“Look-a here, Derry, why not leave it at that?”
“Unhappily, I cannot do otherwise. But I have a right to know exactly what happened.”
“It wasn’t such a heap. She cabled an’ wrote, an’ I had to tell her you was plumb crazy about – about yer mother’s death. That was the on’y reason I could hand out fer your disappearin’ act. Pore thing! Soon after she got my letter she gev in her own checks.”
“Have you met Marten recently?”
“He was in Denver last fall.”
“And the child – the little girl – did you see her?”
“Yep. Gosh, Derry, she’s as like her mother as two peas in a pod.”
“Is Marten fond of her?”
“Derry, that kid kin twist him round her little finger; but he’s a hard man ter move any other way.”
“Where does he live?”
“In Europe, fer the most part. He’s out of mines an’ rails – in the West, anyhow. Last I heerd, he was puttin’ through a state loan fer the I-talians.”
“Quite an international financier, eh?”
“That’s what the papers call him. Guess it’s Shakespeare’s English fer a dog-goned shark.”
“You know Willard is dead?”
“Know! Didn’t I celebrate with a school-treat fer two thousand kids?”
“Mac! Haven’t they taught you better than that at your Sunday-schools?”
“Thar’s a proverb about skinnin’ a Rooshan an’ findin’ a Tartar. That’s me, all the time, when any of that bunch shows up on the screen. What d’ye think Marten kem to Denver for?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“He wanted ter buy the ranch. No, not the mine,” for MacGonigal misread the amazement in Power’s face, “just the ranch. Said he was anxious for little Nancy to own the property whar her mother lived as a gal.”
“And what did you say – or do?”
“Handed him a joint straight outer the refrigerator, all fixed with mustard. ‘Marten,’ says I, just like that, ‘Marten, ef you want yer little gal ter grow up good an’ happy, don’t let her suspicion thar’s such a place as Dolores on the map.’ ‘Why?’ says he, lookin’ black as thunder. ‘Because,’ says I, ‘it’s well named when thar’s one of the Willard family on the location. Ef any children kin play around here an’ be happy, they’ll be Derry Power’s, not yours.’ Sorry, Derry, ef ye didn’t wish me ter rile him; but, till you was given up fer good, the one spot in Colorado his money couldn’t buy was this yer house an’ land.”
And again did MacGonigal fail to interpret his hearer’s expression, nor did he ever understand the tragic import of his words. The story of Nancy’s transgression was buried with her, and the grave seldom gives up its secrets. Moreover, was she not nearly seven years dead? And seven years of death count in the scale of forgetfulness as against seventy and seven of life.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SECOND GENERATION
Marguerite Sinclair did not write. Perhaps, tucked away in a corner of Power’s heart, a tender little shoot of hope that she might be moved to disobedience and revolt blossomed for awhile. But it soon withered. She did not break the silence he had imposed on her. The quiet weeks passed. The vessel in which the girl and her father had traveled to London had already returned to South America; but never a word came from Marguerite. So far as externals went, Power seemed to have settled down again to the life of the student and the recluse from which he had been so rudely withdrawn. Beyond a rearrangement with Jake, whereby that pillar of the community was given the stock-raising business, while Power retained only the ranch, together with the paddocks and orchards in its immediate vicinity, there was no change in affairs at Bison. MacGonigal was offered a controlling interest in the mine; but he scoffed at the proposal. The proceeds of his third share would amount to nearly quarter of a million dollars for the current year, and his personal expenditure did not exceed a fifth of that sum.
“It’s the Scot blood in me,” he explained, when people rallied him as to his saving habits. “My great-grandfather lost a sixpence one day in Belfast, an’ the family has been makin’ good ever sence. Thar ain’t no sixpences here; so I run a dime bank. Another thing,” and his bulging eyes challenged dispute, “it’s a bully fine notion ter let well enough alone. This yer proposition is goin’ along O. K. Let her rip!”
Power, of course, was accumulating wealth with every turn of the rolls in the reduction mills. The name of the mine became a standing joke in Colorado. “What price the El Preço outfit?” men would say, and spoke with bated breath of the millions it would bring in the open market. Not only were there almost unlimited supplies of rich ore in sight, but the very granite containing the main vein itself yielded handsomely under low-grade treatment. It seemed impossible that the undertaking should go wrong at any stage. If water was tapped, it went to irrigate new lands which MacGonigal had added to the ranch. If a new shaft was sunk, sufficient pay-ore was taken out of the excavation to meet the cost; whereas, in ninety-nine mines among a hundred, the charge would have fallen on capital.
For three months Power lay fallow at Dolores. His bodily vigor was unimpaired; but his mind demanded the restorative tonic of peace. A Chicago bookstore sent him the hundred most important books which had been published during his absence from civilization, and, with their aid, he supplemented Marguerite’s lessons, and soon brought himself abreast of contemporary thought. Beyond establishing a maternity hospital in Bison, and renewing the grant to Dr. Stearn’s poor, he did not embark in philanthropic schemes to any great extent. Still, he found pressing need of a secretary, and secured an excellent assistant in a Harvard undergraduate, a young man whose brilliant career in the university was brought to a dramatic close by an automobile accident which crippled him for life. He was one of the first victims of the new force. Power had never seen a motor-car until he reached New York. The industry had sprung into being when he was immured in the Andes. Even yet it was in the experimental stage, and his secretary, Wilmot Richard Howard, was testing an improved steering-gear when he was smashed up by a hostile lumber wagon.
The post Power offered him was a veritable godsend, and he, in his way, became infinitely useful to his employer. A curious sympathy soon existed between them. The limitations of Howard’s maimed body caused him to understand something of the cramped outlook before Power’s maimed soul. Moreover, within a month, his wide reading and thorough acquaintance with the world’s current topics filled gaps in Power’s knowledge which books alone could not repair. When Power quitted Bison in the spring of the year none who did not know his history would ever have suspected that he had dwelt so long apart from his fellow-men.
The two traveled together. Halting in New York for a few hours only, they crossed the Atlantic in the Lucania. They remained in London a week, living in one of those small and most exclusive West End hotels whose patrons come and go without the blare of trumpets in the press which is the penalty, or reward, of residence in the more noteworthy caravansaries. London, it is true, is the one city in the world where a millionaire can mingle unnoticed with the crowd; but Power took no risk of undue publicity. Once, in later years, a newspaper discovered him, and blazoned forth to all and sundry the status he occupied in Colorado; thenceforth, Howard arranged matters in his own name, and hotel managers and hall-porters bowed to him as the holder of the purse.
From London, reinforced by a first-rate valet, the pair went to Devon. There, in a wooded comb looking out over the Atlantic, they found Dacre, the one man living in whose ears Power could to some extent unburden his heart. From him were forthcoming certain details as to Nancy’s end; for he had happened to dine one evening with the physician who attended her constantly after her arrival in England, and the doctor, little guessing how well informed his neighbor was as to Mrs. Marten’s antecedents, had entered into particulars of what he described as “a case that presented unusual and baffling features.”
“From what he told me, I gathered that she must have pined away from the moment she left you in the Adirondacks,” said Dacre. “I realize now that she not only fretted herself into a low state of health, but practically gave her life to her child. No wonder the doctor was puzzled! He could not diagnose her ailment; for who would have suspected that a young, beautiful, and rich woman was resolved to die? Now, knowing what we do know, we can see that it was better so. She would never again have lived with Marten as his wife, and there was bound to be trouble sooner or later. Dear lady! I have often thought of her, and of you. Sometimes, when that most misleading faculty called common sense urged that you, too, must be dead, I have pictured your meeting in the great beyond. Indeed, it is the hope of such reunions that accounts for mortal belief in immortality. Remember, I also have paced the Via Dolorosa, and I prize those hours, above all others, in which I dream of a kingdom where wrongs are adjusted by an all-wise Intelligence, and the wretched failures of earthly life are dislodged from memory by some divine anodyne.”
There was silence for awhile. The two men were talking in a restful, old-fashioned room which commanded a far-flung view of the Atlantic. Howard, whose acute sensibility might always be trusted in such moments, had betaken himself to the garden with an amiable collie, and the friends were free to talk without restraint.
Then Dacre essayed a cheerier note. “We can’t help dwelling on these things,” he said; “but I would remind you that you are still a young man, and it is a nice question, whether, when all is said and done, you are justified in binding yourself forever to a pale ghost. It is a poetic conceit; but the eugenist would tell you that you ought to marry.”
“I shall never marry,” said Power.
Nancy’s secret would be buried with him, and that fact alone burked any reference to Marguerite Sinclair. Dacre was exceedingly shrewd, and could hardly fail to reach the correct conclusion if he heard that “the other woman” did actually exist, and that circumstances of recent discovery alone prevented the contemplated marriage.
“Ah, well!” sighed the older man, relapsing into Power’s mood. “This is a genuine instance of the pot advising the kettle not to be black. How do you purpose spending your time?”
“I’ll tell you. I mean to do some good in the world. But I have not come here to bore you with humane projects. I’ve not forgotten that you are a yachtsman. Say you agree, and I’ll hire a yacht to take us up the west coast of Scotland and across the North Sea to the fiords.”
“Spoken like a prince! It is the very thing I’m longing for; but my purse won’t run to it, and I’m rather too old to fraternize with Cockney excursionists on David MacBrayne’s steamers or Cook’s tourists in Norway.”
So the friends passed an enjoyable summer, and liked the yacht so well that they cruised south by way of Holland, Belgium, and France, and wintered in the Mediterranean. Then Power and his secretary hied them to Bison again; whence their next journey headed east. They visited flower-laden Honolulu, panting Japan, gray China, and golden India. Pitching his tent where he listed, Power saw mankind in the mass. Everywhere, even in climes where Nature is prodigal of her gifts, there was misery to be softened, suffering to be alleviated, men and women in want and worthy of help. His methods were simple in the extreme. Attracting little or no attention by display of wealth, he and Howard studied every problem that seemed to call for solution by money wisely applied. At the last moment – often when he had departed to some far distant place – Power would send the needed sum to the right quarter. Thus, remaining almost unknown, he left a trail of well-doing behind him in the four corners of the globe. Sometimes, when the written or printed word insisted on making him famous, if Bison was too remote a sanctuary, he would disappear for many months on end, either hobnobbing with Dacre in Devonshire or elsewhere, or taking protracted tours in out-of-the-way countries like East Africa, Siberia, or the Balkans.
Naturally, he had adventures and misadventures. No man can scour the earth, year in and year out – be he rich as Crœsus or kindly as Francis d’Assisi – without enduring vicissitudes, whether they arise from the haphazard casualties of travel or are the outcome of sheer human perversity.
In Nairobi, he had the narrowest escape from being mauled by a lion; his boat was wrecked in a rapid of the Yang-tse-Kiang, and a Chinese coolie saved him from death by diving after him when he sank, stunned by collision with a rock; in the town of Omsk, in Eastern Siberia, he was lodged in a fever-stricken prison for interfering between a brutal Cossack officer and a female political prisoner whom the man was flogging mercilessly with a knout. On this occasion Howard rescued him by bribing every official in sight. His worst experience came in a Rumelian Christian village. Howard found that certain saline mud baths on the coast of the Adriatic exercised a highly beneficial effect on his injured spine; so Power left him there, to undergo a complete course of treatment, and traveled alone in the interior. By ill luck, he was benighted in a miserable hamlet near Adrianople. During the night the Turkish authorities learned that smallpox was rife among the inhabitants. They established a cordon, and drove back at the point of the bayonet all who attempted to leave the place. For six weeks Power lived in a pesthouse; but the Andean sap rose again in his bones, and he reorganized the habits of the community so thoroughly that its survivors regarded him as a man sent by God for their deliverance.
Thus, doing good by stealth, and ever widening his knowledge of mankind, he passed thirteen busy years. It would serve no useful purpose to go more fully into the records of that long and fruitful period of his life. Though crammed with incident and rich in the vivid tints of travel in many lands, it calls for none other than the briefest summary in a narrative which, at the best, can deal only with the chief phases of a remarkable career.
He was in his forty-eighth year, and was paying a deferred visit to Dacre, when he entered upon the last, and in some respects the greatest, of his trials. Howard was in London, showing the sights to some relations, and Power had elected to motor to Devonshire. His chauffeur, a tall, well-built youngster who answered to the name of Maguire – being, in fact, Rafferty’s grandson – was eager to test a car which was supposed to possess every mechanical virtue, and Power was not disinclined for the run through a June England. Nothing daunted by the prospect of twelve hours’ continuous excess of the speed limit, master and man determined to reach Devonshire in the day. But the machine decided differently. Two burst tires cost them a couple of hours on the road, and a speck of grit in a valve caused such trouble that it became necessary to stop for the night in a town where careful overhauling of the engine was practicable; so they ran slowly into Bournemouth, and there, in one of the big hotels on the cliff, Power met his own daughter.
He thought, and not without reason, that he was the victim of hallucination. He had halted for a moment in a soft-carpeted corridor to look at a spirited painting of wild ponies in the New Forest, when a door opened close at hand. He heard no footstep; but the rustle of a dress caught his ear, and he moved aside to permit the passing of some lady of whose presence he was only half conscious. But a sudden impulse – perhaps due to the action of the magnetic waves which link certain kindred individualities without their personal cognizance – caused him to turn and look at the stranger, and he saw – Nancy!
The light in the corridor was dim – for instance, he had been obliged to peer closely at the picture before he could decipher the artist’s signature – but there was no mistaking the extraordinary resemblance which this girl bore to the Nancy Willard of the Dolores Ranch days, the Nancy with whom he used to gallop along prairie tracks where now ran the steel ribbons of electrically propelled street-cars, Nancy as he knew her before he had won and lost her twice.
The shock of recognition was so unexpected that he reeled under it. Then, seeing that the girl was evidently wondering why he was looking at her so strangely, he forced himself to walk on toward his own apartment.
There, when calmer thought became possible, he realized that he had seen Nancy’s child, a girl now in her twentieth year. She was so like her mother at the same age that there was no possibility of error on his part. The same glory of golden-brown hair, the same changeful eyes of blende Kagoul blue, the same winsome features, the same graceful carriage – he could not be mistaken. And, to make more fierce the fire that was consuming him, he had again found a subtle hint of Marguerite Sinclair in the sprightly maid who had passed him so silently and swiftly. He smiled with a sort of bitter weariness when it dawned on him that this vision would probably control the future course of his life. He was face to face with Destiny again. There was less chance of escape for him now than for the sailor swept from the gale-submerged deck of a tramp steamer in mid-Atlantic, because miracles did sometimes happen at sea; but, where he was concerned, Fate planted her snares so cunningly that he was always fast pinioned before he even suspected their existence.
“I am fey today. I peer into a dim future. Some day, somehow, you will understand that which is hidden from my ken.”
He could not comprehend the full meaning of those words yet; but the day of reckoning was at hand. Well, it was better so. Surely the settlement would be final this time!
He was minded to dine in privacy; but he was no coward, and the inclination was dismissed as unworthy. So he dressed with care, reached the crowded dining-room rather late, and was allotted to a small table near a window. In that particular window was a party of six, and among them were Marten and the girl. She raised her eyes when Power entered, and a look of recognition came into them. On her right sat a small, polished, olive-skinned man, who seemed to be more engrossed in her company than she in his. The faces of these three were clearly visible from Power’s place; the others, two women and a man, were not so much in evidence.
He strove to catch some of the girl’s accents; but she spoke but little, and that in a low tone. She gave him the impression of being among people whom she disliked, but whose presence had to be endured. Once or twice she addressed Marten, and then her manner reminded him more than ever of her mother. To all appearance, father and daughter were wrapped up in each other, and Power knew not whether to rejoice or be sad because of it. Martin looked old and worn. He showed every one of his sixty years. The burden of finance may be even weightier than that of empire.
Power’s mind ran back to the night, just twenty years before, when he sat at a table in another hotel and found Nancy Marten gazing at him. Skies and times may change, but not manners. He had met mother and daughter under precisely similar conditions, save that he was alone now, and a complete stranger to the girl. Marten was so taken up with his friends that he gave no attention to others in the room. Perhaps he had trained himself to that useful habit. At any rate, he glanced Power’s way only once, and obviously regarded him as one among the well-dressed throng.
Later, in a lounge where people smoked, chatted, drank coffee, or played bridge to the accompaniment of an excellent band, Power contrived to pass close behind the girl’s chair. She was with one of the women now, and talking animatedly. Yes, she had her mother’s voice! What long dormant chords of memory it touched! How it vibrated through heart and brain! Nancy – dead and yet speaking!
Next morning the car, in chastened mood, bore him smoothly and quickly away through the Hampshire pines and the blossom-laden hedges of Somerset. He reached Dacre’s house early in the afternoon, and was somewhat surprised when his friend suggested that they should start forthwith on a rambling tour up the Wye Valley and thus to the lakes by way of North Wales.
This spirit of unrest was so unlike Dacre’s wonted air of repose that it evoked a question.
“I have just come here to escape from the ceaseless rush of things,” said Power. “Why do you want to bustle me off so promptly?”
“I thought a change of scene might be good for both of us,” was the offhand answer.
“Yet it is only a week since you wrote and reproached me for neglecting the Devon moors. I can slay you with your own quotation. You bade me join you in —
‘This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself’ —
and now you would have us cavort along dusty highways to other joys. Why is it?”
“My quotation applied to the whole of this sceptered isle.”
“You are quibbling, Dacre, and I think I guess the reason. Have you heard anything of Marten recently?”
His companion did not try to conceal the surprise that leaped to his eyes.
“Your Indians made you a bit of wizard,” he said. “I’ll tell you now what I meant to hide from you. Marten has rented Lord Valescure’s place on the hill yonder, and is due here tomorrow or next day. I heard the name of the new tenant only this morning, and decided that we ought to quit if we want to be happy.”
“No. If you’ll let me, I’ll remain.”
“Is it wise?”
“I endured the major wrench last night. Marten and – and his daughter were staying in the same hotel as myself.”
“So you have seen her – at last?”
“Yes, and I’ll confess my weakness. Having seen her, I wish to speak to her. I admit my folly; but I cannot help it. Somehow – I think – that her mother – would wish it. I’ll placate Marten, grovel to him, if I may be allowed to meet her.”
“My dear Derry, I’ve said my say. You ought to have lived two thousand years ago, and Euripides would have immortalized you in a tragedy.”
The eyes of the two men clashed; but Power repressed the imminent request for an explanation of that cryptic remark. He dared not ask what Dacre had in mind. His comment might have been a chance shaft; but it fell dangerously near the forbidden territory of Nancy’s close-veiled secret. When next he spoke, it was to give a motorist’s account of the mishaps of the road.
A week passed. Dacre’s house lay halfway up a wooded comb, or valley, and the Valescure castle stood on a bold tor that thrust itself bluntly into the sea. Unless the occupants of each place were on friendly terms, they might dwell in the same district and not meet once in a year. By taking a rough path they were barely three-quarters of a mile apart; but the only practicable carriage-road covered three miles or more. Dacre’s interests lay with the fisher-folk at the foot of the comb or among the woods and heather of Dartmoor Forest, rolling up into the clouds behind his abode, while the great folk of the castle seldom came his way, unless Lord Valescure happened to be in residence, when the two forgathered often.
But Dacre was right when he hinted at the tragic inevitableness of his friend’s life. They had strolled into the rectory for tea, and were chatting with their hostess about a forthcoming charity fête, when a motor rumbled to the door, and Nancy Marten appeared, a radiant vision in the muslin and flower-decked hat of summer.
“How kind of you to come!” said the rector’s wife, rising to greet the girl. “Lady Valescure said she was sure I might write and seek your help for our village revel. She said all sorts of nice things about you, and now I know they are true.”
So Power was introduced to “Miss Marten,” and the girl gave him one of those shy yet delightfully candid glances which he remembered so well in her mother’s eyes.
“Didn’t I meet you recently in the corridor of a hotel at Bournemouth?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Then you will be surprised to hear that you rather startled me. I thought you were about to fall, and was on the point of catching your arm when you walked away. Then I saw you had a slight limp, and it was that which had probably caused my stupid notion. Wouldn’t you have been tremendously astonished if a giddy young person had clutched you suddenly and implored you not to drop at her feet?”
“Yet I can well imagine any man, especially a younger sprig than myself, being moved to some such act of homage.”
She laughed – Nancy again!
“There seems to be no end of men in England who can pay neat compliments to a woman,” she said. “But you’re not an Englishman, Mr. Power. Aren’t you a fellow-countryman of mine?”
“Yes.”
“How jolly! People never guess it, but I’m an American; though I can never be President, even if we women get a vote, because I was born in London. But my parents hail from the Silver State.”
“Where more gold is produced than in any other state of the Union.”
“Then you know Colorado?”
“Yes. Better than that, I knew your mother many years ago, before her marriage.”
“You knew my mother – in Colorado – on the ranch! Well!” She turned rapidly to her hostess. “Thank you ever so much for inviting me here today. I’ll work like a slave for your bazaar. Here is the man I’ve been aching to meet ever since I was able to talk. Please don’t think me rude if I monopolize him all the afternoon. I’m going to take him off to that nice shady seat under the copper beech, and question him until he cries for mercy… Yes, please. Tea, with sugar and milk, and lots of bread and butter, piled high with Devonshire cream and jam – all the good things! Why, you’re a veritable fairy princess. Mr. Power met my mother when she was a girl!.. Come along, Mr. Power! No wonder I was inclined to grab you in that corridor. Oh, had I but guessed! I’ll never, never distrust intuition again.”
“To begin with,” said Power, as he walked with her across the springy turf with a laden tray in his hands, “in what way did intuition prompt you?”
“I don’t mind telling you at once. I feel I can talk to you as though we had known each other always. I said you rather startled me; but that was just a polite way of saying what I didn’t exactly mean. You were examining a picture, and you turned unexpectedly and looked at me. There was an expression in your eyes that gave me a sort of shock, one of those emotional thrills which cannot be described in words. You might have been gazing at the ghost of someone very dear to you. Ah, forgive me if my tongue runs away with me, but I’m really excited. Of course, I understand now. You took me for my mother. And I am like her, am I not?”
“So like that your first impression was right. I did nearly fall. The least push would have toppled me over. It was only the iron law of convention that enabled me to pass on as though nothing unusual had happened.”
“Then my mother and you were great friends?”
“Yes.”
“You met her long before she was married?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t say yes, and leave it at that. Tell me things – everything you think I would like to know.”
“I may tell you this, without the slightest unfairness to – to your father. I loved your mother; but I was poor in those days, and dared not ask her to marry me. Then I was sent away to a distant mine – and – we drifted apart. When next I saw her she was a wife. Now, suppose we forget that bit of ancient history – because I hope to become friendly with your father – for your sake.”
The girl’s eyes were glistening, and she had lost some of her exquisite color.
She understood, or thought she understood; though she little dreamed what fierce longings, what vain regrets, were surging through the man’s inmost core. Her quick intelligence noted certain slight hesitancies in his speech, which the ever-present feminine sense of romance attributed to tender recollections of the bygone days. With ready sympathy, she led him to talk of the ranch, of Bison, even of her grandfather, whom she remembered but vaguely.
Power kept a close guard on his words, and easily focused her interest on topics which could not prove hurtful, even if she repeated the conversation to Marten in its entirety. Once only did their chat veer round to a dangerous quarter.
“You said you saw my mother again after her marriage – where was that?” she asked.
“In Newport, Rhode Island. I went there to buy horses, and we met unexpectedly in a hotel, just as you and I the other evening.”
“Was she – was she happy?”
“Of course she was happy. She was one of the most beautiful women of her day, and married to a rich man who was certainly devoted to her. She moved in the best society, both in America and in Europe. By the way, her closest friends were the Van Raltens in the States and the Duchesse de Brasnes in Paris. Have you ever come across any members of those families?”
“I know Mrs. Van Ralten very well. Her daughter was at school with me at Brussels.”
“Then Mr. Marten hardened his heart, and parted from you for a time?”
“Yes. I see now that it was bad for a girl to be always at home or in hotels, with governesses. Fortunately, Father had to be away a good deal, in Russia and elsewhere; so I was sent to school, where I was taught what little I know.”
Thus was an unforeseen shoal safely navigated, and Power took care that Newport was lost sight of. As he and Dacre walked up the valley to their abode, the latter broke a long silence by saying:
“Again I ask, Derry – is it wise?”
“And again I answer that years of suffering entitle one to the fleeting pleasure of seeing and speaking to Nancy’s daughter.”
“But she is Marten’s daughter, too, and he may prove difficult.”
“Let him. I have fought stronger adversaries, and won through in the end.”
Secretary Howard joined them that night. After dinner he inquired if Power had ever had any dealings with Mowlem & Son, a firm of lawyers in New York.