_ CHAPTER XXIV. The Beginning of the End
Court parties and court factions are always known to the populace, even down to the groom and scullions. So the defection of Cornish soon became a matter of gossip at bars, in stables, and especially about the desks of real-estate offices. Had it been a matter of armed internecine strife, the Elkins faction would have mustered an overwhelming majority; for Jim's bluff democratic ways, and his apparent identity of fibre with the mass of the people, would have made him a popular idol, had he been a thousand times a railroad president.
While these rumors of a feud were floating about, Captain Tolliver went to Jim's office several times, dressed with great care, and sat in silence, and in stiff and formal dignity, for a matter of five minutes or so, and then retired, with the suggestion that if there was any way in which he could serve Mr. Elkins he should be happy.
"Do you know," said Jim to me, "that I'm afraid Hamlet's 'bugs and goblins' are troubling Tolliver; in other words, that he's getting bughouse?"
"No," said I; "while I haven't the slightest idea what ails him, you'll find that it's something quite natural for him when you get a full view of his case."
Finally, Jim, in thanking him for his proffered assistance, inquired diplomatically after the thing which weighed upon the Captain's mind.
"I may be mistaken, suh," said he, drawing himself up, and thrusting one hand into the tightly-buttoned breast of his black Prince Albert, "entiahly mistaken in the premises; but I have the impression that diffe'ences of a pussonal nature ah in existence between youahself and a gentleman whose name in this connection I prefuh to leave unmentioned. Such being the case, I assume that occasion may and naturally will arise foh the use of a friend, suh, who unde'stands the code--the code, suh--and is not without experience in affaiahs of honah. I recognize the fact that in cehtain exigencies nothing, by Gad, but pistols, ovah a measu'ed distance, meets the case. In such an event, suh, I shall be mo' than happy to suhve you; mo' than happy, by the Lord!"
"Captain," said Jim feelingly, "you're a good fellow and a true friend, and I promise you I shall have no other second."
"In that promise," replied the Captain gravely, "you confeh an honah, suh!"
After this it was thought wise to permit the papers to print the story of Cornish's retirement; otherwise the Captain might have fomented an insurrection.
"The reasons for this step on the part of Mr. Cornish are purely personal," said the
Herald. "While retaining his feeling of interest in Lattimore, his desire to engage in certain broader fields of promotion and development in the tropics had made it seem to him necessary to lay down the work here which up to this time he has so well done. He will still remain a citizen of our city. On the other hand, while we shall not lose Mr. Cornish, we shall gain the active and powerful influence of Mr. Charles Harper, the president of the Frugality and Indemnity Life Insurance Company. It is thus that Lattimore rises constantly to higher prosperity, and wields greater and greater power. The remarkable activity lately noted in the local real-estate market, especially in the sales of unconsidered trifles of land at high prices, is to be attributed to the strengthening of conditions by these steps in the ascent of the ladder of progress."
Cornish, however, was not without his partisans. Cecil Barr-Smith almost quarreled with Antonia because she struck Cornish off her books, Cecil insisting that he was an entirely decent chap. In this position Cecil was in accord with the clubmen of the younger sort, who had much in common with Cornish, and little with the overworked and busy railway president. Even Giddings, to me, seemed to remain unduly intimate with Cornish; but this did not affect the utterances of his paper, which still maintained what he called the policy of boost.
The behavior of Josie, however, was enigmatical. Cornish's attentions to her redoubled, while Jim seemed dropped out of the race--and therefore my wife's relations with Miss Trescott were subjected to a severe strain. Naturally, being a matron, and of the age of thirty-odd years, she put on some airs with her younger friend, still in the chrysalis of maidenhood. Sometimes, in a sweet sort of a way, she almost domineered over her. On this Elkins-Cornish matter, however, Josie held her at arms' length, and refused to make her position plain; and Alice nursed that simulated resentment which one dear friend sometimes feels toward another, because of a real or imagined breach of the obligations of reciprocity.
One night, as we sat about the grate in the Trescott library, some veiled insinuations on Alice's part caused a turning of the worm.
"If there is anything you want to say, Alice," said Josie, "there seems to be no good reason why you shouldn't speak out. I have asked your advice--yours and Albert's--frequently, having really no one else to trust; and therefore I am willing to hear your reproof, if you have it for me. What is it?"
"Oh, Josie," said I, seeking cover. "You are too sensitive. There isn't anything, is there, Alice?"
Here I scowled violently, and shook my head at my wife; but all to no effect.
"Yes, there is," said Alice. "We have a dear friend, the best in the world, and he has an enemy. The whole town is divided in allegiance between them, about nine on one side to one on the other--"
"Which proves nothing," said Josie.
"And now," Alice went on, "you, who have had every opportunity of seeing, and ought to know, that one of them is, in every look, and thought, and act, a
man, while the other is--"
"A friend of mine and of my mother's," said Josie; "please omit the character-sketch. And remember that I refuse even to consider these business differences. Each claims to be right; and I shall judge them by other things."
"Business differences, indeed!" scoffed Alice, albeit a little impressed by the girl's dignity. "As if you did not know what these differences came from! But it isn't because you remain neutral that we com--"
"
You complain, Alice," said I; "I am distinctly out of this."
"That I complain, then," amended Alice reproachfully. "It is because you dismiss the
man and keep the--other! You may say I have no right to be heard in this, but I'm going to complain Josie Trescott, just the same!"
This seemed to approach actual conflict, and I was frightened. Had it been two men, I should have thought nothing of it, but with women such differences cut deeper than with us. Josie stepped to her writing-desk and took from it a letter.
"We may as well clear this matter up," said she, "for it has stood between us for a long time. I think that Mr. Elkins will not feel that any confidences are violated by my showing you this--you who have been my dearest friends--"
She stopped for no reason, unless it was agitation.
"Are," said I, "I hope, not 'have been.'"
"Well," said she, "read the letter, and then tell me who has been 'dismissed.'"
I shrank from reading it; but Alice was determined to know all. It was dated the day before I left New York.
"Dear Josie," it read, "I have told you so many times that I love you that it is an old story to you; yet I must say it once more. Until that night when we brought your father home, I was never able to understand why you would never say definitely yes or no to me; but I felt that you could not be expected to understand my feeling that the best years of our lives were wasting--you are so much younger than I--and so I hoped on. Sometimes I feared that somebody else stood in the way, and do fear it now, but that alone would have been a much simpler thing, and of that I could not complain. But on that fearful night you said something which hurt me more than anything else could, because it was an accusation of which I could not clear myself in the court of my own conscience--except so far as to say that I never dreamed of doing your father anything but good. Surely, surely you must feel this!
"Since that time, however, you have been so kind to me that I have become sure that you see that terrible tragedy as I do, and acquit me of all blame, except that of blindly setting in motion the machinery which did the awful deed. This is enough for you to forgive, God knows; but I have thought lately that you had forgiven it. You have been very kind and good to me, and your presence and influence have made me look at things in a different way from that of years ago, and I am now doing things which ought to be credited to you, so far as they are good. As for the bad, I must bear the blame myself!"
Thus far Alice had read aloud.
"Don't, don't," said Josie, hiding her face. "Don't read it aloud, please!"
"But now I am writing, not to explain anything which has taken place, but to set me right as to the future. You gave me reason to think, when we met, that I might have my answer. Things which I cannot explain have occurred, which may turn out very evilly for me, and for any one connected with me. Therefore, until this state of things passes, I shall not see you. I write this, not that I think you will care much, but that you may not believe that I have changed in my feelings toward you. If my time ever comes, and I believe it will, and that before very long, you will find me harder to dispose of without an answer than I have been in the past. I shall claim you in spite of every foe that may rise up to keep you from me. You may change, but I shall not.
"'Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.'
And mine will not alter. J. R. E."
"My dear," said Alice very humbly, "I beg your pardon. I have misjudged you. Will you forgive me?"
Josie came to take her letter, and, in lieu of other answer, stood with her arm about Alice's waist.
"And now," said Alice, "have you no other confidences for us?"
"No!" she cried, "no! there is nothing more! Nothing, absolutely nothing, believe me! But, now, confidence for confidence, Albert, what is this great danger? Is it anything for which any one here--for which I am to blame? Does it threaten any one else? Can't something be done about it? Tell me, tell me!"
"I think," said I, "that the letter was written before my telegram from New York came, and after--some great difficulties came upon us. I don't believe he would have written it five hours later; and I don't believe he would have written it to any one in anything but the depression of--the feeling he has for you."
"If that is true," said she, "why does he still avoid me? Why does he still avoid me? You have not told me all; or there is something you do not know."
As we went home, Alice kept referring to Jim's letter, and was as much troubled by it as was Josie.
"How do you explain it?" she asked.
"I explain it," said I, "by ranging it with the well-known phenomenon of the love-sick youth of all lands and in every time, who revels in the thought of incurring danger or death, and heralding the fact to his loved one. Even Jim is not exempt from the feelings of the boy who rejoices in delicious tears at the thought of being found cold and dead on the doorstep of the cruel maiden of his dreams. And that letter, with a slight substratum of fact, is the result. Don't bother about it for a moment."
This answer may not have been completely frank, or quite expressive of my views; but I was tired of the subject. It was hardly a time to play with mammets or to tilt with lips, and it seemed that the matter might wait. There was a good deal of the pettishness of nervousness among us at that time, and I had my full share of it. Insomnia was prevalent, and gray hairs increased and multiplied. The time was drawing near for our meeting with Pendleton in Chicago. We had advices that he was coming in from the West, on his return from a long journey of inspection, and would pass over his Pacific Division. We asked him to run down to Lattimore over our road, but Smith answered that the running schedule could not be altered.
There seemed to be no reason for doubting that the proposed contract would be ratified; for the last desperate rally on our part appeared to have put a crash out of the question, for some time at least. To him that hath shall be given; and so long as we were supposed to possess power, we felt that we were safe. Yet the blow dealt by Cornish had maimed us, no matter how well we hid our hurt; and we were all too keenly conscious of the law of the hunt, by which it is the wounded buffalo which is singled out and dragged down by the wolves.
On Wednesday Jim and I were to start for Chicago, where Mr. Pendleton would be found awaiting us. On Sunday the weather, which had been cold and snowy for weeks, changed; and it blew from the southeast, raw and chill, but thawy. All day Monday the warmth increased; and the farmers coming into town reported great ponds of water dammed up in the swales and hollows against the enormous snow-drifts. Another warm day, and these waters would break through, and the streams would go free in freshets. Tuesday dawned without a trace of frost, and still the strong warm wind blew; but now it was from the east, and as I left the carriage to enter my office I was wet by a scattering fall of rain. In a few moments, as I dictated my morning's letters, my stenographer called attention to the beating on the window of a strong and persistent downpour.
Elkins, too much engrossed in his thoughts to be able to confine himself to the details of his business, came into my office, where, sometimes sitting and sometimes walking uneasily about, he seemed to get some sort of comfort from my presence. He watched the rain, as one seeing visions.
"By morning," said he, "there ought to be ducks in Alderson's pond. Can't we do our chores early and get into the blind before daylight, and lay for 'em?"
"I heard Canada geese honking overhead last night," said I.
"What time last night?"
"Two o'clock."
"Well, that lets us out on the Alderson's pond project," said he; "the boys who hunted there weren't out walking at two. In those days they slept. It can't be that we're the fellows.... Why, there's Antonia, coming in through the rain!"
"I wonder," said I, "if la grippe isn't taking a bad turn with her father."
She came in, shedding the rain from her mackintosh like a water-fowl, radiant with health and the air of outdoors.
"Gentlemen," said she gaily, "who but myself would come out in anything but a diving-suit to-day!"
"It's almost an even thing," said Jim, "between a calamity, which brings you, and good fortune, which keeps you away. I hope it's only your ordinary defiance of the elements."
"The fact is," said she, "that it's a very funny errand. But don't laugh at me if it's absurd, please. It's about Mr. Cornish."
"Yes!" said Jim, "what of him?"
"You know papa has been kept in by la grippe for a day or so," she went on, "and we haven't been allowing people to see him very much; but Mr. Cornish has been in two or three times, and every time when he went away papa was nervous and feverish. To-day, after he left, papa asked--" here she looked at Mr. Elkins, as he stood gravely regarding her, and went on with redder cheeks--"asked me some questions, which led to a long talk between us, in which I found out that he has almost persuaded papa to--to change his business connections completely."
"Yes!" said Jim. "Change, how?"
"Why, that I didn't quite understand," said Antonia, "except that there was logwood and mahogany and Mexico in it, and--and that he had made papa feel very differently toward you. After what has taken place recently I knew that was wrong--you know papa is not as firm in his ideas as he used to be; and I felt that he--and you, were in danger, somehow. At first I was afraid of being laughed at--why, I'd rather you'd laugh at me than to look like
that!"
"You're a good girl, Antonia," said Jim, "and have done the right thing, and a great favor to us. Thank you very much; and please excuse me a moment while I send a telegram. Please wait until I come back."
"No, I'm going, Albert," said she, when he was gone to his own office. "But first you ought to know that man told papa something--about me."
"How do you know about this?" said I.
"Papa asked me--if I had--any complaints to make--of Mr. Elkins's treatment of me! What do you suppose he dared to tell him?"
"What did you tell your father?" I asked.
"What could I tell him but 'No'?" she exclaimed. "And I just had a heart-to-heart talk with papa about Mr. Cornish and the way he has acted; and if his fever hadn't begun to run up so, I'd have got the rubber, or Peruvian-bark idea, or whatever it was, entirely out of his mind. Poor papa! It breaks my heart to see him changing so! And so I gave him a sleeping-capsule, and came down through this splendid rain; and now I'm going! But, mind, this last is a secret."
And so she went away.
"Where's Antonia?" asked Jim, returning.
"Gone," said I.
"I wanted to talk further about this matter."
"I don't like it, Jim. It means that the cruel war is not over."
"Wait until we pass Wednesday," said Jim, "and we'll wring his neck. What a poisonous devil, to try and wean from us, to his ruin, an old man in his dotage!--I wish Antonia had stayed. I went out to set the boys wiring for news of washouts between here and Chicago. We mustn't miss that trip, if we have to start to-night. This rain will make trouble with the track.--No, I don't like it, either. Wasn't it thoughtful of Antonia to come down! We can line Hinckley up all right, now we know it; but if it had gone on--we can't stand a third solar-plexus blow...."
The sky darkened, until we had to turn on the lights, and the rain fell more and more heavily. Once or twice there were jarring rolls of distant thunder. To me there was something boding and ominous in the weather. The day wore on interminably in the quiet of a business office under such a sky. Elkins sent in a telegram which he had received that no trouble with water was looked for along our way to Chicago, which was by the Halliday line. As the dark day was lowering down to its darker close, I went into President Elkins's office to take him home with me. As I entered through my private door, I saw Giddings coming in through the outer entrance.
"Say," said he, "I wanted to see you two together. I know you have some business with Pendleton, and you've promised the boys a story for Thursday or Friday. Now, you've been a little sore on me because I haven't absolutely cut Cornish."
"Not at all," said Jim. "You must have a poor opinion of our intelligence."
"Well, you had no cause to feel that way," he went on, "because, as a newspaperman, I'm supposed to have few friends and no enemies. Besides, you can't tell what a man might sink to, deprived all at once of the friendship of three such men as you fellows!"
"Quite right," said I; "but get to the point."
"I'm getting to it," said he. "I violate no confidence when I say that Cornish has got it in for your crowd in great shape. The point is involved in that. I don't know what your little game is with old Pendleton, but whatever it is, Cornish thinks he can queer it, and at the same time reap some advantages from the old man, if he can have a few minutes' talk with Pen before you do. And he's going to do it, if he can. Now, I figure, with my usual correctness of ratiocination, that your scheme is going to be better for the town, and therefore for the
Herald, than his, and hence this disclosure, which I freely admit has some of the ear-marks of bad form. Not that I blame Cornish, or am saying anything against him, you know. His course is ideally Iagoan: he stands in with Pendleton, benefits himself, and gets even with you all at one fell--"
"Stop this chatter!" cried Jim, flying at him and seizing him by the collar. "Tell me how you know this, and how much you know!"
"My God!" said Giddings, his lightness all departed, "is it as vital as that? He told me himself. Said it was something he wouldn't put on paper and must tell Pendleton by word of mouth, and he's on the train that just pulled out for Chicago."
"He'll beat us there by twelve hours," said I, "and he can do all he threatens! Jim, we're gone!"
Elkins leaped to the telephone and rang it furiously. There was the ring of command sounding through the clamor of desperate and dubious conflict in his voice.
"Give me the L. & G. W. dispatcher's office, quick!" said he. "I can't remember the number ... it's 420, four, two, naught. Is this Agnew? This is Elkins talking. Listen! Without a moment's delay, I want you to find out when President Pendleton's special, east-bound on his Pacific Division, passes Elkins Junction. I'm at my office, and will wait for the information here.... Don't let me wait long, please, understand? And, say! Call Solan to the 'phone.... Is this Solan? Mr. Solan, get out the best engine you've got in the yards, couple to it a caboose, and put on a crew to make a run to Elkins Junction, as quick as God'll let you! Do you understand? Give me Schwartz and his fireman.... Yes, and Corcoran, too. Andy, this is a case of life and death--of life and death, do you understand? See that the line's clear, and no stops. I've got to connect east at Elkins Junction with a special on that line....
Got to, d'ye see? Have the special wait at the State Street crossing until we come aboard!" _