Otherwise Phyllis Part 13

Kirkwood plunged into work with an ardor that was not lost upon Phil. He rose early and kept office hours with a new faithfulness, and he frequently carried books and papers home for study. Something was impending, Phil surmised, in the affairs of the Sycamore Traction Company, for he had been to Indianapolis to confer with the New York lawyer who represented the trustee for the bondholders and they had made an inspection of the road together. It had always been Kirkwood's way when aroused to devote himself tirelessly to his client's business, and Phil had not failed to note how completely labor transformed him. His languor and indifference now disappeared; he spoke feelingly of the generosity of his Williams cla.s.smate, who had placed the Sycamore case in his hands. It was a great opportunity and he a.s.sured her that he meant to make the most of it.

He warned her that she was not to tell any one what he was engaged upon, and that she must not be surprised into confessions by her aunts. He began to visit the capital, always returning on the evening train, though she knew that he might more comfortably have spent the night in the city. He explained to Phil that he hoped to adjust the Sycamore's affairs without litigation.

"I'm just enough of an old fogy to cut myself out of a big fee by smoothing the wrinkles without a lawsuit. It's the professor in me, Phil; it's the academic taint."

And to this the obvious retort was, of course, that it was because of his highmindedness that he sought peaceable adjustments where more drastic measures would have been to his profit.

She, too, was putting forth her best energies, and he was relieved to find that she disposed of her work so lightly; even her frequent calamities were a matter for jesting. They made a joke of the was.h.i.+ng of the supper dishes: he insisted on helping her, and would don an ap.r.o.n and do the rougher part of it. He declared that he had never been so well fed before, and that her cooking showed real genius. It would be a dark day when his fee in the traction case would make it possible to install a new maid-of-all work.

Phil was aware that their talk drifted often and with seeming inevitableness to the Bartletts. Her successes with the housekeeping were due to the friendly supervision of the sisters in Buckeye Lane. He liked to hear her recount the ways in which they were her guide and inspiration. In doubts she flew to them; but one or the other appeared almost daily at the cottage. "Rose showed me how to make that sponge cake," Phil would say; or, if the furniture in their little parlor had been rearranged, it was very likely Nan who had suggested the change. It was a considerable distance across town from the Kirkwoods' to Number 98 Buckeye Lane, and as these women were exceedingly busy it was not without sacrifice that they visited Phil so constantly. "Nan read me some new jokes she's just sending off this morning: I wonder how people think up such things," Phil would observe, turning, perhaps, with her hand on the pantry door; and she knew that her father's face lighted at the mention of Nan and her jokes.

The aunts had not been above planting in Phil's young breast the suspicion that her father was romantically "interested" in one of the Bartletts--as to which one they hoped she would enlighten them. They tried to keep track of the visits paid by the father and daughter to Buckeye Lane; their veiled inquiries were tinged also with suspicions that Amzi might be contemplating marriage with one of these maiden ladies of the Lane--the uncertainties in each case as to the bright star of particular adoration giving edge to their curiosity. The cautious approaches, the traps set in unexpected places, amused Phil when she was not angered by them. As she viewed the matter it would be perfectly natural for her father to marry either of the Bartlett sisters, her only fear being that marriage would disturb the existing relations between the two houses which were now so wholly satisfactory.

Phil managed to visit her father's office every day or two, trips to "town" being among the Montgomery housewife's privileges, a part of her routine. Much visiting was done in Main Street, and there was always something to take one into Struby's drug-store, which served as a club.

Even in winter there was hot chocolate and bouillon to justify the sociably inclined in lingering at the soda-water tables by the front windows. Phil, heedful of the warnings of the court-house clock, managed to keep in touch with current history without jeopardizing the regularity of meals at home. She was acquiring the ease of the Bartletts in maintaining a household with a minimum of labor and worry. Her aunts had convoyed her to Indianapolis to buy a gown for the coming-out party, which was now fixed for the middle of November; and they were to return to the city shortly for a fitting. All Main Street was aware that Phil was to be brought out; the aunts had given wide publicity to the matter; they had sighingly confessed to their friends the difficulties, the labor, the embarra.s.sment of planting their niece firmly in society.

Phil, dropping into her father's office in the middle of an afternoon and finding him absent, dusted it from force of habit and began turning the pages of a battered copy of "Elia" she kept tucked away in an alcove that contained the Indiana Reports. A sign pinned on the door stated that her father would return in half an hour. This card, which had adorned the door persistently for several years, had lately ceased to prophesy falsely, Phil knew, and she thought she heard her father on the stairs when a young man she did not at once recognize opened the door and glanced about, then removed his hat and asked if Mr. Kirkwood would return shortly.

"I'm Mr. Charles Holton," said the visitor.

For a man to prefix "mister" to his own name was contrary to local usage, and the manner, the voice, the city clothes of Charles Holton at once interested Phil. She was sitting in her father's old swivel chair, well drawn in under his big flat-top desk, across which she surveyed the visitor at leisure. She placed him at once in his proper niche among the Holtons: it was of him that people were speaking as a Montgomery boy who was making himself known at the capital. He was the brother of Ethel and Fred, and clearly an alert and das.h.i.+ng person.

"Pardon me; but I remember you perfectly, Miss Kirkwood. I hope we may dispense with the formality of an introduction--we old Montgomery people--and that sort of thing!"

Holton carried a stick, which was not done in Montgomery save by elderly men, or inc.u.mbents of office, like Judge Walters or Congressman Reynolds. His necktie also suggested more opulent avenues than Main Street.

"By the outward and visible sign upon the portal I a.s.sume that Mr.

Kirkwood will return shortly."

He referred to his watch, absently turned the stem-key, and sat down in one of the chairs which Phil had lately dusted.

"I used to see you around a lot when I was a boy--you and your pony; but we've all been away so much--my sister Ethel and I. You know Ethel?"

"I've seen her," said Phil.

"We've just been breaking up our old home here. Rather tough, too, when you think we're quite alone. We've sold the old house; sorry, but the best offer I got was from a doctor who wants to turn it into a drink-cure sanatorium. Tough on the neighbors, but there you are! It didn't seem square to stand in the way of bracing up booze victims."

He expected her approval of this att.i.tude; and Phil murmured phrases that seemed to fill the gap he left for them.

"Had to go to the highest bidder--you can hardly give away an old house like that in a place like this. Neighbors are kicking, but it wasn't my fault."

Phil said she supposed that was so.

She was still noting various small items of Holton's raiment--his tan oxford shoes, brilliant socks, and brown derby. A brown derby seemed odd in Montgomery. From the pocket of his sackcoat protruded the cuffs of tan gloves, and he wore an inconspicuous watch chain pa.s.sed from pocket to pocket of his waistcoat. Not even the most prosperous of the college seniors had ever presented to Phil's eye a variety of adornments so tastefully chosen, a color scheme so effective. The interview seemed to be to the young man's liking. He talked with a.s.surance, holding his light stick with one hand, and balancing his hat on his knee with the other. Often before men had come into the office as Phil sat there and she had conversed with them while they waited for her father. She had usually exhausted the possibilities in forecasting her father's return at such times; but this gentleman seemed in no wise impatient. He spoke of the world's affairs lightly and with a flattering confidence in the understanding and sympathy of his auditor. The theatrical attractions at the capital, the promise of grand opera in Chicago, the political changes, these were things of pa.s.sing interest, but nothing to grow feverish about.

"The new trolley line will make a lot of difference to towns like Montgomery--revolutionize things in fact. Part of the great social change that is apparent all over the Middle West. There won't be any country folks any more; all hitched on to the cities--the rubes derubenized and inter-urbanized!"

Phil admitted that the changes he suggested were of significance. Her father often used similar phrases in speaking of tendencies and influences; but it was to be expected of him. The same ideas as expressed by Charles Holton derived a certain importance from the fact that he condescended to utter them; they gained weight and authority from his manner of presenting them. He was not only a man of the world, but an acute observer of social phenomena; and he was a new sort. She had not known any one like him. The memory of her two meetings with Fred came back to her: she recalled them the more clearly by reason of the contrast between the brothers.

"Your brother has moved back to the farm," she suggested to gain confirmation of a relations.h.i.+p which seemed hardly plausible with this radiant young person before her.

"Oh, Fred! Well, I'd have you know that I offered to take Fred in with me, but he wouldn't see it. I'd like the folks over here to know that; but I couldn't do anything with him. He camped on one of our Mexican mines so long that he is afraid of cities,--isn't city-broke,--and seemed relieved when I suggested that he take the farm. It's no great shakes of a farm as farms go, but he's one of these plodding chaps who like a hard job. He came back and took a look around and said it was back to the soil for him! So there was the farm, just waiting for somebody to tackle it. I haven't seen him for some time,--I'm terribly busy,--but I dare say he's out there, an earnest young husbandman anxious to become one of these prosperous farmers who push the price of bread out of sight and cry to have the tariff taken off champagne. You don't happen to know Fred?"

"I've met your brother," said Phil with reserve.

"Well, I suppose we Montgomery folks are all acquainted without being introduced. Lots of 'em moving to Indianapolis; I'm thinking of organizing a club over there to keep the Montgomery people together--an annual dinner, say; and that sort of thing. Do you know, it's rather nice of you to be talking to me in this friendly, neighborly way; it really is."

As Phil seemed not to see at once wherein the particular kindness of it lay, he smiled and continued:--

"Our families haven't been so friendly, you know. Pardon me!"

Phil, seeing now what he meant, colored deeply, and glancing out of the window was rewarded by a glimpse of Amzi's back. He had just concluded an observation and was turning into the bank.

"You will pardon me, won't you," pleaded young Holton, lowering his voice.

"I think father will be here shortly," Phil remarked irrelevantly.

He had opened himself to the suspicion that he had broached the subject of the antipathy between their houses merely to test its dramatic value.

To be talking to the daughter of a woman with whom his uncle had eloped made a situation; it is possible that he liked situations that called into action his wits and an evident gift for using his voice and eyes.

He had been rapidly noting Phil's good points. He wished to impress her, and he was not convinced that the impression he had made was favorable or that she forgave him for touching, however lightly, upon the ungrateful topic of her mother's dereliction. He had never thought of his Uncle Jack's escapade with Mrs. Kirkwood concretely; it had happened long ago, before he became attentive to such things; but the young woman with whom he was now conversing visualized the episode for him. In his mind there was an element of picturesqueness in that joint page of Holton-Montgomery history. He wondered whether Phil looked like her mother. Phil was pretty enough, though in repose she seemed rather spiritless. She was swinging herself in the swivel chair, carelessly, and since his reference to the old scandal he saw or imagined that he saw her manner change from courteous interest to a somewhat frosty indifference. His pride was p.r.i.c.ked by the sense of his blunder. He flattered himself that in his intercourse with men and women he was adroit in retrieving errors, and his instinct warned him that the curtain must not fall upon a scene that left him in discomfiture at the back of the stage.

"It pleased Ethel and me very much to have an invitation to your party, Miss Kirkwood. It was nice of you to ask us, and we shall certainly come over, even if I have to give up a trip to New York I had expected to make at just that time. Let me see, it's the twentieth, isn't it? Well, I guess I can make them wait down there. We Western folks don't often get a chance to make New Yorkers wait."

Phil was disposed to be magnanimous. He undoubtedly wished to be agreeable; and it was his uncle, a remote person whom she had never seen, who had decamped with her mother. It was hardly just to hold him accountable for his uncle's misdeeds. She wondered whether the uncle had been like this nephew, or whether he was more like William Holton, whom she had seen frequently all her life. In her encounters with Fred Holton, she had only vaguely a.s.sociated him with that other and indubitably wicked Holton who had eloped with her mother.

She was conscious that some one was stirring in the room overhead, and she became attentive to the sounds. Her father had asked delay in disposing of the apparatus of the old photograph gallery; he had wanted to look the old stuff over, he had said, and he wished also to utilize the darkroom in developing the pictures he had taken on their last outing. One of the objects of her call this afternoon had been to urge him to haste, as Bernstein wanted to move his remodeling shop into the rooms at once.

"I make it a rule of my life," Holton went on, "to duck when it comes to other people's mistakes. I make enough of my own without shouldering those my friends and relations are responsible for--particularly my relations. For example, if dear old Fred wants to throw himself away on a farm, that's his trouble. I did all I could to save him. And when I had done that, I had done my best, and I'm a busy man with troubles of my own!"

Her reception of this was not wholly satisfactory. She made in fact no reply at all.

"Excuse me," she said, hearing steps unmistakably; "I think maybe father is on the floor above. If you will wait here, I'll run up and see."

He saw her erect for the first time as she pa.s.sed him. Her apparent languor as she swung in the old creaky chair had belied what was evidently her more natural manner. The few steps necessary to carry her from the desk to the door were taken lightly, with a long, free stride.

Captain Wilson, in apostrophizing her as the Diana of Main Street, had paid no inappropriate tribute to Phil's graceful carriage. Holton rose as she crossed the room, noting her brown cheek, the golden glint in her hair, her finely modeled features, her clear brown eyes and their dark lashes. His eyes still rested upon the door for a moment after it had closed upon her. Then he struck the floor with his stick, and whistled softly. "Lordy!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

Phil accused herself of dullness in not having thought earlier of the photograph gallery. Her father must have been conducting himself very quietly there or she would have heard him before. It had been a bright day and he had undoubtedly been taking advantage of the sun to do his printing. She had always encouraged his experiments in photography, which afforded him one of his few recreations. He owned a fine camera and he gave to every detail of the photographer's art the care he bestowed upon anything that deeply interested him. They had bound in portfolios many of the views obtained in their adventures afield, and he had won prizes at state and national exhibitions of camera societies.

Phil was relieved to know that he was developing these newest plates, for now there would be no excuse for retaining the deserted gallery and it could be turned over to Bernstein without further delay.

It had grown late, and even under the glazed roof she did not at once make him out.

"Daddy!" she called softly.

She had broken in upon one of his deep reveries, and as she spoke he started guiltily. The oblong of gla.s.s he had been holding, staring at in the lessening light, fell with a crash, breaking into countless pieces.

"Oh, daddy! Did I scare you like that! Hope it wasn't one of the best negatives that went to smash--hard luck to wipe one of those Autumn on Sugar Creek gems out of existence!"