A Poor Wise Man

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER III

  All through her teens Lily had wondered about the mystery concerning herAunt Elinor. There was an oil portrait of her in the library, and one ofthe first things she had been taught was not to speak of it.

  Now and then, at intervals of years, Aunt Elinor came back. Her motherand father would look worried, and Aunt Elinor herself would stay in herrooms, and seldom appeared at meals. Never at dinner. As a child Lilyused to think she had two Aunt Elinors, one the young girl in the giltframe, and the other the quiet, soft-voiced person who slipped aroundthe upper corridors like a ghost.

  But she was not to speak of either of them to her grandfather.

  Lily was not born in the house on lower East Avenue.

  In the late eighties Anthony built himself a home, not on the farm, butin a new residence portion of the city. The old common, grazing groundof family cows, dump and general eye-sore, had become a park by thattime, still only a potentially beautiful thing, with the trees that wereto be its later glory only thin young shoots, and on the streets thatfaced it the wealthy of the city built their homes, brick houses ofsquare solidity, flush with brick pavements, which were carefullyreddened on Saturday mornings. Beyond the pavements were cobble-stonedstreets. Anthony Cardew was the first man in the city to have arubber-tired carriage. The story of Anthony Cardew's new home is thestory of Elinor's tragedy. Nor did it stop there. It carried on to thethird generation, to Lily Cardew, and in the end it involved the cityitself. Because of the ruin of one small home all homes were threatened.One small house, and one undying hatred.

  Yet the matter was small in itself. An Irishman named Doyle owned thesite Anthony coveted. After years of struggle his small grocery hadbegun to put him on his feet, and now the new development of theneighborhood added to his prosperity. He was a dried-up, sentimentallittle man, with two loves, his wife's memory and his wife's garden,which he still tended religiously between customers; and one ambition,his son. With the change from common to park, and the improvement in theneighborhood, he began to flourish, and he, too, like Anthony, dreameda dream. He would make his son a gentleman, and he would get a shopassistant and a horse and wagon. Poverty was still his lot, but therewere good times coming. He saved carefully, and sent Jim Doyle away tocollege.

  He would not sell to Anthony. When he said he could not sell his wife'sgarden, Anthony's agents reported him either mad or deeply scheming.They kept after him, offering much more than the land was worth. Doylebegan by being pugnacious, but in the end he took to brooding.

  "He'll get me yet," he would mutter, standing among the white phlox ofhis little back garden. "He'll get me. He never quits."

  Anthony Cardew waited a year. Then he had the frame building condemnedas unsafe, and Doyle gave in. Anthony built his house. He put a brickstable where the garden had been, and the night watchman for theproperty complained that a little man, with wild eyes, often spent halfthe night standing across the street, quite still, staring over. IfAnthony gave Doyle a thought, it was that progress and growth had theirinevitable victims. But on the first night of Anthony's occupancy of hisnew house Doyle shot himself beside the stable, where a few stalks ofwhite phlox had survived the building operations.

  It never reached the newspapers, nor did a stable-boy's story of hearingthe dying man curse Anthony and all his works. But nevertheless thestory of the Doyle curse on Anthony Cardew spread. Anthony heard it, andforgot it. But two days later he was dragged from his carriage by youngJim Doyle, returned for the older Doyle's funeral, and beaten insensiblewith the stick of his own carriage whip.

  Young Doyle did not run away. He stood by, a defiant figure full ofhatred, watching Anthony on the cobbles, as though he wanted to see himrevive and suffer.

  "I didn't do it to revenge my father," he said at the trial. "He wasnothing to me--I did it to show old Cardew that he couldn't get awaywith it. I'd do it again, too."

  Any sentiment in his favor died at that, and he was given five yearsin the penitentiary. He was a demoralizing influence there, already asocialist with anarchical tendencies, and with the gift of influencingmen. A fluent, sneering youth, who lashed the guards to fury with hisunctuous, diabolical tongue.

  The penitentiary had not been moved then. It stood in the park, a grimgray thing of stone. Elinor Cardew, a lonely girl always, used to standin a window of the new house and watch the walls. Inside there were menwho were shut away from all that greenery around them. Men who couldlook up at the sky, or down at the ground, but never out and across, asshe could.

  She was always hoping some of them would get away. She hated thesentries, rifle on shoulder, who walked their monotonous beats, back andforward, along the top of the wall.

  Anthony's house was square and substantial, with high ceilings. It waspaneled with walnut and furnished in walnut, in those days. Its tablesand bureaus were of walnut, with cold white marble tops. And in theparlor was a square walnut piano, which Elinor hated because she hadto sit there three hours each day, slipping on the top of thehorsehair-covered stool, to practice. In cold weather her Germangoverness sat in the frigid room, with a shawl and mittens, waitinguntil the onyx clock on the mantel-piece showed that the three hourswere over.

  Elinor had never heard the story of old Michael Doyle, or of his sonJim. But one night--she was seventeen then, and Jim Doyle had servedthree years of his sentence--sitting at dinner with her father, shesaid:

  "Some convicts escaped from the penitentiary today, father."

  "Don't believe it," said Anthony Cardew. "Nothing about it in thenewspapers."

  "Fraulein saw the hole."

  Elinor had had an Alsatian governess. That was one reason why Elinor'sniece had a French one.

  "Hole? What do you mean by hole?"

  Elinor shrank back a little. She had not minded dining with her fatherwhen Howard was at home, but Howard was at college. Howard had a wayof good-naturedly ignoring his father's asperities, but Elinor was asuppressed, shy little thing, romantic, aloof, and filled with undesiredaffections. "She said a hole," she affirmed, diffidently. "She says theydug a tunnel and got out. Last night."

  "Very probably," said Anthony Cardew. And he repeated, thoughtfully,"Very probably."

  He did not hear Elinor when she quietly pushed back her chair and said"good-night." He was sitting at the table, tapping on the cloth withfinger-tips that were slightly cold. That evening Anthony Cardew hada visit from the police, and considerable fiery talk took place in hislibrary. As a result there was a shake-up in city politics, and a changein the penitentiary management, for Anthony Cardew had a heavy handand a bitter memory. And a little cloud on his horizon grew and finallysettled down over his life, turning it gray. Jim Doyle was among thosewho had escaped. For three months Anthony was followed wherever he wentby detectives, and his house was watched at night. But he was a braveman, and the espionage grew hateful. Besides, each day added to hissense of security. There came a time when he impatiently dismissed thepolice, and took up life again as before.

  Then one day he received a note, in a plain white envelope. It said:"There are worse things than death." And it was signed: "J. Doyle."

  Doyle was not recaptured. Anthony had iron gratings put on the lowerwindows of his house after that, and he hired a special watchman. Butnothing happened, and at last he began to forget. He was building thenew furnaces up the river by that time. The era of structural steel fortall buildings was beginning, and he bought the rights of a process formaking cement out of his furnace slag. He was achieving great wealth,although he did not change his scale of living.

  Now and then Fraulein braved the terrors of the library, smallneatly-written lists in her hands. Miss Elinor needed this or that. Hewould check up the lists, sign his name to them, and Elinor and Frauleinwould have a shopping excursion. He never gave Elinor money.

  On one of the lists one day he found the word, added in Elinor's hand:"Horse."

  "Horse?" he said, scowling up at Fraulein. "There are six horses in thestable now."

>   "Miss Elinor thought--a riding horse--"

  "Nonsense!" Then he thought a moment. There came back to him a pictureof those English gentlewomen from among whom he had selected his wife,quiet-voiced, hard-riding, high-colored girls, who could hunt all dayand dance all night. Elinor was a pale little thing. Besides, everygentlewoman should ride.

  "She can't ride around here."

  "Miss Elinor thought--there are bridle paths near the riding academy."

  It was odd, but at that moment Anthony Cardew had an odd sort of vision.He saw the little grocer lying stark and huddled among the phlox by thestable, and the group of men that stooped over him.

  "I'll think about it," was his answer.

  But within a few days Elinor was the owner of a quiet mare, stabled atthe academy, and was riding each day in the tan bark ring between itswhite-washed fences, while a mechanical piano gave an air of festivityto what was otherwise rather a solemn business.

  Within a week of that time the riding academy had a new instructor, atall, thin young man, looking older than he was, with heavy dark hairand a manner of repressed insolence. A man, the grooms said amongthemselves, of furious temper and cold eyes.

  And in less than four months Elinor Cardew ran away from home and wasmarried to Jim Doyle. Anthony received two letters from a distant city,a long, ecstatic but terrified one from his daughter, and one line ona slip of paper from her husband. The one line read: "I always pay mydebts."

  Anthony made a new will, leaving Howard everything, and had Elinor'srooms closed. Fraulein went away, weeping bitterly, and time went on.Now and then Anthony heard indirectly from Doyle. He taught in a boys'school for a time, and was dismissed for his radical views. He didbrilliant editorial work on a Chicago newspaper, but now and then heintruded his slant-eyed personal views, and in the end he lost hisposition. Then he joined the Socialist party, and was making speechescontaining radical statements that made the police of various citieswatchful. But he managed to keep within the letter of the law.

  Howard Cardew married when Elinor had been gone less than a year.Married the daughter of a small hotel-keeper in his college town, apretty, soft-voiced girl, intelligent and gentle, and because Howard wasall old Anthony had left, he took her into his home. But for many yearshe did not forgive her. He had one hope, that she would give Howard ason to carry on the line. Perhaps the happiest months of Grace Cardew'smarried life were those before Lily was born, when her delicate healthwas safeguarded in every way by her grim father-in-law. But Grace borea girl child, and very nearly died in the bearing. Anthony Cardew wouldnever have a grandson.

  He was deeply resentful. The proud fabric of his own weaving woulddescend in the fullness of time to a woman. And Howard himself--oldAnthony was pitilessly hard in his judgments--Howard was not a strongman. A good man. A good son, better than he deserved. But amiable,kindly, without force.

  Once the cloud had lifted, and only once. Elinor had come home to have achild. She came at night, a shabby, worn young woman, with great eyes ina chalk-white face, and Grayson had not recognized her at first. Hegot her some port from the dining-room before he let her go into thelibrary, and stood outside the door, his usually impassive face working,during the interview which followed. Probably that was Grayson's bighour, for if Anthony turned her out he intended to go in himself, andfight for the woman he had petted as a child.

  But Anthony had not turned her out. He took one comprehensive glance ather thin face and distorted figure. Then he said:

  "So this is the way you come back."

  "He drove me out," she said dully. "He sent me here. He knew I had noplace else to go. He knew you wouldn't want me. It's revenge, I suppose.I'm so tired, father."

  Yes, it was revenge, surely. To send back to him this soiled and brokenwoman, bearing the mark he had put upon her--that was deviltry, thoughtout and shrewdly executed. During the next hour Anthony Cardew suffered,and made Elinor suffer, too. But at the end of that time he foundhimself confronting a curious situation. Elinor, ashamed, humbled, wasnot contrite. It began to dawn on Anthony that Jim Doyle's revenge wasnot finished. For--Elinor loved the man.

  She both hated him and loved him. And that leering Irish devil knew it.

  He sent for Grace, finally, and Elinor was established in the house.Grace and little Lily's governess had themselves bathed her and puther to bed, and Mademoiselle had smuggled out of the house the garmentsElinor had worn into it. Grace had gone in the motor--one of the firstin the city--and had sent back all sorts of lovely garments for Elinorto wear, and quantities of fine materials to be made into tiny garments.Grace was a practical woman, and she disliked the brooding look inElinor's eyes.

  "Do you know," she said to Howard that night, "I believe she is quitemad about him still."

  "He ought to be drawn and quartered," said Howard, savagely.

  Anthony Cardew gave Elinor sanctuary, but he refused to see her again.Except once.

  "Then, if it is a boy, you want me to leave him with you?" she asked,bending over her sewing.

  "Leave him with me! Do you mean that you intend to go back to thatblackguard?"

  "He is my husband. He isn't always cruel."

  "Good God!" shouted Anthony. "How did I ever happen to have such acraven creature for a daughter?"

  "Anyhow," said Elinor, "it will be his child, father."

  "When he turned you out, like any drab of the streets!" bellowed oldAnthony. "He never cared for you. He married you to revenge himself onme. He sent you back here for the same reason. He'll take your child,and break its spirit and ruin its body, for the same reason. The man's amaniac."

  But again, as on the night she came, he found himself helpless againstElinor's quiet impassivity. He knew that, let Jim Doyle so much as raisea beckoning finger, and she would go to him. He did not realize thatElinor had inherited from her quiet mother the dog-like quality oflove in spite of cruelty. To Howard he stormed. He considered Elinor'sinfatuation indecent. She was not a Cardew. The Cardew women had somepride. And Howard, his handsome figure draped negligently against thelibrary mantel, would puzzle over it, too.

  "I'm blessed if I understand it," he would say.

  Elinor's child had been a boy, and old Anthony found some balm inGilead. Jim Doyle had not raised a finger to beckon, and if he knew ofhis son, he made no sign. Anthony still ignored Elinor, but he saw inher child the third generation of Cardews. Lily he had never counted. Hetook steps to give the child the Cardew name, and the fact was announcedin the newspapers. Then one day Elinor went out, and did not come back.It was something Anthony Cardew had not counted on, that a woman couldlove a man more than her child.

  "I simply had to do it, father," she wrote. "You won't understand, ofcourse. I love him, father. Terribly. And he loves me in his way, evenwhen he is unfaithful to me. I know he has been that. Perhaps if you hadwanted me at home it would have been different. But it kills me to leavethe baby. The only reason I can bring myself to do it is that, the waythings are, I cannot give him the things he ought to have. And Jim doesnot seem to want him. He has never seen him, for one thing. Besides--Iam being honest--I don't think the atmosphere of the way we live wouldbe good for a boy."

  There was a letter to Grace, too, a wild hysterical document, filledwith instructions for the baby's care. A wet nurse, for one thing. Graceread it with tears in her eyes, but Anthony saw in it only the ravingsof a weak and unbalanced woman.

  He never forgave Elinor, and once more the little grocer's cursethwarted his ambitions. For, deprived of its mother's milk, the babydied. Old Anthony sometimes wondered if that, too, had been calculated,a part of the Doyle revenge.