CHAPTER XXXVI
When Lily had been at home for some time, and Louis Akers had made noattempt to see her, or to announce the marriage, the vigilance of thehousehold began to relax. Howard Cardew had already consulted the familylawyer about an annulment, and that gentleman had sent a letter toAkers, which had received no reply.
Then one afternoon Grayson, whose instructions had been absolute as toadmitting Akers to the house, opened the door to Mrs. Denslow, who wascalling, and found behind that lady Louis Akers himself. He made aneffort to close the door behind the lady, but Akers was too quick forhim, and a scene at the moment was impossible.
He ushered Mrs. Denslow into the drawing room, and coming out, closedthe doors.
"My instructions, sir, are to say to you that the ladies are not athome."
But Akers held out his hat and gloves with so ugly a look that Graysontook them.
"I have come to see my wife," he said. "Tell her that, and that if shedoesn't see me here I'll go upstairs and find her."
When Grayson still hesitated he made a move toward the staircase, andthe elderly servant, astounded at the speech and the movement, put downthe hat and faced him.
"I do not recognize any one in the household by that name, sir."
"You don't, don't you? Very well. Tell Miss Cardew I am here, and thateither she will come down or I'll go up. I'll wait in the library."
He watched Grayson start up the stairs, and then went into the library.He was very carefully dressed, and momentarily exultant over the successof his ruse, but he was uneasy, too, and wary, and inclined to regardthe house as a possible trap. He had made a gambler's venture, riskingeverything on the cards he held, and without much confidence in them.His vanity declined to believe that his old power over Lily was gone,but he had held a purely physical dominance over so many women that heknew both his strength and his limitations.
What he could not understand, what had kept him awake so many nightssince he had seen her, was her recoil from him on Willy Cameron'sannouncement. She had known he had led the life of his sort; hehad never played the plaster saint to her. And she had accepted herknowledge of his connection with the Red movement, on his mere promiseto reform. But this other, this accident, and she had turned from himwith a horror that made him furious to remember. These silly star-eyedvirgins, who accepted careful abstractions and then turned sick at lifeitself, a man was a fool to put himself in their hands.
Mademoiselle was with Lily in her boudoir when Grayson came up, a thin,tired-faced, suddenly old Mademoiselle, much given those days to earlymasses, during which she prayed for eternal life for the man who hadruined Lily's life, and that soon. To Mademoiselle marriage was a finalthing and divorce a wickedness against God and His establishment onearth.
Lily, rather like Willy Cameron, was finding on her spirit at that timea burden similar to his, of keeping up the morale of the household.
Grayson came in and closed the door behind him. Anger and anxiety werein his worn old face, and Lily got up quickly. "What is it, Grayson?"
"I'm sorry, Miss Lily. He was in the vestibule behind Mrs. Denslow, andI couldn't keep him out. I think he had waited for some one to call,knowing I couldn't make a scene."
Mademoiselle turned to Lily.
"You must not see him," she said in rapid French. "Remain here, and Ishall telephone for your father. Lock your door. He may come up. He willdo anything, that man."
"I am going down," Lily said quietly. "I owe him that. You need notbe frightened. And don't tell mother; it will only worry her and do nogood."
Her heart was beating fast as she went down the stairs. From the drawingroom came the voices of Grace and Mrs. Denslow, chatting amiably. Thesecond man was carrying in tea, the old silver service gleaming. Overall the lower floor was an air of peace and comfort, the passionlessatmosphere of daily life running in old and easy grooves.
When Lily entered the library she closed the door behind her. She had,on turning, a swift picture of Grayson, taking up his stand in the hall,and it gave her a sense of comfort. She knew he would remain there,impassively waiting, so long as Akers was in the house.
Then she faced the man standing by the center table. He made no movetoward her, did not even speak at once. It left on her the burden of theopening, of setting the key of what was to come. She was steady enoughnow.
"Perhaps it is as well that you came, Louis," she said. "I suppose wemust talk it over some time."
"Yes," he agreed, his eyes on her. "We must. I have married a wife, andI want her, Lily."
"You know that is impossible."
"Because of something that happened before I knew you? I never madeany pretensions about my life before we met. But I did promise to gostraight if you'd have me, and I have. I've lived up to my bargain. Whatabout you?"
"It was not a part of my bargain to marry you while you--I have thoughtand thought, Louis. There is only one thing to be done. You will have todivorce me, and marry her."
"Marry her? A girl of the streets, who chooses to say that I am thefather of her child! It's the oldest trick in the word. Besides--" Heplayed his best card--"she won't marry me. Ask Cameron, who chose tomake himself so damned busy about my affairs. He's in love with her. Askhim."
In spite of herself Lily winced. Out of the wreckage of the past fewweeks one thing had seemed to remain, something to hold to, solid anddependable and fine, and that had been Willy Cameron. She had found, inthese last days, something infinitely comforting in the thought that hecared for her. It was because he had cared that he had saved her fromherself. But, if this were true--
"I am not going back to you, Louis. I think you know that. No amount oftalking about things can change that."
"Why don't you face life and try to understand it?" he demanded,brutally. "Men are like that. Women are like that--sometimes. You can'tmeasure human passions with a tape line. That's what you good women tryto do, and you make life a merry little hell." He made an effort, andsoftened his voice. "I'll be true to you, Lily, if you'll come back."
"No," she said, "you would mean to be, but you would not. You have nofoundation to build on."
"Meaning that I am not a gentleman."
"Not that. I know you, that's all. I understand so much that I didn'tbefore. What you call love is only something different. When that wasgone there would be the same thing again. You would be sorry, but Iwould be lost."
Her coolness disconcerted him. Two small triangular bits of color showedin his face. He had been prepared for tears, even for a refusal toreturn, but this clear-eyed appraisal of himself, and the accuracy ofit, confused him. He took refuge in the only method he knew; he threwhimself on her pity; he made violent, passionate love to her, but heronly expression was one of distaste. When at last he caught her to himshe perforce submitted, a frozen thing that told him, more than anywords, how completely he had lost her. He threw her away from him, then,baffled and angry.
"You little devil!" he said. "You cold little devil!"
"I don't love you. That's all. I think now that I never did."
"You pretended damned well."
"Don't you think you'd better go?" Lily said wearily. "I don't like tohurt you. I am to blame for a great deal. But there is no use going on,is there? I'll give you your freedom as soon as I can. You will wantthat, of course."
"My freedom! Do you think I am going to let you go like that? I'll fightyou and your family in every court in the country before I give you up.You can't bring Edith Boyd up against me, either. If she does that I'llbring up other witnesses, other men, and she knows it."
Lily was very pale, but still calm. She made a movement toward the bell,but he caught her hand before she could ring it.
"I'll get your Willy Cameron, too," he said, his face distorted withanger. "I'll get him good. You've done a bad thing for your friends andyour family to-day, Lily. I'll go the limit on getting back at them.I've got the power, and by God, I'll use it."
He flung out into the hall, and toward the door
. There he encounteredGrayson, who reminded him of his hat and gloves, or he would have gonewithout them.
Grayson, going into the library a moment later, found Lily standingthere, staring ahead and trembling violently. He brought her a cup oftea, and stood by, his old face working, while she drank it.
CHAPTER XXXVII
The strike had apparently settled down to the ordinary run of strikes.The newspaper men from New York were gradually recalled, as the milltowns became orderly, and no further acts of violence took place. Hereand there mills that had gone down fired their furnaces again and wentback to work, many with depleted shifts, however.
But the strikers had lost, and knew it. Howard Cardew, facing thesituation with his customary honesty, saw in the gradual return ofthe men to work only the urgency of providing for their families, andrealized that it was not peace that was coming, but an armed neutrality.The Cardew Mills were still down, but by winter he was confident theywould be open again. To what purpose? To more wrangling and bickering,more strikes? Where was the middle ground? He was willing to give themen a percentage of the profits they made. He did not want great wealth,only an honest return for his invested capital. But he wanted to managehis own business. It was his risk.
The coal miners were going out. The Cardews owned coal mines. The minerswanted to work a minimum day for a maximum wage, but the country musthave coal. Shorter hours meant more men for the mines, and they wouldhave to be imported. But labor resented the importation of foreignworkers.
Again, what was the answer?
Still, he was grateful for peace. The strike dragged on, with onlyoccasional acts of violence. From the hill above Baxter a sniper dailyfired with a long range rifle at the toluol tank in the center of oneof the mills, and had so far escaped capture, as the tank had escapeddamage. But he knew well enough that a long strike was playing into thehands of the Reds. It was impossible to sow the seeds of revolutionso long as a man's dinner-pail was full, his rent paid, and his familycontented. But a long strike, with bank accounts becoming exhausted andcredit curtailed, would pave the way for revolution.
Old Anthony had had a drastic remedy for strikes.
"Let all the storekeepers, the country over, refuse credit to thestrikers, and we'd have an end to this mess," he said.
"We'd have an end to the storekeepers, too," Howard had replied, grimly.
One good thing had come out of the bomb outrages. They had had asalutary effect on the honest labor element. These had no sympathy withsuch methods and said so. But a certain element, both native and foreignborn, secretly gloated and waited.
One thing surprised and irritated Howard. Public sentiment was not somuch with the strikers, as against the mill owners. The strike workeda hardship to the stores and small businesses dependent on thegreat mills; they forgot the years when the Cardews had brought themprosperity, had indeed made them possible, and they felt now onlybitter resentment at the loss of trade. In his anger Howard saw them asparasites, fattening on the conceptions and strength of those who hadmade the city. They were men who built nothing, originated nothing. Menwho hated the ladder by which they had climbed, who cared little howshaky its foundation, so long as it stood.
In September, lured by a false security, the governor ordered thedemobilization of the state troops, save for two companies. The men atthe Baxter and Friendship plants, owned by the Cardews, had voted toremain out, but their leaders appeared to have them well in hand, andno trouble was anticipated. The agents of the Department of Justice,however, were still suspicious. The foreigners had plenty of money.Given as they were to hoarding their savings in their homes, the localbanks were unable to say if they were drawing on their reserves or werebeing financed from the outside.
Shortly before the mayoralty election trouble broke out in the westernend of the state, and in the north, in the steel towns. There were uglyriotings, bombs were sent through the mails, the old tactics of nightshootings and destruction of property began. In the threatening chaosBaxter and Friendship, and the city nearby, stood out by contrast fortheir very orderliness. The state constabulary remained in diminishednumbers, a still magnificent body of men but far too few for any realemergency, and the Federal agents, suspicious but puzzled, were removedto more turbulent fields.
The men constituting the Vigilance Committee began to feel a senseof futility, almost of absurdity. They had armed and enrolledthemselves--against what? The growth of the organization slowed down,but it already numbered thousands of members. Only its leaders retainedtheir faith in its ultimate necessity, and they owed perhaps more thanthey realized to Willy Cameron's own conviction.
It was owing to him that the city was divided into a series of zones, sothat notification of an emergency could be made rapidly by telephone andmessenger. Owing to him, too, was a new central office, with some oneon duty day and night. Rather ironically, the new quarters were thedismantled rooms of the Myers Housecleaning Company.
On the day after his proposal to Edith, Willy Cameron received anunexpected holiday. Mrs. Davis, the invalid wife of the owner of theEagle Pharmacy, died and the store was closed. He had seen Edith foronly a few moments that morning, but it was understood then that themarriage would take place either that day or the next.
He had been physically so weary the night before that he had slept, butthe morning found him with a heaviness of spirit that he could not throwoff. The exaltation of the night before was gone, and all that remainedwas a dogged sense of a duty to be done. Although he smiled at Edith,his face remained with her all through the morning.
"I'll make it up to him," she thought, humbly. "I'll make it up to himsomehow."
Then, with Ellen out doing her morning marketing, she heard thefeeble thump of a cane overhead which was her mother's signal. She wasdetermined not to see her mother again until she could say that she wasmarried, but the thumping continued, and was followed by the crash of abroken glass.
"She's trying to get up!" Edith thought, panicky. "If she gets up itwill kill her."
She stood at the foot of the stairs, scarcely breathing, and listened.There was a dreadful silence above. She stole up, finally, to where shecould see her mother. Mrs. Boyd was still in her bed, but lying withopen eyes, unmoving.
"Mother," she called, and ran in. "Mother."
Mrs. Boyd glanced at her.
"I thought that glass would bring you," she said sharply, but withdifficulty. "I want you to stand over there and let me look at you."
Edith dropped on her knees beside the bed, and caught her mother's hand.
"Don't! Don't talk like that, mother," she begged. "I know what youmean. It's all right, mother. Honestly it is. I--I'm married, mother."
"You wouldn't lie to me, Edith?"
"No. I'm telling you. I've been married a long time. You--don't youworry, mother. You just lie there and quit worrying. It's all right."
There was a sudden light in the sick woman's eyes, an eager light thatflared up and died away again.
"Who to?" she asked. "If it's some corner loafer, Edie--" Edith hadgained new courage and new facility. Anything was right that drove thetortured look from her mother's eyes.
"You can ask him when he comes home this evening."
"Edie! Not Willy?"
"You've guessed it," said Edith, and burying her face in the bedclothing, said a little prayer, to be forgiven for the lie and for allthat she had done, to be more worthy thereafter, and in the end to earnthe love of the man who was like God to her.
There are lies and lies. Now and then the Great Recorder must put oneon the credit side of the balance, one that has saved intolerablesuffering, or has made well and happy a sick soul.
Mrs. Boyd lay back and closed her eyes.
"I haven't been so tickled since the day you were born," she said.
She put out a thin hand and laid it on the girl's bowed head. When Edithmoved, a little later, her mother was asleep, with a new look of peaceon her face.
It was necessary before Ellen saw her moth
er to tell her what she haddone. She shrank from doing it. It was one thing for Willy to have doneit, to have told her the plan, but Edith was secretly afraid of Ellen.And Ellen's reception of the news justified her fears.
"And you'd take him that way!" she said, scornfully. "You'd hide behindhim, besides spoiling his life for him! It sounds like him to offer, andit's like you to accept."
"It's to save mother," said Edith, meekly.
"It's to save yourself. You can't fool me. And if you think I'm going tosit by and let him do it, you can think again."
"It's as good as done," Edith flashed. "I've told mother."
"That you're going to be, or that you are?"
"That we are married."
"All right," Ellen said triumphantly. "She's quiet and peaceful now,isn't she? You don't have to get married now, do you? You take myadvice, and let it go at that."
It was then that Edith realized what she had done. He would still marryher, of course, but behind all his anxiety to save her had been the realactuating motive of his desire to relieve her mother's mind. That wasdone now. Then, could she let him sacrifice himself for her?
She could. She could and she would. She set her small mouth firmly, andconfronted the future; she saw herself, without his strength to supporther, going down and down. She remembered those drabs of the street onwhom she had turned such cynical eyes in her virtuous youth, and she sawherself one of that lost sisterhood, sodden, hectic, hopeless.
When Willy Cameron left the pharmacy that day it was almost noon. Hewent to the house of mourning first, and found Mr. Davis in a chair ina closed room, a tired little man in a new black necktie around a notover-clean collar, his occupation of years gone, confronting a new andterrible leisure that he did not know how to use.
"You know how it is, Willy," he said, blinking his reddened eyelids."You kind of wish sometimes that you had somebody to help you bear yourburden, and then it's taken away, but you're kind of bent over and usedto it. And you'd give your neck and all to have it back."
Willy Cameron pondered that on his way up the street.
There was one great longing in him, to see Lily again. In a few hoursnow he would have taken a wife, and whatever travesty of marriageresulted, he would have to keep away from Lily. He meant to play squarewith Edith.
He wondered if it would hurt Lily to see him, remind her of things shemust be trying to forget. He decided in the end that it would hurt her,so he did not go. But he walked, on his way to see Pink Denslow at thetemporary bank, through a corner of the park near the house, and took asort of formal and heart-breaking farewell of her.
Time had been when life had seemed only a long, long trail, with Lily atthe end of it somewhere, like water to the thirsty traveler, or home tothe wanderer; like a camp fire at night. But now, life seemed to him abroad highway, infinitely crowded, down which he must move, surroundedyet alone.
But at least he could walk in the middle of the road, in the sunlight.It was the weaklings who were crowded to the side. He threw up his head.
It had never occurred to him that he was in any, danger, either fromLouis Akers or from the unseen enemy he was fighting. He had a curiouslack of physical fear. But once or twice that day, as he went about,he happened to notice a small man, foreign in appearance and shabbilydressed. He saw him first when he came out of the marriage licenseoffice, and again when he entered the bank.
He had decided to tell Pink of his approaching marriage and to ask himto be present. He meant to tell him the facts. The intimacy between themwas now very close, and he felt that Pink would understand. He neitherwanted nor expected approval, but he did want honesty between them. Hehad based his life on honesty.
Yet the thing was curiously hard to lead up to. It would be hard to setbefore any outsider the conditions at the Boyd house, or his own senseof obligation to help. Put into everyday English the whole schemesounded visionary and mock-heroic.
In the end he did not tell Pink at all, for Pink came in with excitementwritten large all over him.
"I sent for you," he said, "because I think we've got something at last.One of our fellows has just been in, that storekeeper I told you aboutfrom Friendship, Cusick. He says he has found out where they're meeting,back in the hills. He's made a map of it. Look, here's the town, andhere's the big hill. Well, behind it, about a mile and a half, there's aGerman outfit, a family, with a farm. They're using the barn, accordingto this chap."
"The barn wouldn't hold very many of them."
"That's the point. It's the leaders. The family has an alibi. It goes into the movies in the town on meeting nights. The place has been searchedtwice, but he says they have a system of patrols that gives themwarning. The hills are heavily wooded there, and he thinks they haverigged up telephones in the trees."
There was a short silence. Willy Cameron studied the rug.
"I had to swear to keep it to ourselves," Pink said at last. "Cusickwon't let the Federal agents in on it. They've raided him for liquortwice, and he's sick as a poisoned pup."
"How about the county detectives?"
"You know them. They'll go in and fight like hell when the time comes,but they're likely to gum the game where there's any finesse required.We'd better find out for ourselves first."
Willy Cameron smiled.
"What you mean is, that it's too good a thing to throw to the otherfellow. Well, I'm on, if you want me. But I'm no detective."
Pink had come armed for such surrender. He produced a road map of thecounty and spread it on the desk.
"Here's the main road to Friendship," he said, "and here's the road theyuse. But there's another way, back of the hills. Cusick said it was adirt lane, but dry. It's about forty miles by it to a point a mile or sobehind the farm. He says he doesn't think they use that road. It's toofar around."
"All right," said Willy Cameron. "We use that road, and get to the farm,and what then? Surrender?"
"Not on your life. We hide in the barn. That's all."
"That's enough. They'll search the place, automatically. You're talkingsuicide, you know."
But his mind was working rapidly. He was a country boy, and he knewbarns. There would be other outbuildings, too, probably a number ofthem. The Germans always had plenty of them. And the information was toodetailed to be put aside lightly.
"When does he think they will meet again?"
"That's the point," Pink said eagerly. "The family has been all over thetown this morning. It is going on a picnic, and he says those picnics oftheirs last half the night. What he got from the noise they were makingwas that they were raising dust again, and something's on for to-night."
"They'll leave somebody there. Their stock has to be looked after."
"This fellow says they drop everything and go. The whole outfit. They'reas busy raising an alibi as the other lot is raising the devil."
But Willy Cameron was a Scot, and hard-headed.
"It looks too simple, Pink," he said reflectively. He sat for some time,filling and lighting his pipe, and considering as he did so. He wasolder than Pink; not much, but he felt extremely mature and veryresponsible.
"What do we know about Cusick?" he asked, finally.
"One of the best men we've got. They've fired his place once, and he'skeen to get them."
"You're anxious to go?"
"I'm going," said Pink, cheerfully.
"Then I'd better go along and look after you. But I tell you how I seeit. After I've done that I'll go as far as you like. Either there isnothing to it and we're fools for our pains, or there's a lot to it,and in that case we are a pair of double-distilled lunatics to go therealone."
Pink laughed joyously.
Life had been very dull for him since his return from France. He haddone considerable suffering and more thinking than was usual with him,but he had had no action. But behind his boyish zest there was somethingmore, something he hid as he did the fact that he sometimes said hisprayers; a deep and holy thing, that always gave him a lump in histhroat at Retrea
t, when the flag came slowly down and the long lines ofmen stood at attention. Something he was half ashamed and half proud of,love of his country.
* * * * *
At the same time another conversation was going on in the rear room ofa small printing shop in the heart of the city. It went on to theaccompaniment of the rhythmic throb of the presses, and while twoprinters, in their shirt sleeves, kept guard both at the front and rearentrances.
Doyle sat with his back to the light, and seated across from him,smoking a cheap cigar, was the storekeeper from Friendship, Cusick. In acorner on the table, scowling, sat Louis Akers.
"I don't know why you're so damned suspicious, Jim," he was saying."Cusick says the stall about the Federal agents went all right."
"Like a house a-fire," said Cusick, complacently.
"I think, Akers," Doyle observed, eyeing his subordinate, "that youare letting your desire to get this Cameron fellow run away with yourjudgment. If we get him and Denslow, there are a hundred ready to taketheir places."
"Cameron is the brains of the outfit," Akers said sulkily.
"How do you know Cameron will go?"
Akers rose lazily and stretched himself.
"I've got a hunch. That's all."
A girl came in from the composing room, a bundle of proofs in her hand.With one hand Akers took the sheets from her; with the other he settledhis tie. He smiled down at her.
A Poor Wise Man Page 35
