The Professor's House
Page 9
Indians. "And he gave up a fine job firing on the Santa F�, and went off
with Tom to ride after cattle for hardly any wages, just to be with Tom
and take care of him after he'd had pneumonia," Kathleen told them.
"That wasn't the only reason," Rosamond added dreamily. "Roddy was
proud. He didn't like taking orders and living on pay cheques. He liked
to be free, and to sit in his saddle all day and use it for a pillow at
night. You know Tom said that, Kitty."
"Anyhow, he was noble. He was always noble, noble Roddy!" Kathleen
finished it off.
After the first day, when he had walked into the garden and introduced
himself, Tom never took up the story of his own life again, either with
the Professor or Mrs. St. Peter, though he was often encouraged to do
so. He would talk about the New Mexico country when questioned, about
Father Duchene, the missionary priest who had been his teacher, about
the Indians; but only with the two little girls did he ever speak freely
and confidentially about himself. St. Peter used to wonder how the boy
could afford to spend so much time with the children. All through that
summer and fall he used to come in the afternoon and join them in the
garden. In the winter he dropped in two or three evenings a week to play
Five Hundred or to take a dancing-lesson.
There was evidently something enchanting about the atmosphere of the
house to a boy who had always lived a rough life. He enjoyed the
prettiness and freshness and gaiety of the little girls as if they were
flowers. Probably, too, he liked being so attractive to them. A flush of
pleasure would come over Tom's face--so much fairer now than when he
first arrived in Hamilton--if Kathleen caught his hand and tried to
squeeze it hard enough to hurt, crying: "Oh, Tom, tell us about the time
you and Roddy found the water hole dry, and then afterward tell us about
when the rattlesnake bit Henry!" He would whisper: "Pretty soon," and
after a while, through the open windows, the Professor would hear them
in the garden: the laughter and exclamations of the little girls, and
that singularly individual voice of Tom's--mature, confident, seldom
varying in pitch, but full of slight, very moving modulations.
He couldn't have wished for a better companion for his daughters, and
they were teaching Tom things that he needed more than mathematics.
Sitting thus in his study, long afterward, St. Peter reflected that
those first years, before Outland had done anything remarkable, were
really the best of all. He liked to remember the charming groups of
three he was always coming upon,--in the hammock swung between the
linden-trees, in the window-seat, or before the dining-room fire. Oh,
there had been fine times in this old house then: family festivals and
hospitalities, little girls dancing in and out, Augusta coming and
going, gay dresses hanging in his study at night, Christmas shopping and
secrets and smothered laughter on the stairs. When a man had lovely
children in his house, fragrant and happy, full of pretty fancies and
generous impulses, why couldn't he keep them? Was there no way but
Medea's, he wondered?
Chapter 11
St. Peter had come in late from an afternoon lecture, and had just
lighted his kerosene lamp to go to work, when he heard a light foot
ascending the stairs. In a moment Kathleen's voice called: "May I
interrupt for a moment, Papa?"
He opened the door and drew her in.
"Kitty, do you remember the time you sat out there with your bee-sting
and your bottle? Nobody ever showed me more consideration than that, not
even your mother."
Kathleen threw her hat and jacket into the sewing-chair and walked
about, touching things to see how dusty they were. "I've been wondering
if you didn't need me to come in and clean house for you, but it's not
so bad as they report it. This is the first time I've called on you
since you've been here alone. I've turned in from the walk more than
once, but I've always run away again." She paused to warm her hands at
the little stove. "I'm silly, you know; such queer things make me blue.
And you still have Augusta's old forms. I don't think anything ever
happened to her that amused her so much. And now, you know, she's quite
sentimental about their being here. It's about Agusta sic that I came,
Papa. Did you know that she had lost some of her savings in the Kinkoo
Copper Company?"
"Augusta? Are you sure? What a shame!"
"Yes. She was sewing for me last week. I noticed that she seemed
depressed and hadn't much appetite for lunch--which, you know, is
unusual for Augusta. She was ashamed to tell any of us about it, because
it seems she'd asked Louie's advice, and he told her to invest in that
company. But a lot of the people in her church were putting money into
it, and of course that made it seem all right to her. She lost five
hundred dollars, a fortune for her, and Scott says she'll never get a
cent of it back."
"Five hundred dollars," murmured St. Peter. "Let me see, at three
dollars a day that means one hundred and sixty-six days. Now what can we
do about it?"
"Of course we must do something. I knew you'd feel that way, Father."
"Certainly. Among us, we must cover it. I'll speak to Rosamond
to-night."
"You needn't, dear." Kathleen tossed her head. "I have been to her. She
refuses."
"Refuses? She can't refuse, my dear. I'll have a word to say." The
firmness of his tone, and the quick rush of claret colour under his
skin, were a gratification to his daughter.
"She says that Louie took the trouble to speak to his banker and to
several copper men before he advised Augusta; and that if she doesn't
learn her lesson this time, she will do the same thing over again.
Rosamond said they would do something for Augusta later, but she didn't
say what."
"Leave Rosamond to me. I'll convince her."
"Even if you can do anything with her, she's determined to make Augusta
admit her folly, and it can't be done that way. Augusta is terribly
proud. When I told her her customers ought to make it up to her, she was
very haughty and said she wasn't that kind of a sewing-woman; that she
gave her ladies good measure for their money. Scott thought we could buy
stock in some good company and tell her we had used our influence and
got an exchange, but that she must keep quiet about it. We could manage
some such little fib, she knows so little about business. I know I can
get the Dudleys and the Browns to help. We needn't go to the
Marselluses."
"Wait a few days. It's a disgrace to us as a family not to make it up
ourselves. On her own account, we oughtn't to let Rosamond out. She's
altogether too blind to responsibilities of that kind. In a world full
of blunders, why should Augusta have to pay scrupulously for her
mistakes? It's very petty of Rosie, really!"
Kathleen started to speak, stopped and turned away. "Scott will give a
hundred dollars," she said a moment later.
"That's very generous of hi
m. I'll give another, and Rosie shall make up
the rest. If she doesn't, I'll speak to Louie. He's an absolutely
generous chap. I've never known him to refuse to give either time or
money."
Kathleen's eyes suddenly brightened. "Why, Daddy, you have Tom's Mexican
blanket! I never knew he gave it to you. I've often wondered what became
of it." She picked up from the foot of the box-couch a purple blanket,
faded in streaks to amethyst, with a pale yellow stripe at either end.
"Oh, yes, I often get chilly when I lie down, especially if I turn the
stove out, which your mother says I ought always to do. Nothing could
part me from that blanket."
"He wouldn't have given it to anybody but you. It was like his skin. Do
you remember how horsey it smelled when he first brought it over and
showed it to us?"
"Just like a livery stable! It had been strapped behind the saddle on so
many sweating cow-ponies. In damp weather that smell is still
perceptible."
Kathleen stroked it thoughtfully. "Roddy brought it up from Old Mexico,
you know. He gave it to Tom that winter he had pneumonia. Tom ought to
have taken it to France with him. He used to say that Rodney Blake might
turn up in the Foreign Legion. If he had taken this, it might have been
like the wooden cups that were always revealing Amis and Amile to each
other."
St. Peter smiled and patted her hand on the blanket. "Do you know,
Kitty, I sometimes think I ought to go out and look for Blake myself.
He's on my conscience. If that country down there weren't so
everlastingly big--"
"Oh, Father! That was my romantic dream when I was little, finding
Roddy! I used to think about it for hours when I was supposed to be
taking my nap. I used to swim rivers and climb mountains and wander
about with Navajos, and rescue Roddy at the most critical moments, when
he was being stabbed in the back, or drugged in a gambling-house, and
bring him back to Tom. You know Tom told us about him long before he
ever told you."
"You children used to live in his stories. You cared more about them
than about all your adventure books."
"I still do," said Kathleen, rising. "Now that Rosamond has Outland, I
consider Tom's mesa entirely my own."
St. Peter put down the cigarette he had just lighted with anticipation.
"Can't you stay awhile, Kitty? I almost never see anyone who remembers
that side of Tom. It was nice, all those years when he was in and out of
the house like an older brother. Always very different from the other
college boys, wasn't he? Always had something in his voice, in his
eyes...One seemed to catch glimpses of an unusual background behind his
shoulders when he came into the room."
Kathleen smiled wanly. "Yes, and now he's all turned out chemicals and
dollars and cents, hasn't he? But not for you and me! Our Tom is much
nicer than theirs." She put on her jacket and went out of the study and
quickly down the stairs. Her father, on the landing, looked after until
she disappeared. When she was gone he still stood there, motionless, as
if her were listening intently, or trying to fasten upon some fugitive
idea.
Chapter 12
St. Peter was breakfasting at six-thirty, alone, reading last night's
letters while he waited for the coffee to percolate. It had been long
since he had had an eight o'clock class, but this year the schedule
committee had slyly put him down for one. "He can afford to take a taxi
over now," the Dean remarked.
After breakfast he went upstairs and into his wife's room. "I have a
rendezvous with a lady," he said, tossing an envelope upon her
counterpane. She read a note from Mrs. Crane, the least attractive of
the faculty ladies, requesting an interview with the professor at his
earliest convenience: as she wished to see him quite alone, might she
come to his study in the old house, where she understood he still
worked?
"Poor Godfrey!" murmured his wife.
"One ought not to joke about it--" St. Peter went into his room to
get a handkerchief and came back, taking up his suspended sentence. "I'm
afraid it means poor Crane is coming up for another operation. Or, worse
still, that the surgeons tell her another would be useless. It's like
The Pit and the Pendulum. I feel as if the poor fellow were strapped
down on a revolving disk that comes around under the knife just so
often."
Mrs. St. Peter looked judicially at the letter, then at her husband's
back. She didn't believe that surgery would be the subject of discussion
when they met. Mrs. Crane had been behaving very strangely of late.
Doctor Crane had married a girl whom no other man ever thought of
courting, a girl of whom people always said: "Oh, she's so good!"
chiefly because she was so homely. They had three very plain daughters,
and only Crane's salary to live upon. Doctors and surgeons kept them
poor enough.
St. Peter kissed his wife and went forth quite unconscious of what was
going on in her mind. During the morning he telephoned Mrs. Crane, and
arranged a meeting with her at five o'clock. As the bell in the old
house didn't work now, he waited downstairs on the front porch, to
receive his visitor and conduct her up to his study. It was raining
drearily, and Mrs. Crane arrived in a rubber coat, and a knitted sport
hat belonging to one of her daughters. St. Peter took her wet umbrella
and led her up the two flights of stairs.
"I'm not very well appointed to receive ladies, Mrs. Crane. This was the
sewing-room, you know. There's Augusta's chair, which she insisted was
comfortable."
"Thank you." Mrs. Crane sat down, took off her gloves, and tucked wisps
of damp hair up under her crocheted hat. Her bleak, plain face wore an
expression of grievance.
"I've come without my husband's knowledge, Doctor St. Peter, to ask you
what you think can be done about our rights in the Outland patent. You
know how my husband's health has crippled us financially, and we never
know when his trouble may come on worse again. Myself, I've never
doubted that you would see it is only right to share with us."
St. Peter looked at her in amazement. "But, my dear Mrs. Crane, how can
I share with you what I haven't got? Tom willed his estate and royalties
in a perfectly regular way. The fact that he named my daughter as his
sole beneficiary doesn't affect me, any more than if he had named some
relative of his own. I tell you frankly, I have never received one
dollar from the Outland patent."
"It's all the same if it goes to your family, Doctor St. Peter. My
husband must be considered in this matter. He spent days and nights
working with Outland. Tom never could have worked his theory out without
Robert's help. He said so, more than once, in my presence and in the
presence of others."
"Oh, I believe that, Mrs. Crane. But the difficulty is that Tom didn't
make any recognition of that assistance in his will."
Mrs. Crane had set her head and advanced her long chin with meek
determination. "Well, this is how it was, Professor. Mr. Marsellus came
here a stranger, to put in the Edison power plant, just at the time the
city was stirred up about Outland's being killed at the front. Everybody
was wanting to do something in recognition of the young man. You brought
Mr. Marsellus to our house and introduced him. After that he came alone,
again and again, and he got round my husband. Robert thought he was
disinterested, and was only taking a scientific interest, and he told
him a great deal about what he and Outland had been working on. Then
Rosamond's lawyers came for the papers. Tom Outland had no laboratory of
his own. He was allowed the use of a room in the physics building, at my
husband's request. He wanted to be there, because he constantly needed
Robert's help. The first thing we knew, your daughter's engagement to
Marsellus was announced, and then we heard that all Outland's papers had
been given over to him."
Here St. Peter anticipated her. "But, Mrs. Crane, your husband couldn't,
and wouldn't, have kept Tom's papers. They had to be given over to his
executor, who was my daughter's attorney."
"Well, I could have kept them, if he couldn't!"--Mrs. Crane threw up her
head as if to show that the worm had turned at last--"kept them until
justice was done us, and some recognition had been made of my husband's
part in all that research work. If he had taken the papers to court
then, with all the evidence we have, we could easily have got an equity.
But Mr. Marsellus is very smooth. He flattered Robert and got everything
there was."
"But he didn't get anything from your husband. Outland's papers and
apparatus were delivered to his executor, as was inevitable."
"That was poor subterfuge," said Mrs. Crane, with deep meaning. "You
know how unworldly Robert is, and as an old friend you might have warned
us."
"Of what, Mrs. Crane?"
"Why, that Marsellus saw there was a fortune in the gas my husband and
his pupil had made, and we could have asked for our equity before we
gave your son-in-law a free hand with everything."
St. Peter felt very unhappy. He began walking up and down the little
room. "Heaven knows I'd like to see Crane get something out of it, but
how? How? I've thought a great deal about this matter, and I've blamed
Tom for making that kind of will. I don't think it occurred to the boy
that the will would ever be probated. He expected to come back from the
war and develop the thing himself. I doubt whether Robert, with all his
superior knowledge, would have known the twists and turns by which the
patent could be commercialized. It took a great deal of work and a
special kind of ability to do that."
"A salesman's ability!" Mrs. Crane was becoming nasty.
"If you like; but certainly Robert would have been no man to convince
manufacturers and machinists, any more than I would. A great deal of
money was put into it, too, before any came back; every cent Marsellus
had, and all he could borrow. He took heavy chances. Crane and I
together could never have raised a hundredth part of the capital that
was necessary to get the thing started. Without capital to make it go,
Tom's idea was merely a formula written out on paper. It had lain for
two years in your husband's laboratory, and would have lain there for
years more before he or I would have done anything about it."
Mrs. Crane's dreary face took on more animation than he had supposed it
capable of. "It had lain there because it belonged there, and was made
there! My husband was done out of it by an adventurer, and his
friendship for you tied his hands. I must say you've shown very little
consideration for him. You might have warned us never to let those
papers go. You see Robert getting weaker all the time and having those