Helen of the Old House Part 36

"They've got a new scheme now. They've set Mary after you. They figure that if the girl can land you they'll get a chance at what I have made out of the process that way. I told him you was too smart to be caught like that. But you've got to watch them. They'll do anything."

In spite of his pity for his father, John Ward drew from him, overcome by a feeling of disgust and shame which he could not wholly control.

Adam, unconscious of his son's emotions, went on. "I've made it all in spite of them, John, but I've had to watch them. They'll be after you now that I have turned things over to you, just as they have been after me. They'll never get it, though. They'll never get a penny of it. I'll destroy the Mill and everything before I'll give up a dollar of what I've made."

John Ward could not speak. It was too monstrous--too horrible. As one in a hideous dream, he listened. What was back of it all? Why did his father in his spells of nervous excitement always rave so about the patented process? Why did he hate Pete Martin so bitterly? What was this secret thing that was driving Adam Ward insane?

Thinking to find an answer to these perplexing questions, if there was any answer other than the Mill owner's mental condition, John forced himself to the pretense of sharing his father's fears. He agreed with Adam's arraignment of Pete, echoed his father's expression of hatred for the old workman, thanked Adam for warning him, boasted of his own ability to see through their tricks and schemes and to protect the property his father had acc.u.mulated.

In this vein they talked in confidential whispers until John felt that he could venture the question, "Just what is it about the process that they are after, father? If I knew the exact history of the thing I would be in a much better position to handle the situation as you want, wouldn't I?"

Adam Ward's manner changed instantly. With a look of sly cunning he studied John's face. "There is nothing about the process, son," he said, steadily. "You know all there is to know about it now."

But when John, thinking that his father had regained his self-control, urged him to go back to his bed, Adam's painful agitation returned.

For some moments he paced to and fro as if in nervous indecision, then, going close to John, he said in a low, half whisper, "John, there is something else I wanted to ask you. You have been to college and over there in the war, you must have seen a lot of men die--" He paused.

"Yes, yes, you must have been close to death a good many times. Tell me, John, do you believe that there is anything after--I mean anything beyond this life? Does a man's conscious existence go on when he is dead?"

"Yes," said John, wondering at this apparent change in his father's thought. "I believe in a life beyond this. You believe in it, too, don't you, father?"

"Of course," returned Adam. "We can't know, though, for sure, can we?

But, anyway, a man would be foolish to risk it, wouldn't he?"

"To risk what, father?"

"To risk the chance of there being no h.e.l.l," came the startling answer.

"My folks raised me to believe in h.e.l.l, and the preachers all teach it.

And if there should be such a place of eternal torment a man would be a fool not to fix up some way to get out of it, wouldn't he?"

John did not know what to say.

Adam Ward leaned closer to his son and with an air of secrecy whispered, "That's exactly what I've done, John--I've worked out a scheme to tie G.o.d up in a contract that will force Him to save me. The old Interpreter gave me the idea. You see if it should turn out that there is no h.e.l.l my plan can't do any harm and if there is a h.e.l.l it makes me safe anyway."

He chuckled with insane satisfaction. "They say that G.o.d knows everything--that n.o.body can figure out a way to beat Him, but I have--I have worked out a deal with G.o.d that is bound to give me the best of it. I've got Him tied up so tight that He'll be bound to save me. Some people think I'm crazy, but you wait, my boy--they'll find out how crazy I am. They'll never get me into h.e.l.l. I have been figuring on this ever since the Interpreter told me I had better make a contract with G.o.d. And after Pete left this morning I got it all settled. A man can't afford to take any chances with G.o.d and so I made this deal with Him. h.e.l.l or no h.e.l.l, I'm safe. G.o.d don't get the best of me,--And you are safe, too, son, with the new process, if you look after your own interests, as I have done, and don't overlook any opportunities. I wanted to tell you about this so you wouldn't worry about me. I'll go back to bed now. Don't tell mother and Helen what we have been talking about. No use to worry them--they couldn't understand anyway. And don't forget, John, what Pete told me about Mary. Their scheme won't work of course. I know you are too smart for them. But just the same you've got to be on your guard against her all the time. Never take any unnecessary chances. Don't talk over a deal with a man when any one can hear. If you are careful to have no witnesses when you arrange a deal you are absolutely safe. It is what you can slip into the written contract that counts--once you get your man's signature. That's always been my way. And now I have even put one over on G.o.d."

He stole cautiously out of the room and back to his own apartment.

Outside his father's door John waited, listening, until he was convinced that sleep had at last come to the exhausted man.

Late that same Sunday evening, when the street meeting held by Jake Vodell was over, there was another meeting in the room back of the pool hall. The men who sat around that table with the agitator were not criminals--they were workmen. Sam Whaley and two others were men with families. They were all American citizens, but they were under the spell of their leader's power. They had been prepared for that leaders.h.i.+p by the industrial policies of McIver and Adam Ward.

This meeting of that inner circle was in no way authorized by the unions. The things they said Sam Whaley would not have dared to say openly in the Mill workers' organization. The plans they proposed to carry out in the name of the unions they were compelled to make in secret. In their mad, fanatical acceptance of the dreams that Vodell wrought for them; in their blind obedience to the leaders.h.i.+p he had so cleverly established; in their reckless disregard of the consequences under the spell of his promised protection, they were as insane, in fact, as the owner of the Mill himself.

The supreme, incredible, pitiful tragedy of it all was this: That these workmen committed themselves to the plans of Jake Vodell in the name of their country's workmen.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE FLATS

Helen Ward knew that she could not put off much longer giving McIver a definite answer. When she was with him, the things that so disturbed her mind and heart were less real--she was able to see things clearly from the point of view to which she had been trained. Her father's mental condition was nothing more than a nervous trouble resulting from overwork--John's ideals were highly creditable to his heart and she loved him dearly for them, but they were wholly impossible in a world where certain cla.s.s standards must be maintained--the Mill took again its old vague, indefinite place in her life--the workman Charlie Martin must live only in her girlhood memories, those secretly sad memories that can have no part in the grown-up present and must not be permitted to enter into one's consideration of the future. In short, the presence of McIver always banished effectually the Helen of the old house: with him the daughter of Adam Ward was herself.

And Helen was tempted by this feeling of relief to speak the decisive word that would finally put an end to her indecision and bring at least the peace of certainty to her troubled mind. In the light of her education and environment, there was every reason why she should say, "Yes" to McIver's insistent pleadings. There was no shadow of a reason why she should refuse him. One word and the Helen of the old house would be banished forever--the princess lady would reign undisturbed.

And yet, for some reason, that word was not spoken. Helen told herself that she would speak it. But on each occasion she put it off. And always when the man was gone and she was alone, in spite of the return in full force of all her disturbing thoughts and emotions, she was glad that she had not committed herself irrevocably--that she was still free.

She had never felt the appeal of all that McIver meant to her as she felt it that Sunday. She had never been more disturbed and unhappy than she was the following day when John told her a little of his midnight experience with their father and how Adam's excitement had been caused by Peter Martin's visit. All of which led her, early in the afternoon, to the Interpreter.

She found the old basket maker working with feverish energy. Billy Rand at the bench in the corner of the room was as busy with his part of their joint industry.

It was the Interpreter's habit, when Helen was with him, to lay aside his work. But of late he had continued the occupation of his hands even as he talked with her. She had noticed this, as women always notice such things--but that was all. On this day, when the old man in the wheel chair failed to give her his undivided attention, something in his manner impressed the trivial incident more sharply on her mind.

He greeted her kindly, as always, but while she was conscious of no lack of warmth in his welcome, she felt in the deep tones of that gentle voice a sadness that moved her to quick concern. The dark eyes that never failed to light with pleasure at her coming were filled with weary pain. The strong face was thin and tired. As he bent his white head over the work in his lap he seemed to have grown suddenly very weak and old.

With an awakened mind, the young woman looked curiously about the room.

She had never seen it so filled with materials and with finished baskets. The table with the big lamp and the magazines and papers had been moved into the far corner against the book shelves, as though he had now neither time nor thought for reading. The floor was covered thick with a litter of chips and shavings. Even silent Billy's face was filled with anxiety and troubled care as he looked from Helen to his old companion in the wheel chair and slowly turned back to his work on the bench.

"What is the matter here?" she demanded, now thoroughly aroused.

"Matter?" returned the Interpreter. "Is there anything wrong here, Helen?"

"You are not well," she insisted. "You look all worn out--as if you had not slept for weeks--what is it?"

"Oh, that is nothing," he answered, with a smile. "Billy and I have been working overtime a little--that is all."

"But why?" she demanded, "why must you wear yourself out like this?

Surely there is no need for you to work so hard, day and night."

He answered as if he were not sure that he had heard her aright. "No need, Helen? Surely, child, you cannot be so ignorant of the want that exists within sight of your home?"

She returned his look wonderingly. "You mean the strike?"

Bending over his work again, the old basket maker answered, sorrowfully, "Yes, Helen, I mean the strike."

There was something in the Interpreter's manner--something in the weary, drooping figure in that wheel chair--in the tired, deep-lined face--in the pain-filled eyes and the gentle voice that went to the deeps of Helen Ward's woman heart.

With her, as with every one in Millsburgh, the strike was a topic of daily conversation. She sympathized with her brother in his anxiety.

She was worried over the noticeable effect of the excitement upon her father. She was interested in McIver's talk of the situation. But in no vital way had her life been touched by the industrial trouble. In no way had she come in actual contact with it. The realities of the situation were to her vague, intangible, remote from her world, as indeed the Mill itself had been, before her visit with John that day.

To her, the Interpreter was of all men set apart from the world. In his little hut on the cliff, with his books and his basket making, her gentle old friend's life, it seemed to her, held not one thing in common with the busy world that lay within sight of the balcony-porch.

The thought that the industrial trouble could in any way touch him came to her with a distinct shock.

"Surely," she protested, at last, "the strike cannot affect you. It has nothing to do with your work."