Lady Baltimore Part 35

It was to me continuously a matter of satisfaction and of interest to see Hortense disturbed--whether for causes real or imaginary--about the security of her t.i.tle to her lover John, nor can I say that my misinterpreted bunch of roses diminished this satisfaction. I should have been glad to know if the accomplished young woman had further probed that question and discovered the truth, but it seemed scarce likely that she could do this without the help of one of three persons, Eliza and myself who knew all, or John who knew nothing; for the up-country bride, and whatever other people in Kings Port there were to whom the bride might gayly recite the tale of my roses, were none of them likely to encounter Miss Rieppe; their paths and hers would not meet until they met in church at the wedding of Hortense and John. No, she could not have found out the truth; for never in the world would she, at this eleventh hour, risk a conversation with John upon a subject so full of well-packed explosives; and so she must be simply keeping on both him and Eliza an eye as watchful as lay in her power. As for Charley, what bait, what persuasion, what duress she had been able to find that took him at an hour so critical from her side to New York, I could not in the least conjecture. Had she said to the little banker, Go, because I must think it over alone? It did not seem strong enough.

Or had she said, Go, and on your return you shall have my answer? Not adequate either, I thought. Or had it been, If you don't go, it shall be "no," to-day and forever? This last was better; but there was no telling, nor did Beverly Rodgers, to whom I propounded all my theories, have any notion of what was between Hortense and Charley. He only knew that Charley was quite aware of the existence of John, but had always been merely amused at the notion of him.

"So have you been merely amused," I reminded him.

"Not since that look I saw her give him, old chap. I know she wants him, only not why she wants him. And Charley, you know--well, of course, poor Charley's a banker, just a banker and no more; and a banker is merely the ace in the same pack where the drummer is the two-spot. Our American civilization should be called Drummer's Delight--and there's nothing in your fire-eater to delight a drummer: he's a gentleman, he'll be only so-so rich, and he's away back out of the lime-light, while poor old Charley's a bounder, and worth forty millions anyhow, and right in the centre of the glare. How should he see any danger in John?"

"I wonder if he hasn't begun to?"

"Well, perhaps. He and Hortense have been 'talking business'; I know that. Oh--and why do you think she said he must go to New York? To make a better deal for the fire-eater's phosphates than his fuddling old trustee here was going to close with. Charley said that could be arranged by telegram. But she made him go himself! She's extraordinary.

He'll arrive in town to-morrow, he'll leave next day, he'll reach here by the Southern on Sat.u.r.day night in time for our Sunday yacht picnic, and then something has got to happen, I should think."

Here was another key, unlocking a further piece of knowledge for me. I had not been able to guess why Hortense should be keeping Charley "on"; but how natural was this policy, when understood clearly! She still needed Charley's influence in the world of affairs. Charley's final service was to be the increasing of his successful rival's fortune. I wondered what Charley would do, when the full extent of his usefulness dawned upon him; and with wonder renewed I thought of General Rieppe, and this daughter he had managed to beget. Surely the mother of Hortense, whoever she may have been, must have been a very richly endowed character!

"Something has most certainly got to happen and soon," I said to Beverly Rodgers. "Especially if my busy boarding-house bodies are right in saying that the invitations for the wedding are to be out on Monday."

Well, I had Friday, I had Udolpho; and there, while on that excursion, when I should be alone with John Mayrant during many hours, and especially the hours of deep, confidential night, I swore to myself on oath I would say to the boy the last word, up to the verge of offense, that my wits could devise. Apart from a certain dramatic excitement as of battle--battle between Hortense and me--I truly wished to help him out of the miserable mistake his wrong standard, his chivalry gone perverted, was spurring him on to make; and I had a comic image of myself, summoning Miss Josephine, summoning Miss Eliza, summoning Mrs.

Gregory and Mrs. Weguelin, and the whole company of aunts and cousins, and handing to them the rescued John with the single but sufficient syllable: "There!"

He was in apparent spirits, was John, at that hour of our departure for Udolpho; he pretended so well that I was for a while altogether deceived. He had wished to call for me with the conveyance in which he should drive us out into the lonely country through the sunny afternoon; but instead, I chose to walk round to where he lived, and where I found him stuffing beneath the seats of the vehicle the baskets and the parcels which contained the provisions for our ample supper.

"I have never seen you drink hearty yet, and now I purpose to," said John.

As the packing was finis.h.i.+ng Miss Josephine St. Michael came by; and the sight of the erect old lady reminded me that of all Kings Port figures known to me and seen in the garden paying their visit of ceremony to Hortense, she alone--she and Eliza La Heu--had been absent. Eliza's declining to share in that was well-nigh inevitable, but Miss Josephine was another matter. Perhaps she had considered her sister's going there to be enough; at any rate, she had not been party to the surrender, and this gave me whimsical satisfaction. Moreover, it had evidently occasioned no ruffle in the affectionate relations between herself and John.

"John," said she, "as you drive by, do get me a plumber."

"Much better get a burglar, Aunt Josephine. Cheaper in the end, and neater work."

It was thus, at the outset, that I came to believe John's spirits were high; and this illusion he successfully kept up until after we had left the plumber and Kings Port several sordid miles behind us; the approach to Kings Port this way lies through dirtiest Africa. John was loquacious; John discoursed upon the Replacers; Mrs. Weguelin St.

Michael had quite evidently expressed to her own circle what she thought of them; and the town in consequence, although it did not see them or their automobiles, because it appeared they were gone some twenty miles inland upon an excursion to a resort where was a large hotel, and a little variety in the way of some tourists of the Replacer stripe,--the town kept them well in its mind's eye. The automobiles would have sufficed to bring them into disrepute, but Kings Port had a better reason in their conduct in the church; and John found many things to say to me, as we drove along, about Bohm and Charley and Kitty. Gazza he forgot, although, as shall appear in its place, Gazza was likely to live a long while in his memory. Beverly Rodgers he, of course, recognized as being a gentleman--it was clear that Beverly met with Kings Port's approval--and, from his Newport experiences, John was able to make out quite as well as if he had heard Beverly explain it himself the whole wise philosophic system of joining with the Replacers in order that you be not replaced yourself.

"In his shoes mightn't I do the same?" he surmised. "I fear I'm not as Spartan as my aunts--only pray don't mention it to them!"

And then, because I had been answering him with single syllables, or with nods, or not at all, he taxed me with my taciturnity; he even went so far as to ask me what thoughts kept me so silent--which I did not tell him.

"I am wondering," I told him instead, "how much they steal every week."

"Those financiers?"

"Yes. Bohm is president of an insurance company, and Charley's a director, and reorganizes railroads."

"Well, if other people share your pleasant opinion of them, how do they get elected?"

"Other people share their pleasant spoils--senators, vestrymen--you can't be sure who you're sitting next to at dinner any more. Come live North. You'll find the only safe way is never to know anybody worth more than five millions--if you wish to keep the criminal cla.s.ses off your visiting list."

This made him merry. "Put 'em in jail, then!"

"Ah, the jail!" I returned. "It's the great American joke. It reverses the rule of our smart society. Only those who have no incomes are admitted."

"But what do you have laws and lawyers for?"

"To keep the rich out of jail. It's called 'professional etiquette.'"

"Your picture flatters!"

"You flatter me; it's only a photograph. Come North and see."

"One might think, from your account, the American had rather be bad than good."

"O dear, no! The American had much rather be good than bad!"

"Your admission amazes me!"

"But also the American had rather be rich than good. And he is having his wish. And money's golden hand is tightening on the throat of liberty while the labor union stabs liberty in the back--for trusts and unions are both trying to kill liberty. And the soul of Uncle Sam has turned into a dollar-inside his great, big, strong, triumphant flesh; so that even his new religion, his own special invention, his last offering to the creeds of the world, his gatherer of converted hordes, his Christian Science, is based upon physical benefit."

John touched the horses. "You're particularly cheerful to-day!"

"No. I merely summarize what I'm seeing."

"Well, a moral awakening will come," he declared.

"Inevitably. To-morrow, perhaps. The flesh has had a good, long, prosperous day, and the hour of the spirit must be near striking. And the moral awakening will be followed by a moral slumber, since, in the uncomprehended scheme of things, slumber seems necessary; and you needn't pull so long a face, Mr. Mayrant, because the slumber will be followed by another moral awakening. The alcoholic society girl you don't like will very probably give birth to a water-drinking daughter--who in her turn may produce a bibulous progeny: how often must I tell you that nothing is final?"

John Mayrant gave the horses a somewhat vicious lash after these last words of mine; and, as he made no retort to them, we journeyed some little distance in silence through the mild, enchanting light of the sun. My deliberate allusion to alcoholic girls had made plain what I had begun to suspect. I could now discern that his cloak of gayety had fallen from him, leaving bare the same hara.s.sed spirit, the same restless mood, which had been his upon the last occasion when we had talked at length together upon some of the present social and political phases of our republic--that day of the New Bridge and the advent of Hortense. Only, upon that day, he had by his manner in some subtle fas.h.i.+on conveyed to me a greater security in my discretion than I felt him now to entertain. His many observations about the Replacers, with always the significant and conspicuous omission of Hortense, proved more and more, as I thought it over, that his state was unsteady. Even now, he did not long endure silence between us; yet the eagerness which he threw into our discussions did not, it seemed to me, so much proceed from present interest in their subjects (though interest there was at times) as from anxiety lest one particular subject, ever present with him, should creep in unawares. So much I, at any rate, concluded, and bided my time for the creeping in unawares, content meanwhile to parry some of the reproaches which he now and again cast at me with an earnestness real or feigned.

We had made now considerable progress, and were come to a s.p.a.ce of sand and cabins and intersecting railroad tracks, where freight cars and locomotives stood, and negroes of all shapes, but of one lowering and ragged appearance, lounged and stared.

"There used to be a murder here about once a day," said John, "before the dispensary system. Now, it is about once a week."

"That law is of benefit, then?" I inquired.

"To those who drink the whiskey, possibly; certainly to those who sell it!" And he condensed for me the long story of the state dispensary, which in brief appeared to be that South Carolina had gone into the liquor business. The profits were to pay for compulsory education; the liquor was to be pure; society and sobriety were to be advanced: such had been the threefold promise, of which the threefold fulfillment was--defeat of the compulsory education bill, a political monopoly enriching favored distillers, "and lately," said John, "a thoroughly democratic whiskey for the plain people. Pay ten cents for a bottle of X, if you're curious. It may not poison you--but the murders are coming up again."

"What a delightful example of government owners.h.i.+p!" I exclaimed.

But John in Kings Port was not in the way of hearing that cure-all policy discussed, and I therefore explained it to him. He did not seem to grasp my explanation.

"I don't see how it would change anything," he remarked, "beyond switching the stealing from one set of hands to another."

I put on a face of concern. "What? You don't believe in our patent American short-cuts?"

"Short-cuts?"

"Certainly. Short-cuts to universal happiness, universal honesty, universal everything. For instance: Don't make a boy study four years for a college degree; just cut the time in half, and you've got a short-cut to education. Write it down that man is equal. That settles it. You'll notice how equal he is at once. Write it down that the negro shall vote. You'll observe how instantly he is fit for the suffrage.

Now they want it written down that government shall take all the wicked corporations, because then corruption will disappear from the face of the earth. You'll find the farmers presently having it written down that all hens must hatch their eggs in a week, and next, a league of earnest women will advocate a Const.i.tutional amendment that men only shall bring forth children. Oh, we Americans are very thorough!" And I laughed.

But John's face was not gay. "Well," he mused, "South Carolina took a short-cut to pure liquor and sober citizens--and reached instead a new den of thieves. Is the whole country sick?"

"Sick to the marrow, my friend; but young and vigorous still. A nation in its long life has many illnesses before the one it dies of. But we shall need some strong medicine if we do not get well soon."