norah to marry as soon as possible. And as for their feelings toward Aileen, it was a very chilly atmosphere which Mrs. Butler contemplated from now on, much to her confusion, grief, and astonishment.
In this divided world it was that Butler eventually found himself, all at sea as to what to think or what to do. He had brooded so long now, for months, and as yet had found no solution. And finally, in a form of religious despair, sitting at his desk, in his business chair, he had collapsed—a weary and disconsolate man of seventy. A lesion of the left ventricle was the immediate physical cause, although brooding over Aileen was in part the mental one. His death could not have been laid to his grief over Aileen exactly, for he was a very large man—apoplectic and with sclerotic veins and arteries. For a great many years now he had taken very little exercise, and his digestion had been considerably impaired thereby. He was past seventy, and his time had been reached. They found him there the next morning, his hands folded in his lap, his head on his bosom, quite cold.
He was buried with honors out of St. Timothy’s Church, the funeral attended by a large body of politicians and city officials, who discussed secretly among themselves whether his grief over his daughter had anything to do with his end. All his good deeds were remembered, of course, and Mollenhauer and Simpson sent great floral emblems in remembrance. They were very sorry that he was gone, for they had been a cordial three. But gone he was, and that ended their interest in the matter. He left all of his property to his wife in one of the shortest wills ever recorded locally.
“I give and bequeath to my beloved wife, Norah, all my property of whatsoever kind to be disposed of as she may see fit.”
There was no misconstruing this. A private paper dra
wn secretly for her sometime before by Butler, explained how the property should be disposed of by her at her death. It was Butler’s real will masquerading as hers, and she would not have changed it for worlds; but he wanted her left in undisturbed possession of everything until she should die. Aileen’s originally assigned portion had never been changed. According to her father’s will, which no power under the sun could have made Mrs. Butler alter, she was left $250,000 to be paid at Mrs. Butler’s death. Neither this fact nor any of the others contained in the paper were communicated by Mrs. Butler, who retained it to be left as her will. Aileen often wondered, but never sought to know, what had been left her. Nothing she fancied—but felt that she could not help this.
Butler’s death led at once to a great change in the temper of the home. After the funeral the family settled down to a seemingly peaceful continuance of the old life; but it was a matter of seeming merely. The situation stood with Callum and Owen manifesting a certain degree of contempt for Aileen, which she, understanding, reciprocated. She was very haughty. Owen had plans of forcing her to leave after Butler’s death, but he finally asked himself what was the use. Mrs. Butler, who did not want to leave the old home, was very fond of Aileen, so therein lay a reason for letting her remain. Besides, any move to force her out would have entailed an explanation to her mother, which was not deemed advisable. Owen himself was interested in Caroline Mollenhauer, whom he hoped some day to marry—as much for her prospective wealth as for any other reason, though he was quite fond of her. In the January following Butler’s death, which occurred in August, Norah was married very quietly, and the following spring Callum embarked on a similar venture.
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