Chapter 19

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Esther Lockwin, the bride of a few months, has been hungrily happy.

She has been the wife of David Lockwin, the people's idol. She has passed out of a single state which had become wearisome. She has removed from a vast mansion to a less conspicuous home.

Of all the women in Chicago she would consider herself most fortunate.

People call her cold. It is certain that she is best pleased with a husband like Lockwin. It is his business to be famous.

"Go to Congress," she says. "Outlive your enemies. I think, David, that men are not the equals of women in defending themselves against the shafts of enmity. Outlive your enemies, David."

That Lockwin has the nature she required was to be seen in the death of Davy. An event which would have beclouded the life of common brides came to Esther as an important communication. She saw Lockwin's heart. She saw him kissing the soles of Davy's feet. There is something despotic in her nature which was satisfied in his act. There is also a devotion in her nature which might be as profound.

She would kiss the soles of David Lockwin's feet, were he dead. She could kiss his feet were he despised and rejected among men.

Yet she is counted the haughtiest woman that goes by.

"Mrs. Lockwin is a double-decker," the grocer declares to his head clerk. "She rides mighty high out of the water."

The grocer used to haul lumber from Muskegon. His metaphors smell of the deep.

For ten years young men of all temperaments had besieged this lady. The fame of her money had entranced them. Suitors who were afraid of her distinguished person still paid court, smitten by the love of money.

She was so proud that she must marry a proud man. She must marry a man conspicuous, tall, large, slow. She must banish from her mind that hateful fear of the man who might want her for her financial expectations.

Sometimes when she surveyed the matrimonial field she noted that the eligible suitors were few.

Men with blonde mustaches of extreme length would recite lovers' poems. Men with jet-black hair, eyes and beard would be equally foolish. The lady would listen politely to both.

"It is the Manitoba cold wave!" the lovers would lament as they left her.

To see Esther Wandrell pass by--beautiful, heroic, composed--was to feel she was the most magnetic of women. To recite verses to her--to lay siege to her heart--was to learn that her personal magnetism was from a repellant pole. The air grew heavy. There was a lack of ozone. The presumptuous beleaguerer withdrew and was glad to come off without capture.

There had been one man, and toward the last, two men, who did not meet these mystic difficulties. Esther Wandrell was pleased to be in the society of either David Lockwin or George Harpwood.

David Lockwin she knew. He was socially her equal. He had lived in Chicago as long as she. He was essentially the man she might love, for there was an element of unrest in his nature that corresponded with the turmoil underneath her calm exterior.

She knew nothing of George Harpwood other than that he was an acquaintance with whom she liked to pass an hour. He did not degrade her pride. He walked erectly, he scorned the common people, he presented an appearance sufficiently striking to enable her to accompany him without making a bad picture on the street or in the parlor.

All other men bored her, and she could not conceal the fact.

To promenade with Harpwood and notice that Lockwin was interested--this was indeed a tonic. The world of tuberoses and _portes cocheres_--the world of soft carpets and waltzes heard in the distance--this aromatic, conventional and dreary world became a paradise.

When David Lockwin declared his love, life became dramatic.

When David Lockwin won the primaries and carried the election, life became useful.

When David Lockwin held the little feet of the dead foundling life became noble. She, too, would bring from out the recesses of that man's better nature the treasures of love which lay there. She had not before known that she hungered and thirsted for love.

It might be the affection of a lioness. She might lick her cubs with the tongue of a tiger, but her temperament, stirring beneath her, was pleased.

She has a husband worthy of her worship. She who had not known that she wanted lover's verses, wants them from David Lockwin.

She who had never been jealous of Davy, grows jealous of politics. Yet, fearing her husband may guess her secret and despise her, she appears more Spartan.

She nursed the man sick of brain fever and buried little Davy. She brought her patient to his senses after nearly a month of alienation.

"Is Davy dead, Esther?" he had asked.

This was his first rational utterance.

"You are elected to Congress, David," she said. "Are you not glad?"

"Yes," he answered, and looked like death itself.

She dared not to throw herself upon his pillow and tell him how happy she was that he was restored. Her heart beat rebelliously that she did not declare to him the consuming passion of love which she felt.

Oh, let him resign his honors! Let him travel with her alone! Let her love him--love him as he loved Davy--as he must love her!

But the caution of love and experience had warned her to be still. Had not David waited until the child was dead before she saw the man as he really loved that child?

"I think I can do my duty," he said, wearily.

"I am so glad you were elected!" she said.

"Yes," he answered, and became whiter.

She had sat by the bed, growing uneasy. Ought she to have told him all? Ought she to have acknowledged her deep devotion? Why was he so sad? Surely they could mourn for Davy together! Tears had come in her eyes as she gazed on the couch where Davy's soul went away.

The man had been comforted. "Were you remembering Davy?" he asked.

"Yes, dear," she said.

He had put his weak hand in hers. She was the happiest she had ever been.

She had debated if she might deplore politics. She hated politics now. But she had not dared to be frank. In five minutes more the bridges were burned. The man and the woman were apart again, each in anguish, and neither able to aid the other.

That Lockwin needed a trip to Washington could not be denied. That Esther feared to speak of Davy was becoming very noticeable.

Yet no sooner is the husband gone than the woman laments the folly of letting him leave her.

"Go, David," she had commanded, when she was eager with a desire to keep him or to go with him.

"Shall I accompany you?" she asked, smiling and trembling.

"I must return by a lake steamer, and must see Corkey alone," the husband had replied.

"A lake steamer!" In October! The affair alarmed the wife. She must not let that fear be known.

"Live down your enemies, David!" she had said, as she kissed him.

The words were insincere. They had a false sound, or an unconvincing sound. They had jarred on David Lockwin.

"I can outlive my friends easily enough, it seems," he thought, as he recited the lines of holy fields over whose acres walked those blessed feet. "I can outlive poor Davy. I ought to be happy in politics. It cost me enough!"

And the man had wept.

At home the wife had also wept. She was afraid she had erred. She had not been frank. She accused herself, she defended herself, she noted that it was not yet too late to bid David good-bye, or beg him not to go until he should be stronger. She called a cab from the livery. It was Sunday. There was a long delay. She entered the vehicle and directed that haste should be made to the Canal street depot. She approached the bridge. She feared she had made a mistake. David would think she was silly. It was entirely unlike the cold Esther Lockwin to be acting in this manner.

The bridge bell had rung. The bridge swung. She had looked at her watch. The train would leave at five o'clock. It was 4:50. Could not the driver go round by the Washington street tunnel?

"It is closed for repairs," the driver had said--a falsehood.

When Esther reached the station the train had left. She had returned to her home to wait in dire anxiety until her husband should reach Washington. She had written a long letter unfolding her heart to him.

"Come back to me, my darling," she said in that letter, "and see how happy we shall be! Let the politics go; that killed Davy and makes us all so unhappy. You were made for something nobler. Let us go to Europe once more. Let us seek out the places where you and I have met in the past."

It had seemed too cold.

"I love you, I love you. I shall die without you! Come home to me and save me! I love you, I love you!"

So she had written for a page, and was satisfied.

If she might telegraph it! No! only advertisers and divorced people did that. She must wait.

He would not reply. He would come.

The newspaper announces the arrival of the congressman-elect at the White House. He had left almost immediately for the West.

Then he will not get the letter!

He may arrive in Chicago this night, but how and where? A gale is rising. The wife is terrified with waiting and with love. If she had some little clue of his route homeward. She is a woman, and does not know how to proceed. She goes to her father.

"Oh, fudge, puss! You mustn't let him go again. Ha! ha! you're just like your mother. She pretty near had a fit when I went away the first time. He went a little soon for his health, but our leading men tell us he was needed in Washington. They wanted to see him and get some pledges from him. He'll be home by some lake boat in the morning. They get in about daylight, but it's like a needle in a haystack. Why, the last time I came from Mackinaw they landed me on a pile of soft coal--blest if they didn't! Stay all night, puss. Or go home, if you want to be there."

"Wind blows like sixty!" says the old Chicagoan, after Esther has gone.

The mother harkens. She goes to the window.

"Is that the lake?" she asks.

"Yes; it's too late in the year for David to be on any boat."

The wife of David Lockwin cannot sleep. She cannot even write another letter. "How happy are lovers who may write to each other!" she says. The gale rises and she waits. It is midnight and David is not home. Now, if he should arrive, he would probably keep his state-room until morning.

She awakes at daylight. She dons a wrapper and creeps to the front door. There are the morning papers. She scans every paragraph. Ah! here is David!

"NIAGARA FALLS, Oct. 16.--Congressman Lockwin left here to-day for Owen Sound, on Georgian Bay."

Georgian Bay! Where is that? She seeks the library. She finds a map. Georgian Bay! Perhaps David has some lumber interest there.

The paper is scanned again. Owen Sound, Owen Sound. She is reading the marine intelligence. Yes, here is Owen Sound.

"OWEN SOUND, Oct. 16.--Cleared--Propeller Africa, merchandise, for Thunder Bay. Gale blowing, with snow."

Thunder Bay! It is still more incomprehensible.

There is a cry in the streets, hoarse and loud--a triumphant proclamation:

"Extra! Full account o' de shipwreck o' de Africa! Full account o' de big shipwreck!"

A white arm reaches from a front door. A dime is paid for two papers. The door must be held open for light to read.

"Appalling calamity! Unparalleled feat of journalism!"

Hideous it seems to Esther Lockwin. She clings to the newell-post.

"Death, off Cape Croker, of Congressman Lockwin!"

There may be two congressmen of that name.

There may be two! It is a dying hope. Can the eyes cling to the column long enough to read that paragraph?

"Congressman David Lockwin, of the First Illinois, died of his wounds about daylight in a yawl off Cape Croker. His body is lost with the yawl!"

There is a shriek that awakens the household. There is a white form lying in the hall near an open front door.

The servants rush up-stairs. There is a hubbub and a giving of orders.

The voices of the street come into the hall-way as winds into a cave:

"Extra! Extra! 'Palling calamity! Hundred and fifteen congressmen drowned! Extra! Extra!"