From the Housetops Part 29

"As I said before, Anne must never know," said Dr. Bates, laying his hand on the young man's shoulder and gripping it suddenly. "Your grandfather talked quite freely with me toward the end. No; Anne must never know."

Braden stared at the floor in utter perplexity.

CHAPTER XVII

Wade went through the unnecessary form of "giving notice" a day or two after his old master was laid to rest. On the day that Templeton Thorpe went to the hospital he abandoned an almost lifelong habit of c.o.c.king his head in an att.i.tude of listening, and went about the house with the corners of his mouth drooping instead of maintaining their everlasting twist upward in the set smile of humility.

He had been there for thirty years and more, and now he was no longer needed. He would have to get out. He had saved a little money,-not much, but enough to start a small business of some sort,-and he was complaining bitterly to himself of the fate that deprived him of Mr. Thorpe's advice just when it was imperative that he should know what enterprise would be the safest for him to undertake. It nettled him to think that he had failed to take advantage of his opportunities while this shrewd, capable old man was alive and in a position to set him on the right path to prosperity. He should have had the sense to look forward to this very day.

For thirty years he had gone on believing that he knew so much more than Mr. Thorpe that Mr. Thorpe couldn't possibly get along without him, and now he was brought up sharply against the discovery that he couldn't get along without Mr. Thorpe. For thirty years he had done only the things that Mr. Thorpe wanted him to do, instructed him to do, or even drove him to do. Suddenly he found himself with absolutely nothing to do, or at any rate with no one to tell him what to do, and instead of a free and independent agent, with no one to order him about, he wasn't anything,-he wasn't anything at all. This was not what he had been looking forward to with such complacency and confidence. He was like a lost soul. No one to tell him what to do! No one to valet! No one to call him a blundering idiot! No one to despise except himself! And he had waited thirty years for the day to come when he could be his own man, with the power to tell every one to go to the devil-and to do so himself if he saw fit. He hardly recognised himself when he looked in the mirror. Was that scared, bleak, wobegone face a reflection? Was he really like that?

He was filled with a bitter rage against Mr. Thorpe. How he hated him for dying like this and leaving him with nothing to do after all these years of faithful service. And how shocked he was, and frightened, to discover himself wanting to pause outside his master's door with his head c.o.c.ked to hear the voice that would never shout out to him again.

He knew to a penny just how much he had in the Savings Banks about town,-a trifle over twelve thousand dollars, the h.o.a.rdings of thirty years. He had gone on being a valet all these years without a single thought of being anything else, and yet he had always looked forward to the day when he could go into some nice, genteel little business for himself,-when he could step out of service and enjoy life to the full. But how was he to go about stepping out of service and into a nice, genteel little business without Mr. Thorpe to tell him what to do? Here was he, sixty-five years old, without a purpose in life. Beginning life at sixty-five!

Of course, young Mrs. Thorpe would have no use for a valet. No doubt she would marry again,-Wade had his notions!-but he couldn't think of subjecting himself to the incompetency of a new master, even though his old place were held open for him. He would not be able to adjust himself to another master,-or to put it in his own words, it would be impossible to adjust another master to himself. Young Master Braden might give him something to do for the sake of old times, but then again Mrs. Thorpe would have to be taken into consideration. Wade hadn't the slightest doubt that she would one day "marry into the family again." As a matter of fact, he believed in his soul that there was an understanding between the young people. There were moments when he squinted his eyes and cringed a little.

He would have given a great deal to be able to put certain thoughts out of his mind.

And then there was another reason for not wanting to enter the service of Dr. Braden Thorpe. Suppose he were to become critically ill. Would he, in that event, feel at liberty to call in an outside doctor to take charge of his case? Would it not be natural for Dr. Braden to attend him? And suppose that Dr. Braden were to conclude that he couldn't get well!

He gave notice to Murray, the butler. He hated to do this, for he despised Murray. The butler would not have to go. He too had been with Mr. Thorpe for more than a quarter of a century, and death had not robbed him of a situation. What manner of justice was it that permitted Murray to go on being useful while he had to go out into the world and become a burden to himself?

"Murray informs me, Wade, that you have given notice," said Anne, looking up as he shuffled into an att.i.tude before her. "He says that you have saved quite a lot of money and are therefore independent. I am happy to hear that you are in a position to spend the remainder of your life in ease and-why, what is the matter, Wade?"

He was very pale, and swayed slightly. "If you please, madam, Murray is mistaken," he mumbled. An idea was forming in his unhappy brain. "I-I am leaving because I realise that you no longer have any use for my services, and not because I am-er-well off, as the saying is. I shall try to get another place." His mind was clear now. The idea was completely formed.

"Of course, it will be no easy matter to find a place at my age, but,-well, a man must live, you know." He straightened up a bit, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

She was puzzled. "But you have money, Wade. You have worked hard. You have earned a good rest. Why should you go on slaving for other people?"

"Alas," said Wade, resuming the patient smile that had been missing for days and c.o.c.king his head a little, "it is not for me to rest. Murray does not know everything. My savings are small. He does not know the uses to which I have been obliged to-I beg pardon, madam, you cannot, of course, be interested in my poor affairs." He was very humble.

"But Mr. Thorpe always spoke of you as an exceedingly thrifty man. I am sure that he believed you to be comfortably fixed for life, Wade."

"Quite so," agreed Wade. "And I should have been had it been possible to lay by with all these unmentioned obligations crowding upon me, year in, year out."

"Your family? I did not know that there was any one dependent upon you."

"I have never spoken of my affairs, ma'am," said Wade. "It is not for a servant to trouble his employer with-ahem! You understand, I am sure."

"Perfectly. I am sorry."

"So I thought I would give notice at once, madam, so that I might be on the lookout as soon as possible for a new place. You see, I shall soon be too old to apply for a place, whilst if I manage to secure one in time I may be allowed to stay on in spite of my age."

"Have you anything in view?"

"Nothing, madam. I am quite at a loss where to-"

"Take all the time you like, Wade," she said, genuinely sorry for the man.

She never had liked him. He was the one man in all the world who might have pitied her for the mistake she had made, and he had steeled his heart against her. She knew that he felt nothing but scorn for her, and yet she was sorry for him. This was new proof to her that she had misjudged her own heart. It was a softer thing than she had supposed. "Stay on here until you find something satisfactory. Mr. Thorpe would have wished you to stay. You were a very faithful friend to him, Wade. He set great store by you."

"Thank you, madam. You are very kind. Of course, I shall strive to make myself useful while I remain. I dare say Murray can find something for me to do. Temporarily, at least, I might undertake the duties of the furnace man and handy-man about the house. He is leaving to-morrow, I hear. If you will be so good as to tell Murray that I am to take O'Toole's place,-temporarily, of course,-I shall be very grateful. It will give me time to collect my thoughts, ma'am."

"It will not be necessary, Wade, for you to take on O'Toole's work. I am not asking you to perform hard, manual labor. You must not feel that my-"

"Pardon me, madam," interrupted he; "I very much prefer to do some sort of regular work, if I may be permitted."

She smiled. "You will find Murray a hard task-master, I am afraid."

He took a long breath, as of relief-or could it have been pleasure? "I quite understand that, madam. He is a martinet. Still, I shall not mind."

The same thought was in the mind of each: he was accustomed to serving a hard task-master. "If you don't mind, I shall take O'Toole's place until you find some one else. To-morrow I shall move my belongings from the room upstairs to O'Toole's room off the furnace-room. Thank-"

"No!" she exclaimed. "You are not to do that. Keep your old room, Wade.

I-I cannot allow you to go down there. Mr. Thorpe would never forgive me if he knew that-" He lifted his eyes at the sudden pause and saw that she was very white. Was she too afraid of ghosts?

"It's very good of you," he said after a moment. "I shall do as you wish in everything, and I shall let you know the instant I find another place."

He cleared his throat. "I fear, madam, that in the confusion of the past few days I have failed to express to you my sympathy. I a.s.sure you the oversight was not-"

She was looking straight into his eyes. "Thank you, Wade," she interrupted coldly. "Your own grief would be sufficient excuse, if any were necessary.

If you will send Murray to me I will tell him that you have withdrawn your notice and will stay on in O'Toole's place. It will not be necessary for him to engage another furnace-man at present."

"No, ma'am," said Wade, and then added without a trace of irony in his voice: "At any rate not until cold weather sets in."

And so it was that this man solved the greatest problem that had ever confronted him. He went down into the cellars to take orders from the man he hated, from the man who would snarl at him and curse him and humiliate him to the bitter end, and all because he knew that he could not begin life over again. He wanted to be ordered about, he wanted to be snarled at by an overbearing task-master. It simplified everything. He would never be called upon to think for himself. Thorpe or Murray, what mattered which of them was in command? It was all the same to him. His dignity pa.s.sed, away with the pa.s.sing of his career as a "Man," and he rejoiced in the belief that he had successfully evaded the responsibilities that threatened him up to the moment he entered the presence of the mistress of the house. He was no longer without a purpose in life. He would not have to go out and be independent.

Toward the end of the second week Templeton Thorpe's will was read by Judge Hollenback in the presence of "the family." There had been some delay on account of Braden Thorpe's absence from the city. No one knew where he had gone, nor was he ever to explain his sudden departure immediately after the funeral. He simply disappeared from his hotel, without so much as a bag or a change of linen in his possession, so far as one could know. At the end of ten days he returned as suddenly and as casually as he had gone away, but very much improved in appearance. The strange pallor had left his cheeks and his eyes had lost the heavy, tired expression.

At first he flatly refused to go down for the reading of the will. He was not a beneficiary under the new instrument and he could see no reason for his attendance. Anne alone understood. The old vow not to enter the house while she was its mistress,-that was the reason. He was now in a position to revive that vow and to order his actions accordingly.

She drooped a little at the thought of it. From time to time she caught herself wis.h.i.+ng that she could devise some means of punis.h.i.+ng him, only to berate herself afterward for the selfishness that inspired the thought.

Still, why shouldn't he come there now? She was the same now that she was before her marriage took place,-a year older, that was all, but no less desirable. That was the one thing she could not understand in him. She could understand his disgust, his scorn, his rage, but she could not see how it was possible for him to hold out against the qualities that had made him love her so deeply before she gave him cause to hate her.

As for the operation that had resulted in the death of her husband, Anne had but one way of looking at it. Braden had been forced to operate against his will, against his best judgment. He was to be pitied. His grandfather had failed in his attempt to corrupt the souls of others in his desire for peace, and there remained but the one cowardly alternative: the appeal to this man who loved him. In his extremity, he had put upon Braden the task of performing a miracle, knowing full well that its accomplishment was impossible, that failure was as inevitable as death itself.

The thought never entered her mind that in persuading Braden to perform this strange act of mercy her husband may have been moved by the sole desire to put the final touch to the barrier he had wrought between them.

The fact that Braden was responsible for his death had no sinister meaning for her. It was the same as if he had operated upon a total stranger with a like result and with perhaps identical motives.

She kept on saying to herself that she had given up hope of ever regaining the love she had lost. She tried to remember just when she had ceased to hope. Was it before or after that last conversation took place in the library? Hope may have died, but he was alive and she was alive. Then how could love be dead?

It was Simmy Dodge who prevailed upon Braden to be present at the reading of the will. Simmy was the sort of man who goes about, in the goodness of his heart, adjusting matters for other people. He const.i.tuted himself in this instance, however, as the legal adviser of his old friend and companion, and that gave him a certain amount of authority.

"And what's more," he said in arguing with the obdurate Braden, "we'll probably have to smash the will, if, as you say, you have been cut off without a nickel. You-"

"But I don't want to smash it," protested Braden.