CHAPTER XXIII
A CAPITULATION
As Hamil left the garden Malcourt sauntered into view, halted, then came forward.
"I'm glad to see you," he said pleasantly.
"Thank you."
Neither offered to shake hands; Malcourt, lightly formal, spoke of Hamil's illness in a few words, using that excellent taste which was at his command when he chose to employ it. He expressed his pleasure in Hamil's recovery, and said that he was ready at any time to take up the unfinished details of Portlaw's business, agreeing with Hamil that there remained very little to talk over.
"The main thing, of course, is to squelch William's last hopes of any Rhine castles," continued Malcourt, laughing. "If you feel like it to-day I'll bring over the plans as you sketched them."
"In a day or two," nodded Hamil.
"Or perhaps you will lunch with m—with us, and you and I can go over the things comfortably."
But he saw by the scarcely perceptible change in Hamil's face that there were to be no such relations between them, informal or otherwise; and he went on quietly, closing his own suggestion:
"Or, if you like, we'll get Portlaw some morning after his breakfast, and end the whole matter by laying down the law to him."
"That would be perfectly agreeable to me," said Hamil. He spoke as though fatigued, and he looked it as he moved toward his house, using his walking-stick. Malcourt accompanied him to the road.
"Hamil," he said coolly, "may I suggest something?"
The other turned an expressionless face toward him: "What do you wish to suggest?"
"That, some day when you feel physically better, I'd like to go over one or two matters with you—privately—"
"What matters?"
"They concern you and myself."
"I know of no private matters which concern you and myself—or are ever likely to."
Malcourt's face darkened. "I think I warned you once that one day you would misunderstand my friendship for you."
Hamil straightened up, looking him coldly in the eye.
"Malcourt," he said, "there is no reason for the slightest pretence between us. I don't like you; I don't dislike you; I simply don't take you into consideration at all. The accident of your intrusion into a woman's life is not going to make any more difference to me than it has already made, nor can it affect my complete liberty and freedom to do and say what I choose."
"I am not sure that I understand you, Hamil."
"Well, you can certainly understand this: that my regard for—Mrs. Malcourt—does not extend to you; that it is neither modified nor hampered by the fact that you happen to exist, or that she now bears your name."
Malcourt's face had lost its colour. He began slowly:
"There is no reason, I think—"
"I don't care what you think!" said Hamil. "It is not of any consequence to me, nor will it govern me in any manner." He made a contemptuous gesture toward the garden. "Those flower-beds and gravel walks in there—I don't know whether they belong to you or to Mrs. Malcourt or to Portlaw; and I don't care. The accidental ownership of property will not prevent my entering it; but its ownership by you would prevent my accepting your personal invitation to use it or even enter it. And now, perhaps, you understand."
Malcourt, very white, nodded:
"It is so useless," he said—"all this bitterness. You don't know what you're saying.... But I suppose you can't help it.... It always has been that way; things go to smash if I try to do anything.... Well, Hamil, we'll go on in your own fashion, if we must—for a while. But"—and he laughed mirthlessly—"if it ends in a little shooting—you mustn't blame me!"
Hamil surveyed him in cold displeasure.
"I always expected you'd find your level," he observed.
"Yes, I'll find it," mused Malcourt, "as soon as I know what it ought to be. Under pressure it is difficult to ascertain such things; one's true level may be higher or lower. My father and I have often discussed this matter—and the ethics of straight shooting."
Hamil's eyes narrowed.
"If you mean that as a threat"—he began contemptuously; but Malcourt, who had suddenly assumed that curious listening attitude, raised his hand impatiently, as though silencing interruption.
And long after Hamil had turned on his heel and gone, he stood there, graceful head lowered a little and partly turned as though poetically appreciative of the soft twittering music which the bluebirds were making among the falling apple-bloom.
Then, slowly, not noticing Hamil's departure, he retraced his steps through the garden, head slightly inclined, as though to catch the murmur of some invisible companion accompanying him. Once or twice he nodded, a strange smile creeping over his face; once his lips moved as though asking a question; no sound came from them, but apparently he had his answer, for he nodded assent, halted, drew a deep breath, and looked upward.
"We can try that," he said aloud in his naturally pleasant voice; and, entering the house, went upstairs to his wife's apartments.
Shiela's maid answered his knock; a moment later, Shiela herself, gowned for the afternoon, came to the door, and her maid retired.
"Do you mind my stepping in a moment?" he asked.
She glanced back into her own bedroom, closed the door, and led the way to the small living-room at the other end of the house.
"Where's that maid of yours?" he asked.
"Sewing in my dressing-room. Shall I send her downstairs?"
"Yes; it's better."
So Shiela went away and returned shortly saying that her maid had gone; and then, with a questioning gesture to her husband, she seated herself by the open window and looked out into the sunshine, waiting for him to speak.
"Do you know," he said abruptly, "what saved Cardross, Carrick & Co. from going to the wall?"
"What?" The quick, crisp question sounded like the crack of a tiny whip.
He looked at her, languidly amused.
"You knew there was a panic?" he asked.
"Yes, of course."
"You knew that your father and Mr. Carrick were worried?"
"Yes."
"You didn't realise they were in bad shape?"
"Not—very. Were they?"
"That they needed money, and that they couldn't go out into the market and borrow it because nobody would lend any money to anybody?"
"I do not understand such details."
"Details? Ah—yes, quite so.... Then you were not aware that a run was threatened on the Shoshone Securities Company and certain affiliated banks?"
"Yes—but I did not suppose it meant anything alarming."
"And you didn't understand that your father and brother-in-law could not convert their securities into the ready cash they needed to meet their obligations—did you?"
"I do not understand details, Louis.... No."
"Or that they were desperate?"
Her face altered pitifully.
"On the edge of bankruptcy?" he went on.
"What!"
"Then," he said deliberately, "you don't know what helped them—what tided them over those two days—what pulled them through by the slimmest margin that ever saved the credit of anybody."
"Not—my money?"
"Yes; your money."
"Is it true, Louis?"
"Absolutely."
She leaned her head on her hand and sat gazing out of the open window. There were tears very near her eyes, but the lids closed and not one fell or even wet the thick lashes resting on her cheeks.
"I supposed it would please you to know what you have done."
The face she turned toward him was wonderful in its radiance.
She said: "I have never been as happy in all my life, I think. Thank you for telling me. I needed just—that."
He studied her for a moment, nimble wits at work. Then:
"Has your father—and the others—in their letters, said anything about it to you?"
"Yes, father has. He did not say matters had been desperate."
"I suppose he does not dare commit such a thing to paper—yet.... You do not burn your letters," he added blandly.
"I have no reason to."
"It might save servants' gossip."
"What gossip?"—in cold surprise.
"There's a desk full of Hamil's letters upstairs, judging from the writing on the envelopes." He added with a smile: "Although I don't pry, some servants do. And if there is anything in those letters you do not care to have discussed below stairs, you ought either to lock them up or destroy them."
Her face was burning hot; but she met his gaze with equanimity, slowly nodding serene assent to his suggestion.
"Shiela," he said pleasantly, "it looks to me as though what you have done for your family in that hour of need rather balances all accounts between you and them."
"What?"
"I say that you are square with them for what they have done in the past for you."
She shook her head. "I don't know what you mean, Louis."
He said patiently: "You had nothing to give but your fortune, and you gave it."
"Yes."
"Which settles your obligations toward them—puts them so deeply for ever in your debt that—" He hesitated, considering the chances, then, seriously persuasive:
"They are now in your debt, Shiela. They have sufficient proof of your unselfish affection for them to stand a temporary little shock. Why don't you administer it?"
"What shock?"—in an altered voice.
"Your divorce."
"I thought you were meaning that."
"I do mean it. You ought to have your freedom; you are ruining your own life and Hamil's, and—and—"
"Yours?"
"Let that go," he said almost savagely; "I can always get along. But I want you to have your freedom to marry that damned fool, Hamil."
The quick blood stung her face under his sudden blunt brutality.
"You think that because I returned a little money to my family, it entitles me to publicly disgrace them?"
Malcourt's patience was fast going.
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, Shiela, shed your swaddling clothes and act like something adult. Is there any reason why two people situated as we are cannot discuss sensibly some method of mitigating our misfortune? I'll do anything you say in the matter. Divorce is a good thing sometimes. This is one of the times, and I'll give you every reason for a successful suit against me—"
She rose, cheeks aflame, and in her eyes scorn ungovernable.
He rose too, exasperated.
"You won't consider it?" he asked harshly.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not coward enough to ask others to bear the consequences of my own folly and yours!"
"You little fool," he said, "do you think your family would let you endure me for one second if they knew how you felt? Or what I am likely to do at any moment?"
She stood, without replying, plainly waiting for him to leave the room and her apartments. All her colour had fled.
"You know," he said, with an ugly glimmer in his eyes, "I need not continue this appeal to your common sense, if you haven't got any; I can force you to a choice."
"What choice?"—in leisurely contempt.
He hesitated; then, insolently: "Your choice between—honest wifehood and honest divorce."
For a moment she could not comprehend: suddenly her hands contracted and clinched as the crimson wave stained her from throat to brow. But in her eyes was terror unutterable.
"I—I beg—your pardon," he stammered. "I did not mean to frighten you—"
But at his first word she clapped both hands over her ears, staring at him in horror—backing away from him, shrinking flat against the wall.
"Confound it! I am not threatening you," he said, raising his voice; but she would not hear another word—he saw that now—and, with a shrug, he walked past her, patient once more, outwardly polite, inwardly bitterly amused, as he heard the key snap in the door behind him.
Standing in his own office on the floor below, he glanced vacantly around him. After a moment he said aloud, as though to somebody in the room: "Well, I tried it. But that is not the way."
Later, young Mrs. Malcourt, passing, saw him seated at his desk, head bent as though listening to something interesting. But there was nobody else in the office.
When at last he roused himself the afternoon sun was shining level in the west; long rosy beams struck through the woods turning the silver stems of the birches pink.
On the footbridge spanning the meadow brook he saw his wife and Hamil leaning over the hand-rail, shoulder almost touching shoulder; and he went to the window and stood intently observing them.
They seemed to be conversing very earnestly; once she threw back her pretty head and laughed unrestrainedly, and the clear sound of it floated up to him through the late sunshine; and once she shook her head emphatically, and once he saw her lay her hand on Hamil's arm—an impulsive gesture, as though to enforce her words, but it was more like a caress.
A tinge of malice altered Malcourt's smile as he watched them; the stiffening grin twitched at his cheeks.
"Now I wonder," he thought to himself, "whether it is the right way after all!… I don't think I'll threaten her again with—alternatives. There's no telling what a fool might do in a panic." Then, as though the spectacle bored him, he yawned, stretched his arms and back gracefully, turned and touched the button that summoned his servant.
"Order the horses and pack as usual, Simmons," he said with another yawn. "I'm going to New York. Isn't Mr. Portlaw here yet?"
"No, sir."
"Did you say he went away on horseback?"
"Yes, sir, this morning."
"And you don't know where?"
"No, sir. Mr. Portlaw took the South Road."
Malcourt grinned again, perfectly certain, now, of Portlaw's destination; and thinking to himself that unless his fatuous employer had been landed in a ditch somewhere, en route, he was by this time returning from Pride's Fall with considerable respect for Mrs. Ascott.
As a matter of fact, Portlaw had already started on his way back. Mrs. Ascott was not at Pride's Hall—her house—when he presented himself at the door. Her servant, evidently instructed, did not know where Mrs. Ascott and Miss Palliser had gone or when they might return.
So Portlaw betook himself heavily to the village inn, where he insulted his astonished stomach with a noonday dinner, and found the hard wooden chairs exceedingly unpleasant.
About five o'clock he got into his saddle with an unfeigned groan, and out of it again at Mrs. Ascott's door. They told him there that Mrs. Ascott was not at home.
Whether this might be the conventional manner of informing him that she declined to receive him, or whether she really was out, he had no means of knowing; so he left his cards for Mrs. Ascott and Miss Palliser, also the note which young Mrs. Malcourt had given him; clambered once more up the side of his horse, suppressing his groans until out of hearing and well on his way toward the fatal boundary.
In the late afternoon, sky and water had turned to a golden rose hue; clouds of gnats danced madly over meadow pools, calm mirrors of the sunset, save when a trout sprang quivering, a dark, slim crescent against the light, falling back with a mellow splash that set the pool rocking.
At gaze a deer looked at him from sedge, furry ears forward; stamped, winded him, and, not frightened very much, trotted into the dwarf willows, halting once or twice to look around.
As he advanced, his horse splashing through the flooded land fetlock-deep in water, green herons flapped upward, protesting harshly, circled overhead with leisurely wing-beats, and settled on some dead limb, thin, strange shapes against the deepening orange of the western heavens.
Portlaw, sitting his saddle gingerly, patronized nature askance; and he saw across the flooded meadow where the river sand had piled its smothering blanket—which phenomenon he was guiltily aware was due to him.
Everywhere were signs of the late overflow—raw new gravel channels for Painted Creek; river willows bent low where the flood had winnowed; piles of driftwood jammed here and there; a single stone pier stemming mid-stream, ancient floor and cover gone. More of his work—or the consequences of it—this desolation; from which, under his horse's feet, rose a hawk, flapping, furious, a half-drowned snake dangling from the talon-clutch.
"Ugh!" muttered Portlaw, bringing his startled horse under discipline; then forged forward across the drowned lands, sorry for his work, sorry for his obstinacy, sorrier for himself; for Portlaw, in some matters was illogically parsimonious; and it irked him dreadfully to realise how utterly indefensible were his actions and how much they promised to cost him.
"Unless," he thought cannily to himself, "I can fix it up with her—for old friendship's sake—bah!—doing the regretful sinner business—"
As the horse thrashed out of the drowned lands up into the flat plateau where acres of alders, their tops level as a trimmed hedge, stretched away in an even, green sea, a distant, rapping sound struck his ear, sharp, regular as the tree-tapping of a cock-o'-the-woods.
Indifferently convinced that the great, noisy woodpecker was the cause of the racket, he rode on toward the hard-wood ridge dominating this plateau where his guests, last season, had shot woodcock—one of the charges in the suit against him.
"The thing to do," he ruminated, "is to throw myself gracefully on her mercy. Women like to have a chance to forgive you; Louis says so, and he ought to know. What a devilishly noisy woodpecker!"
And, looking up, he drew bridle sharply.
For there, on the wood's edge, stood a familiar gray mare, and in the saddle, astride, sat Alida Ascott, busily hammering tacks into a trespass notice printed on white muslin, and attached to the trunk of a big maple-tree.
So absorbed was she in her hammering that at first she neither heard nor saw Portlaw when he finally ventured to advance; and when she did she dropped the tack hammer in her astonishment.
He dismounted, with pain, to pick it up, presented it, face wreathed in a series of appealing smiles, then, managing to scale the side of his horse again, settled himself as comfortably as possible for the impending conflict.
But Alida Ascott, in her boyish riding breeches and deep-skirted coat, merely nodded her thanks, took hold of the hammer firmly, and drove in more tacks, paying no further attention to William Van Beuren Portlaw and his heart-rending smiles.
It was very embarrassing; he sidled his horse around so that he might catch a glimpse of her profile. The view he obtained was not encouraging.
"Alida," he ventured plaintively.
"Mr. Portlaw!"—so suddenly swinging on him that he lost all countenance and blurted out:
"I—I only want to make amends and be friends."
"I expect you to make amends," she said in a significantly quiet voice, which chilled him with the menace of damages unlimited. And even in his perturbation he saw at once that it would never do to have a backwoods jury look upon the fascinating countenance of this young plaintiff.
"Alida," he said sorrowfully, "I am beginning to see things in a clearer light."
"I think that light will grow very much clearer, Mr. Portlaw."
He repressed a shudder, and tried to look reproachful, but she seemed to be very hard-hearted, for she turned once more to her hammering.
"Alida!"
"What?"—continuing to drive tacks.
"After all these years of friendship it—it is perfectly painful for me to contemplate a possible lawsuit—"
"It will be more painful to contemplate an actual one, Mr. Portlaw."
"Alida, do you really mean that you—my neighbour and friend—are going to press this unnatural complaint?"
"I certainly do."
Portlaw shook his head violently, and passed his gloved hand over his eyes as though to rouse himself from a distressing dream; all of which expressive pantomime was lost on Mrs. Ascott, who was busy driving tacks.
"I simply cannot credit my senses," he said mournfully.
"You ought to try; it will be still more difficult later," she observed, backing her horse so that she might inspect her handiwork from the proper point of view.
Portlaw looked askance at the sign. It warned people not to shoot, fish, cut trees, dam streams, or build fires under penalty of the law; and was signed, "Alida Ascott."
"You didn't have any up before, did you?" he asked innocently.
"By advice of counsel I think I had better not reply, Mr. Portlaw. But I believe that point will be brought out by my lawyers—unless"—with a brilliant smile—"your own counsel sees fit to discuss it."
Portlaw was convinced that his hair was stirring under his cap. He was horribly afraid of the law.
"See here, Alida," he said, assuming the bluff rough-diamond front which the alarm in his eyes made foolish, "I want to settle this little difference and be friends with you again. I was wrong; I admit it.... Of course I might very easily defend such a suit—"
"But, of course"—serenely undeceived—"as you admit you are in the wrong you will scarcely venture to defend such a suit. Your lawyers ought to forbid you to talk about this case, particularly"—with a demure smile—"to the plaintiff."
"Alida," he said, "I am determined to remain your friend. You may do what you will, say what you wish, yes, even use my own words against me, but"—and virtue fairly exuded from every perspiring pore—"I will not retaliate!"
"I'm afraid you can't, William," she said softly.
"Won't you—forgive?" he asked in a melting voice; but his eyes were round with apprehension.
"There are some things that no woman can overlook," she said.
"I'll send my men down to fix that bridge—"
"Bridges can be mended; I was not speaking of the bridge."
"You mean those sheep—"
"No, Mr. Portlaw."
"Well, there's a lot—I mean that some little sand has been washed over your meadow—"
"Good night," she said, turning her horse's head.
"Isn't it the sand, Alida?" he pleaded. "You surely will forgive that timber-cutting—and the shooting of a few migratory birds—"
"Good night," touching her gray mare forward to where he was awkwardly blocking the wood-path.... "Do you mind moving a trifle, Mr. Portlaw?"
"About—ah—the—down there, you know, at Palm Beach," he stammered, "at that accursed lawn-party—"
"Yes?" She smiled but her eyes harboured lightning.
"It was so hot in Florida—you know how infernally hot it was, don't you, Alida?" he asked beseechingly. "I scarcely dared leave the Beach Club."
"Well?"
"I—I thought I'd just m-m-mention it. That's why I didn't call on you—I was afraid of sunstroke—"
"What!" she exclaimed, astonished at his stuttering audacity.
He knew he was absurd, but it was all he could think of. She gave him time enough to realise the pitiable spectacle he was making of himself, sitting her horse motionless, pretty eyes bent on his—an almost faultless though slight figure, smooth as a girl's yet faintly instinct with that charm of ripened adolescence just short of maturity.
And, slowly, under her clear gaze, a confused comprehension began to stir in him—at first only a sort of chagrin, then something more—a consciousness of his own heaviness of intellect and grossness of figure—the fatness of mind and body which had developed so rapidly within the last two years.
There she sat, as slim and pretty and fresh as ever; and only two years ago he had been mentally and physically active enough to find vigorous amusement in her company. Malcourt's stinging words concerning his bodily unloveliness and self-centred inertia came into his mind; and a slow blush deepened the colour in his heavy face.
What vanity he had reckoned on had deserted him along with any hope of compromising a case only too palpably against him. And yet, through the rudiments of better feeling awakening within him, the instinct of thrift still coloured his ideas a little.
"I'm dead wrong, Alida. We might just as well save fees and costs and go over the damages together.... I'll pay them. I ought to, anyway. I suppose I don't usually do what I ought. Malcourt says I don't—said so very severely—very mortifyingly the other day. So—if you'll get him or your own men to decide on the amount—"
"Do you think the amount matters?"
"Oh, of course it's principle; very proper of you to stand on your dignity—"
"I am not standing on it now; I am listening to your utter misapprehension of me and my motives.... I don't care for any—damages."
"It is perfectly proper for you to claim them, if," he added cautiously, "they are within reason—"
"Mr. Portlaw!"
"What?" he asked, alarmed.
"I would not touch a penny! I meant to give it to the schools, here—whatever I recovered.... Your misunderstanding of me is abominable!"
He hung his head, heavy-witted, confused as a stupid schoolboy, feeling, helplessly, his clumsiness of mind and body.
Something of this may have been perceptible to her—may have softened her ideas concerning him—ideas which had accumulated bitterness during the year of his misbehaviour and selfish neglect. Her instinct divined in his apparently sullen attitude the slow intelligence and mental perturbation of a wilful, selfish boy made stupid through idleness and self-indulgence. Even what had been clean-cut, attractive, in his face and figure was being marred and coarsened by his slothful habits to an extent that secretly dismayed her; for she had always thought him very handsome; and, with that natural perversity of selection, finding in him a perfect foil to her own character, had been seriously inclined to like him.
Attractions begin in that way, sometimes, where the gentler is the stronger, the frailer, the dominant character; and the root is in the feminine instinct to care for, develop, and make the most of what palpably needs a protectorate.
Without comprehending her own instinct, Mrs. Ascott had found the preliminary moulding of Portlaw an agreeable diversion; had rather taken for granted that she was doing him good; and was correspondingly annoyed when he parted his moorings and started drifting aimlessly as a derelict scow awash, floundering seaward without further notice of the trim little tug standing by and amiably ready to act as convoy.
Now, sitting her saddle in silence she surveyed him, striving to understand him—his recent indifference, his deterioration, the present figure he was cutting. And it seemed to her a trifle sad that he had no one to tell him a few wholesome truths.
"Mr. Portlaw," she said, "do you know that you have been exceedingly rude to me?"
"Yes, I—do know it."
"Why?" she asked simply.
"I don't know."
"Didn't you care for our friendship? Didn't it amuse and interest you? How could you have done the things you did—in the way you did?… If you had asked my permission to build a dozen dams I'd have given it. Didn't you know it? But my self-respect protested when you so cynically ignored me—"
"I'm a beast all right," he muttered.
She gazed at him, softened, even faintly amused at his repentant bad-boy attitude.
"Do you want me to forgive you, Mr. Portlaw?"
"Yes—but you oughtn't."
"That is quite true.... Turn your horse and ride back with me. I'm going to find out exactly how repentant you really are.... If you pass a decent examination you may dine with Miss Palliser, Mr. Wayward, and me. It's too late anyway to return through the forest.... I'll send you over in the motor."
And as they wheeled and walked their horses forward through the dusk, she said impulsively:
"We have four for Bridge if you like."
"Alida," he said sincerely, "you are a corker."
She looked up demurely. What she could see to interest her in this lump of a man Heaven alone knew, but a hint of the old half-patient, half-amused liking for him and his slow wits began to flicker once more. De gustibus—alas!