What Will People Say? A Novel 34 – Hughes · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
What Will People Say? A Novel 34Chapter 34
18
Literature · Romance
What Will People Say? A Novel 34
Chapter 34
HughesEnglish
Forbes' caddy was standing by the ball, and came in with it, cannily claimed his pay and tip for the full course, and hurried back with the Senator's caddy to pick up other fares. They took both the golf-bags with them to put away.
Tait and Forbes strolled aside from the traffic of the golf-course and found a quiet seat in the shade.
"And now tell me," the Senator said; "but first have a cigar?"
He took out a portly wallet stuffed with brown backs, the famous cigars made expressly for him in Havana. Forbes accepted one and sniffed its bouquet.
"It's a shame to waste these in the open air," he said, and sprung a cigar-lighter he carried, holding the flame to Tait, who waived it with a sigh:
"Doctor's orders."
"Then I won't."
"Go on; I carry them for my friends. I love to see others enjoy what I can't. Well, I will smoke just one to celebrate the prodigal's return." And he took a cigar from the case as tenderly as if it were forbidden ambrosia. As Forbes made a light again, he asked:
"What's this about doctor's orders? You're the kind of picture that goes with the testimonials--after taking."
"I'm a hollow sham, my boy; bad heart, bad liver, fat and sluggish, ordered to Carlsbad, but I hate to go. May have to," he puffed. "Did you see my daughter Mildred at the club-house?"
"No, I don't think so. I don't suppose I'd know her. She was a little tike in short skirts when I saw her last."
"She's a big woman now--regular old maid--fanatic on charities--fine mind--great heart. Thinks too much about the poor and the downtrodden to be very cheerful company; but somebody ought to look after 'em, I suppose. She's one of those hotheads that are trying to make the world over. Sounds hopeless, but they do get a lot done. She thinks poverty is no more necessary than slavery was. And she says the same of the oldest profession in the world.
"Good Lord, Harvey, what that child knows! Her mother to her dying day never heard of half the things that young spinster discusses, and has never had a flirtation so far as I know. Her conversation is really what has turned my hair white. Things that used to be kept for the medical books or smoking-room conversation she tosses off glibly, earnestly, and--to me! And spends my money, too, on scientific rescue work among women who--whew! And to think her mother and I didn't dare to tell her things! Now she tells 'em to me! She knows more about the seamy side than I do. But she's wonderful, Harvey. I'm afraid of her, but I do admire and love her. Women like her make these mad tango-trotters look pretty cheap."
Forbes resented the unintended criticism on the wonderful soul the tango mania had enabled him to meet and know so well so soon. He murmured something formulaic about his eagerness to see Mildred, and then he added, with a little hint of raillery:
"You congratulated me on my wealth. Am I to congratulate you the same way for your success with little Miss Neff?"
The Senator stared at him. "My success with little Miss Neff? What do you mean? Who's little Miss Neff? Alice?"
"Yes."
"The girl that was just here with her mother?"
"Yes."
"What success should I have with her?"
Forbes was confused, and tried to back out, but Tait would know, and Forbes at last explained: "Alice says that her mother is trying to marry her off to you."
Tait's eyes popped, and his mouth gaped stupidly, then he swore with sonority, and blurted out: "Do you mean that that old harridan of a Cornelia Neff has gone mad enough to--Why, Alice is younger than Mildred! I thought of her as a little tot. I tweaked her cheek and told her how sweet she was, and never dreamed she'd grown up yet. So that's why Cornelia has been so hospitable to me. I had a kind of sneaking fear that she wanted to add me to her own regiment of husbands. But it's her daughter, eh? Well, I'll be double--Is Alice in on the game, too?"
"Oh no; Alice is crazy to marry Stowe Webb."
"Poor old Jim Webb's boy, eh?" Forbes nodded. "Well, why doesn't she?"
"He has no money."
"Oh, she's one of those."
"He hasn't even a job."
The Senator puffed like an unmufflered cut-out, and he frowned like a pirate, then he began to chuckle in the manner of a pirate ordering the plank put over the side.
"He hasn't a job, eh? Well, I'll get him one. I'll pay that old lady in her own coin. Make a fool out of me, will she? Well, we'll see what an old politician can do to countermine an old lady."
"Speaking of politics," said Forbes, "the papers are full of the possibility of your being an ambassador somewhere. Is there anything in it?"
"Well, my old friend the President has written me a few letters and whispered it in my ear, but I don't want to go. I'm too old. I like my own country and my own slippers. Foreign languages and foreign cooking and all that would play the devil with me. I don't want to go."
Forbes laughed at the spectacle of a big, rich man pouting like a reluctant child against having a sweetmeat forced on him.
"Then why are you going?" he grinned.
"How did you know I was?"
"Because you said you didn't want to. We only say, 'I don't want to' when we're just about to."
Tait looked at him in surprise. Forbes was not the type from whom one expects epigrams and generalizations. That was among his chief attractions. Tait laughed sheepishly.
"Well, I'll tell you, Harvey. There's just one reason--I'm worried about Mildred. She's getting in too deep with her crusades and causes. She's done enough. She mustn't lose her own life as a woman--a wife--a mother. I'm old-fashioned enough to believe that that's a woman's first business, as a man's first business is to build a home and keep it. Afterward all the charity and uplift they can do is legitimate and worthy. But first pay your debts, I say, before you make donations. Now I can't pry Mildred loose from her clubs and committees. No marrying young man will go near her. There's no encouragement to the pink nonsense of love in an atmosphere of tenement-house needs, tuberculosis exhibits, and the harrowing statistics of white slavery.
"I got an idea that if I went abroad as an ambassador she'd have to go along to take care of me and run the social end of the embassy. She'd have to dress up and give dinners, and go places and dance and meet cheerful people, and--well, who knows? Anyway, my last business on this earth is leaving my only child provided for, and I'm worried because--because--well, I'm too fat around the heart, and my neck is too thick, and the doctor tells me to be ready. You understand?
"My father went that way. He had to be very careful of his health, and one day, when he was about to go out in the rain, my mother told him he must wear his rubbers. He bent over to pull on an overshoe, and--he just went on over and sprawled out on the rug--dead."
He stared off into space, and seemed not to be a venerable old man any more, but a lonely orphan with the sad eyes of boyhood in the presence of death.
Forbes knew what it means for a man to think of the death of his first great man, his father; and his hand wrung the Senator's. Tait looked up, smiled sadly, and returned the pressure with his big, soft fingers.
"I wish I had a son to leave her with, Harvey; then I'd feel better, but my only boy--well, he married the wrong woman, and she drove him to the dogs, deceived him and tormented him, and--finally he had to make her divorce him. And he loved her in spite of it--he was ashamed of his love; but he couldn't kill it; she couldn't kill it; drink couldn't kill it. But the two of them killed him. Oh, Lord, Harvey, it's a cruel world, and we're so helpless! I could have done so much for my boy; but I couldn't help him in the one way he needed help. I couldn't make the woman over.
"Don't repeat his mistake, Harvey. Don't let a pretty face and a fascinating body blind you to a bad, selfish heart. Don't let yourself love the wrong woman. You can do a good deal with your heart if you hold a tight rein on it and keep it on the right road. There are fine enough women on the straight road, just as beautiful, just as passionate with the right man. If only--"
He paused, looked at Harvey, who was looking everywhere but at the Senator. He was searching the landscape for Persis, and he was as restless among his own thoughts as the young usually are when the old are commenting on the helplessness of life. The young know so much better. It is the young who have theories of the universe and who expect to carry out their hopes; it is the old scientists who are bewildered and who merely observe and accept.
But Tait did not notice Forbes' inattention. Rummaging among the confusions of his own griefs, he had come upon a bright hope. What if Forbes should be the man to win Mildred away from her avocations back to the main business of love? He was such a youth as even Mildred could hardly ignore or despise. He had little money, but Tait had more than enough for the two, and he had made many a poor man rich.
He smiled. He felt like apologizing to Mrs. Neff for stealing a hint from her. Why should not old men engage in the pleasant chess-game of match-making, too? What better task could he undertake than making this beloved son of his old comrade the husband of his own beloved daughter?
The idea was so exhilarating that it almost leaped from his heart. But he was politician enough to realize that such a plan would be frustrated in advance by premature publication. This was a benevolent conspiracy that must be kept dark.
He studied Forbes with admiring affection. His heart went out to him as to a son, or, better yet, a son-in-law. He put a hand on Forbes' shoulder to claim him just as Forbes started with a sudden elation, just as a light broke forth in his eyes.
Tait followed the line of Forbes' gaze and made out a man and a woman on horseback turning in at the gate marked "Exit Only." That was like Willie Enslee. If any gate could excite his interest as an entrance it would be one marked "Exit Only." Tait could not see who it was; he hastily got out his distance-glasses and put them on. But a glowing wall of rhododendrons and cedars concealed the riders by the time his great tortoise-shell spectacles hobgoblined his eyes.
Forbes spoke. "Sha'n't we stroll back to the club-house? I'm expected there for luncheon."
"By all means," said Tait. "And I want you to meet Mildred again."
"I'd love to," said Forbes, absently. He said nothing more, but strode on so rapidly down the steep slope that Tait had to take his arm for support and to hold him back.
"You're visiting at the Enslees', Mrs. Neff tells me," the old man panted.
"Yes."
"Excuse my fatherly familiarity, but how can you afford to gad with those wild asses?"
"I can't."
"What's her name?" Tait laughed.
"I may be able to tell you later, and I may not."
"Well, my boy, I don't know who she is, but I bet she isn't worth it--not if she trails with the Enslee pack."
"Oh, but she is beautiful--she is wonderful."
"You must be hit damned hard."
"Am."
And then, not heeding the connotation, he exclaimed, as Persis emerged from the eclipsing shrubbery:
"There's only one woman can ride like that."
Tait stared again, and now he made her out. Instantly, with the exultance one feels over a secret some one else lets slip, he cried: "Oho, my boy, that's the woman who keeps you here! Mrs. Neff hinted at it, but I wouldn't believe it till I had it from you." His gloating sank again to fatherly solicitude as he pleaded earnestly: "For God's sake, boy, don't love her! Of all women don't love Persis Cabot! She's the most heartless of them all."
Forbes was tempted to ask him how he could accept a reputation as a proof of character, but he was still calm enough to pay Tait's white hair the homage of silence. Tait, feeling the import of his silence, grew uneasy, and demanded:
"Harvey, it's not possible that you love her--actually love her?"
"Is it possible not to?"
"But you've not known her long."
"No, but I've known her well. Do you know her?"
"Yes, and I knew her mother. Once I thought I loved her mother. But I had less money--when I proposed to her than I have now--Heaven be praised!"
"Heaven be praised?"
"Yes, for she might have married me. Harvey, a certain part of the society here is like a big aquarium. The people are all fish--the men goldfish, the women catfish. Their blood is cold--Lord, how cold! Just look at their eyes! Hard eyes, hard hearts. They despise sincerity; they laugh at honest emotion."
"But Persis has soft eyes," Forbes broke in, "and a warm heart."
"Has she?" Tait sighed, feeling that the siren had already sung Forbes' wits away. "Well, maybe, in the moonlight. But she'll soon freeze. Now, if she had been born poor--"
"But, Senator, the rich can't all be bad," Forbes complained.
"The rich are no worse than anybody else as a class," said Tait. "My father and mother were rich, and they were as good and sweet and simple as any poor people that ever lived. They were like Romeo and Juliet. The Montagues and Capulets were both rich. But if young Mr. Montague had been poor we might have had a different story. Or, if you had only gone into finance."
"It's too late for me to dream of money. I'm a soldier."
"And it's too late for you to dream of Persis Cabot, not merely because she's wealthy. One class is as good as another; it's the set that counts. And she gallops with the rich runaways. Their life is one long stampede. There are rich women who toil like slaves for the poor, who lead lives of earnestness and purity, who respond to every appeal, and make organized charity possible. But there are others, rich and poor, that never think of anybody but themselves, never have real pity except for themselves, never toil or fret except for their own amusement. And those people gravitate together into colonies and cliques. Don't run with that pack, Harvey."
He was not the first man of eld that had warned youth against beauty. Nor was he the last that shall fail to be heeded. He tried another tack.
"I understand that Willie Enslee expects to marry her."
"She doesn't expect to marry him."
"How do you know?"
"Oh, I have my reasons for believing that she doesn't love him."
"Nobody ever accused her of that, but--well, does she think what Mrs. Neff thinks--that you have money?"
Forbes did not answer except with a blush. The Senator spared him any pressure on that point. He said, simply:
"Enslee has a lot of money--more than her father has. In fact, her father is in a very bad plight."
"How do you know?"
"I am about six bank directors, Harvey, and a few other things. Her father is about to be forced into involuntary bankruptcy; her father's pet railroad may go into receiver's hands to-day or to-morrow."
"Poor Persis!" Forbes groaned. "Poor Persis!"
There was such anguish in his tone that the Senator gripped his arm hard and murmured:
"Do you care so much for her?"
Forbes stopped short and stared into the old man's eyes. "A man like me loves once, and loves hard. If I lost her, my life wouldn't be worth the snap of my finger." And he added in a raucous voice, "Or the click of a trigger."
The Senator leaned heavily on him and closed his eyes in a wince of pain. He had heard his own dead son speak just that way.
When he opened his eyes he saw that Forbes was smiling glowingly.
"Look at her, Senator! She's so beautiful! I can't let Enslee have her! Look at him! He's as afraid of his horse as his horse is ashamed of him. What's he up to now? Rein him in, you fool! He'd drive a hobbyhorse into hysterics. And now he's sent Persis' horse in the air! What's the matter with him? Why doesn't he--"
But the fault was not Enslee's, nor was he so bad a rider as an expert like Forbes might think. As the event proved, even Persis could not control her mount in the face of what was happening unseen by Forbes. A chauffeur, relying on the fact that he was on the exit road, was driving a big red six at high speed along the curves. He had not seen Enslee and Persis till he was almost into them. He swung aside so sharply that he almost capsized, and ran into something sharp enough to rip open a shoe.
This was just one too many automobiles for the horses Persis and Enslee rode. They had been curbed and scolded and kept in hand all morning; but to have a dragon leap at them from the cedar-trees was too much. They went frantic, dancing erect, and threshing the air with their fore hoofs. And then the tire exploded like a cannon, and they went mad. They feared nothing but what was behind them; nothing could hurt them but their terror.
They crashed through cedars and rhododendrons, and plunged across the lawn to the clear space of the golf-links. Forbes saw the demon look in the white eyes of Persis' horse. He had seen mustangs in that humor shake off their tormentors and tear them wolfishly with their fangs.
"He's got the bit in his teeth!" he groaned. "He'll kill her! My God, he'll kill her! She can't hold him! I've got to get him somehow."
He had a fierce impulse to meet the horse, leap at him, catch him by the bridle and the nose and smother him to a standstill. But Tait had seen a policeman killed trying to stop a horse so, and he flung his arms about Forbes.
"No, you won't!" he gasped. "You can't stop him! I won't let you risk your life--not for that woman."
"Let me go! Let me go!" Forbes pleaded, unwilling to use his strength against the old man. But Tait clung to him, seized him anew as Forbes wrenched his hand loose; fell to his knees, but still held fast and was dragged along, moaning:
"My boy, I love you like a son. You sha'n't risk your life--not for her!"
Then suddenly his clutch relaxed; his fingers opened; he rolled forward on his face, his white hair fluttering in the grass.
And Forbes, hardly knowing that he was released, felt himself free, and ran with all his might to intercept the plunging monster, who came snorting his rage, flinging his huge barrel this way and that, and shaking the white saliva from his mouth.
