_ PART III. FULFILLMENT CHAPTER XVII
Work, incessant and of savage ardor, now filled Banneker's life. Once more he immersed himself in it as assuagement to the emptiness of long days and the yearning of longer nights. For, in the three months since Delavan Eyre's death, Banneker had seen Io but once, and then very briefly. Instead of subduing her loveliness, the mourning garb enhanced and enriched it, like a jet setting to a glowing jewel. More irresistibly than ever she was
"............ that Lady Beauty in whose praise
The voice and hand shake still"--
but there was something about her withdrawn, aloof of spirit, which he dared not override or even challenge. She spoke briefly of Eyre, without any pretense of great sorrow, dwelling with a kindled eye on that which she had found admirable in him; his high and steadfast courage through atrocious suffering until darkness settled down on his mind. Her own plans were definite; she was going away with the elder Mrs. Eyre to a rest resort. Of The Patriot and its progress she talked with interest, but her questions were general and did not touch upon the matter of the surrendered editorial. Was she purposely avoiding it or had it passed from her mind in the stress of more personal events? Banneker would have liked to know, but deemed it better not to ask. Once he tried to elicit from her some indication of when she would marry him; but from this decision she exhibited a covert and inexplicable shrinking. This he might attribute, if he chose, to that innate and sound formalism which would always lead her to observe the rules of the game; if from no special respect for them as such, then out of deference to the prejudices of others. Nevertheless, he experienced a gnawing uncertainty, amounting to a half-confessed dread.
Yet, at the moment of parting, she came to his arms, clung to him, gave him her lips passionately, longingly; bade him write, for his letters would be all that there was to keep life radiant for her....
Through some perverse kink in his mental processes, he found it difficult to write to Io, in the succeeding weeks and months, during which she devotedly accompanied the failing Mrs. Eyre from rest cure to sanitarium, about his work on The Patriot. That interplay of interest between them in his editorial plans and purposes, which had so stimulated and inspired him, was checked. The mutual current had ceased to flash; at least, so he felt. Had the wretched affair of his forfeited promise in the matter of the strike announcement destroyed one bond between them? Even were this true, there were other bonds, of the spirit and therefore irrefragable, to hold her to him; thus he comforted his anxious hopes.
Because their community of interest in his work had lapsed, Banneker found the savor oozing out of his toil. Monotony sang its dispiriting drone in his ears. He flung himself into polo with reawakened vim, and roused the hopes of The Retreat for the coming season, until an unlucky spill broke two ribs and dislocated a shoulder. Restless in the physical idleness of his mending days, he took to drifting about in the whirls and ripples and backwaters of the city life, out of which wanderings grew a new series of the "Vagrancies," more quaint and delicate and trenchant than the originals because done with a pen under perfected mastery, without losing anything of the earlier simplicity and sympathy. In this work, Banneker found relief; and in Io's delight in it, a reflected joy that lent fresh impetus to his special genius. The Great Gaines enthusiastically accepted the new sketches for his magazine.
Whatever ebbing of fervor from his daily task Banneker might feel, his public was conscious of no change for the worse. Letters of commendation, objection, denunciation, and hysteria, most convincing evidence of an editor's sway over the public mind, increased weekly. So, also, did the circulation of The Patriot, and its advertising revenue. Its course in the garment strike had satisfied the heavy local advertisers of its responsibility and repentance for sins past; they testified, by material support, to their appreciation. Banneker's strongly pro-labor editorials they read with the mental commentary that probably The Patriot had to do that kind of thing to hold its circulation; but it could be depended upon to be "right" when the pinch came. Marrineal would see to that.
Since the episode of the killed proof, Marrineal had pursued a hands-off policy with regard to the editorial page. The labor editorials suited him admirably. They were daily winning back to the paper the support of Marrineal's pet "common people" who had been alienated by its course in the strike, for McClintick and other leaders had been sedulously spreading the story of the rejected strikers' advertisement. But, it appeared, Marrineal's estimate of the public's memory was correct: "They never remember." Banneker's skillful and vehement preachments against Wall Street, money domination of the masses, and the like, went far to wipe out the inherent anti-labor record of the paper and its owner. Hardly a day passed that some working-man's union or club did not pass resolutions of confidence and esteem for Tertius C. Marrineal and The Patriot. It amused Marrineal almost as much as it gratified him. As a political asset it was invaluable. His one cause of complaint against the editorial page was that it would not attack Judge Enderby, except on general political or economic principles. And the forte of The Patriot in attack did not consist in polite and amenable forensics. Its readers were accustomed to the methods of the prize-ring rather than the debating platform. However, Marrineal made up for his editorial writer's lukewarmness, by the vigor of his own attacks upon Enderby. For, by early summer, it became evident that the nomination (and probable election) lay between these two opponents. Enderby was organizing a strong campaign. So competent and unbiased an observer of political events as Russell Edmonds, now on The Sphere, believed that Marrineal would be beaten. Shrewd, notwithstanding his egotism, Marrineal entertained a growing dread of this outcome himself. Through roundabout channels, he let his chief editorial writer understand that, when the final onset was timed, The Patriot's editorial page would be expected to lead the charge with the "spear that knows no brother." Banneker would appreciate that his own interests, almost as much as his chief's, were committed to the overthrow of Willis Enderby.
It was not a happy time for the Editor of The Patriot.
Happiness promised for the near future, however. Wearied of chasing a phantom hope of health from spot to spot, the elder Mrs. Eyre had finally elected to settle down for the summer at her Westchester place. For obvious reasons, Io did not wish Banneker to come there. But she would plan to see him in town. Only, they must be very discreet; perhaps even to the extent of having a third person dine with them, her half-brother Archie, or Esther Forbes. Any one, any time, anywhere, Banneker wrote back, provided only he could see her again!
The day that she came to town, having arranged to meet Banneker for dinner with Esther, fate struck from another and unexpected quarter. Such was Banneker's appearance when he came forward to greet her that Io cried out involuntarily, asking if he were ill.
"_I_'m not," he answered briefly. Then, with a forced smile of appeal to the third member, "Do you mind, Esther, if I talk to Io on a private matter?"
"Go as near as you like," returned that understanding young person promptly. "I'm consumed with a desire to converse with Elsie Maitland, who is dining in that very farthest corner. Back in an hour."
"It's Camilla Van Arsdale," said Banneker as the girl left.
"You've heard from her?"
"From Mindle who looks after my shack there. He says she's very ill. I've got to go out there at once."
"Oh, Ban!"
"I know, dearest, and after all these endless weeks of separation. But you wouldn't have me do otherwise. Would you?"
"Of course not," she said indignantly. "When do you start?"
"At midnight."
"And your work?"
"I'll send my stuff in by wire."
"How long?"
"I can't tell until I get there."
"Ban, you mustn't go," she said with a changed tone.
"Not go? To Miss Camilla? There's nothing--"
"I'll go."
"You!"
"Why not? If she's seriously ill, she needs a woman, not a man with her."
"But--but, Io, you don't even like her."
"Heaven give you understanding, Ban," she retorted with a bewitching pretext of enforced patience. "She's a woman, and she was good to me in my trouble. And if that weren't enough, she's your friend whom you love."
"I oughtn't to let you," he hesitated.
"You've got to let me. I'd go, anyway. Get Esther back. She must help me pack. Get me a drawing-room if you can. If not, I'll take your berth."
"You're going to leave to-night?"
"Of course. What would you suppose?" She gave him her lustrous smile. "I'll love it," she said softly, "because it's partly for you."
The rest of the evening was consumed for Banneker in writing and wiring, arranging reservations through his influence with a local railroad official whom he pried loose from a rubber of bridge at his club; while Io and Esther, dinnerless except for a hasty box of sandwiches, were back in Westchester packing and explaining to Mrs. Eyre. When the three reconvened in Io's drawing-room the traveler was prepared for an indefinite stay.
"If her condition is critical I'll wire for you," promised lo. "Otherwise you mustn't come."
With that he must make shift to be content; that and a swift clasp of her arms, a clinging pressure of her lips, and her soft "Good-bye. Oh, good-bye! Love me every minute while I'm gone," before the tactful Esther Forbes, somewhat miscast in the temporary role of Propriety, returned from a conversation with the porter to say that they really must get off that very instant or be carried westward to the eternal scandal of society which would not understand a triangular elopement.
Loneliness no longer beset Banneker, even though Io was farther separated from him than before in the unimportant reckoning of geographical miles; for now she was on his errand. He held her by the continuous thought of a vital common interest. In place of the former bereavement of spirit was a new and consuming anxiety for Camilla Van Arsdale. Io's first telegram from Manzanita went far to appease that. Miss Van Arsdale had suffered a severe shock, but was now on the road to recovery: Io would stay indefinitely: there was no reason for Banneker's coming out for the present: in fact, the patient definitely prohibited it: letter followed.
The letter, when it came, forced a cry, as of physical pain, from Banneker's throat. Camilla Van Arsdale was going blind. Some obscure reflex of the heart trouble had affected the blood supply of the eyes, and the shock of discovering this had reacted upon the heart. There was no immediate danger; but neither was there ultimate hope of restored vision. So much the eminent oculist whom Io had brought from Angelica City told her.
Your first thought (wrote Io) will be to come out here at once. Don't. It will be much better for you to wait until she needs you more; until you can spend two or three weeks or a month with her. Now I can help her through the days by reading to her and walking with her. You don't know how happy it makes me to be here where I first knew you, to live over every event of those days. Your movable shack is almost as it used to be, though there is no absurd steel boat outside for me to stumble into.
Would you believe it; the new station-agent has a Sears-Roebuck catalogue! I borrowed it of him to read. What, oh, what should a sensible person--yes, I am a sensible person, Ban, outside of my love for you--and I'd scorn to be sensible about that--Where was I? Oh, yes; what should a sensible person find in these simple words "Two horse-power, reliable and smooth-running, economical of gasoline," and so on, to make her want to cry? Ban, send me a copy of "The Voices."
He sent her "The Undying Voices" and other books to read, and long, impassioned letters, and other letters to be read to Camilla Van Arsdale whose waning vision must be spared in every possible way.
Hour after hour (wrote Io) she sits at the piano and makes her wonderful music, and tries to write it down. There I can be of very little help to her. Then she will go back into her room and lie on the big couch near the window where the young, low pines brush the wall, with Cousin Billy's photograph in her hands, and be so deathly quiet that I sometimes get frightened and creep up to the door to peer in and be sure that she is all right. To-day when I looked in at the door I heard her say, quite softly to herself: "I shall die without seeing his face again." I had to hold my breath and run out into the forest. Ban, I didn't know that it was in me to cry so--not since that night on the train when I left you.... This all seems so wicked and wrong and--yes--wasteful. Think of what these two splendid people could be to each other! She craves him so, Ban; just the sound of his voice, a word from him; but she won't break her own word. Sometimes I think I shall do it. Write me all you can about him, Ban, and send papers: all the political matter. You can't imagine what it is to her only to hear about him.
So Banneker had clippings collected, wrote a little daily political bulletin for Io; even went out of his way editorially to pay an occasional handsome tribute to Judge Enderby's personal character, whilst adducing cogent reasons why, as the "Wall Street and traction candidate," he should be defeated. But his personal opinion, expressed for the behoof of his correspondents in Manzanita, was that he probably could not be defeated; that his brilliant and aggressive campaign was forcing Marrineal to a defensive and losing fight.
"It is a great asset in politics," wrote Banneker to Miss Camilla, "to have nothing to hide or explain. If we're going to be licked, there is no man in the world whom I'd as gladly have win as Judge Enderby."
All this, of course, in the manner of one having interesting political news of no special import to the receiver of the news, to deliver; and quite without suggestion of any knowledge regarding her personal concern in the matter.
But between the lines of Io's letters, full of womanly pity for Camilla Van Arsdale, of resentment for her thwarted and hopeless longing, Banneker thought to discern a crystallizing resolution. It would be so like Io's imperious temper to take the decision into her own hands, to bring about a meeting between the long-sundered lovers, to cast into the lonely and valiant woman's darkening life one brief and splendid glow of warmth and radiance. For to Io, a summons for Willis Enderby to come would be no more than a defiance of the conventions. She knew nothing of the ruinous vengeance awaiting any breach of faith on his part, at the hands of a virulent and embittered wife; she did not even know that his coming would be a specific breach of faith, for Banneker, withheld by his promise of secrecy to Russell Edmonds, had never told her. Nor had he betrayed to her the espionage under which Enderby constantly moved; he shrank, naturally, from adding so ignoble an item to the weight of disrepute under which The Patriot already lay, in her mind. Sooner or later he must face the question from her of why he had not resigned rather than put his honor in pawn to the baser uses of the newspaper and its owner's ambitions. To that question there could be no answer. He could not throw the onus of it upon her, by revealing to her that the necessity of protecting her name against the befoulment of The Searchlight was the compelling motive of his passivity. That was not within Banneker's code.
What, meantime, should be his course? Should he write and warn Io about Enderby? Could he make himself explicable without explaining too much? After all, what right had he to assume that she would gratuitously intermeddle in the disastrous fates of others? A rigorous respect for the rights of privacy was written into the rules of the game as she played it. He argued, with logic irrefutable as it was unconvincing, that this alone ought to stay her hand; yet he knew, by the power of their own yearning, one for the other, that in the great cause of love, whether for themselves or for Camilla Van Arsdale and Willis Enderby, she would resistlessly follow the impulse born and matured of her own passion. Had she not once before denied love ... and to what end of suffering and bitter enlightenment and long waiting not yet ended! Yes; she would send for Willis Enderby.
Thus, with the insight of love, he read the heart of the loved one. Self-interest lifted its specious voice now, in contravention. If she did send, and if Judge Enderby went to Camilla Van Arsdale, as Banneker knew surely that he would, and if Ely Ives's spies discovered it, the way was made plain and peaceful for Banneker. For, in that case, the blunderbuss of blackmail would be held to Enderby's head: he must, perforce, retire from the race on whatever pretext he might devise, under threat of a scandal which, in any case, would drive him out of public life. Marrineal would be nominated, probably elected; control of The Patriot would pass into Banneker's hands; The Searchlight would thus be held at bay until he and Io were married, for he could not really doubt that she would marry him, even though there lay between them an unexplained doubt and a seeming betrayal; and he could remould the distorted and debased policies of The Patriot to his heart's desire of an honest newspaper fearlessly presenting and supporting truth as he saw it.
All this at no price of treachery; merely by leaving matters which were, in fact, no concern of his, to the arbitrament of whatever fates might concern themselves with such troublous matters; it was just a matter of minding his own business and assuming that Io Eyre would do likewise. So argued self-interest, plausible, persuasive. He went to bed with the argument still unsettled, and, because it seethed in his mind, reached out to his reading-stand to cool his brain with the limpid philosophies of Stevenson's "Virginibus Puerisque."
"The cruellest lies are often told in silence," he read--the very letters of the words seemed to scorch his eyes with prophetic fires. "A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his teeth and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator. And how many loves have perished, because from--"
Banneker sprang from his bed, shaking. He dressed himself, consulted his watch, wrote a brief, urgent line to Io, after 'phoning for a taxi; carried it to the station himself, assured, though only by a few minutes' margin, of getting it into the latest Western mail, returned to bed and slept heavily and dreamlessly.... Not over the bodies of a loved friend and an honored foe would Errol Banneker climb to a place of safety for Io and triumph for himself.
Mail takes four days to reach Manzanita from New York.
Through the hot months The House With Three Eyes had kept its hospitable orbs darkened of Saturday nights. Therefore, Banneker was free to spend his week-ends at The Retreat, and his Friday and Saturday mail were forwarded to the nearest country post-office, whither he sent for it, or picked it up on his way back to town. It was on Saturday evening that he received the letter from Io, saying that she had written to Willis Enderby to come on to Manzanita and let the eyes, for which he had filled life's whole horizon since first they met his, look on him once more before darkness shut down on them forever. Her letter had crossed Banneker's.
"I know that he will come," she wrote. "He must come. It would be too cruel ... and I know his heart."
Eight-thirty-six in the evening! And Io's letter to Enderby must have reached him in New York that morning. He would be taking the fast train for the West leaving at eleven. Banneker sent in a call on the long-distance 'phone for Judge Enderby's house. The twelve-minute wait was interminable to his grilling impatience. At length the placid tones of Judge Enderby's man responded. Yes; the Judge was there. No; he couldn't be disturbed on any account; very much occupied.
"This is Mr. Banneker. I must speak to him for just a moment. It's vital."
"Very sorry, sir," responded the unmoved voice. "But Judge Enderby's orders was absloot. Not to be disturbed on any account."
"Tell him that Mr. Banneker has something of the utmost importance to say to him before he leaves."
"Sorry, sir. It'd be as much as my place is worth."
Raging, Banneker nevertheless managed to control himself. "He is leaving on a trip to-night, is he not?"
After some hesitation the voice replied austerely: "I believe he is, sir. Good-bye."
Banneker cursed Judge Enderby for a fool of rigid methods. It would be his own fault. Let him go to his destruction, then. He, Banneker, had done all that was possible. He sank into a sort of lethargy, brooding over the fateful obstacles which had obstructed him in his self-sacrificing pursuit of the right, as against his own dearest interests. He might telegraph Io; but to what purpose? An idea flashed upon him; why not telegraph Enderby at his home? He composed message after message; tore them up as saying too much or too little; ultimately devised one that seemed to be sufficient, and hurried to his car, to take it in to the local operator. When he reached the village office it was closed. He hurried to the home of the operator. Out. After two false trails, he located the man at a church sociable, and got the message off. It was then nearly ten o'clock. He had wasted precious moments in brooding. Well, he had done all and more than could have been asked of him, let the event be what it would.
His night was a succession of forebodings, dreamed or half-wakeful. Spent and dispirited, he rose at an hour quite out of accord with the habits of The Retreat, sped his car to New York, and put his inquiry to Judge Enderby's man.
Yes; the telegram had arrived. In time? No; it was delivered twenty minutes after the Judge had left for his train. _