CHAPTER VIII

A WOMAN'S CAPRICE--A FATHER'S REPENTANCE--A LOVER'S SELF-CONQUEST--A GIRL'S PITY

When Simon Hart agreed to his cousin's plan, and Rachel, despite her protests, was conveyed from the hospital to Julia Burgdorf's house, he did not experience the unpleasantness he had anticipated. The personality of his cousin was not agreeable to him. He had never liked her; partly, because he was jealous of a social prestige which he himself had never been able to attain; partly, because he disapproved of her dropping her family name, for Julia, when a child, had adopted the cognomen of a distant relative from whom she had inherited a fortune. But the fundamental reason for his disapprobation lay deeper, concealed in the current of their common blood.

Though diametrically opposed to Julia in character, Simon was able to comprehend in her traits which he especially disliked. They were like two compounds containing different proportions of the same ingredient. In Simon the strain of their common ancestry had been fused with a widely alien current. From his mother, a pale-featured, down-looking woman, much given to keeping her own counsel, he had inherited his air of secrecy, his pallor, as well as his capacity for profound and delicate feeling. But in Julia the original current of the Hart blood retained all its primitive strength; plainly, she was one whose forefathers had loved "wine and women and wild boars," and in every trait she was more closely related to old Nicholas than was Simon. Though Nicholas now quaveringly sought the beauties of a butterfly's wing, time was when he had pursued woman's glances with the same ardour; in fact, he had been in his day a cup of lusty life. It was the very irony of fate that this legacy of the Hart spirit had passed his own son and descended in all its troubled richness on his sister's child. The only difference between uncle and niece was that which is accounted for by sex. Julia, being no fool, accepted the restraints that hamper the existence of a conventional woman. Like Nicholas she had slight sympathy with Simon. The antagonism of the cousins was mutual. In speaking of Julia, Simon habitually employed an ironical tone; while Julia treated Simon with condescension, and, behind his back, with ridicule. But now one subject united them.

Immediately after the death of old David, Rachel, exhausted and ill-nurtured, was conveyed to a private hospital, a victim of typhoid fever. For a time the outcome of the struggle appeared dubious, but three weeks after the fever declared itself, she rallied. Then it was that Simon went to Julia with the general points of her story and a hesitating request.

The girl was absolutely alone, without relatives or friends. Would Julia visit her? The picture was a pathetic one, and marvelling at Simon's newly developed powers of eloquence, she consented. At sight of the invalid, her curiosity, already lively, increased to a point that assured decisive action. Moreover, she conceived for the young girl, with her forlorn face, one of those superficial attachments with which such women sometimes seek to fill their empty lives.

As soon as Rachel was convalescent Julia insisted, nay, commanded, that she be transferred to her own house. A visit of a few days in novel and comfortable surroundings, she argued, would tend to hasten her recovery. The fact was, Julia desired further opportunity to study the girl who had made a conquest of her cousin. Simon's ill-concealed interest in her afforded Julia delicious amusement. She had never deemed him capable of falling in love. When he announced that he hoped sometime to marry Miss Beckett, Julia's amazement was complete. Hoped! She gasped, then shrugged. What did he mean by taking that tone, a man of his position? It was mock humility--hypocrisy more disgusting than any of which she had dreamed him capable. But she soon discovered that his lack of assurance was justified.

At first she doubted. The "young person" (for it was thus Julia in thought designated Rachel) but cherished deep-laid plans, holding Simon the more securely by appearing not to desire to hold him. It was clever acting, and notwithstanding that she felt bound to oppose the ridiculous match, Julia could but admire the fair schemer who used her weakness and illness as additional bait for hooking such a fine fish. Then this theory exploded and she saw the situation in its piquancy:

Rachel was actually indifferent to the entire question of the marriage.

Having made the astonishing discovery, Julia renounced her worldliness for the time. Had the circumstances been other than just what they were, had the stranger been as eager for the marriage as Simon himself, Julia assuredly would have employed every means to frustrate their plans, and would have taken a malicious pleasure in her own manoeuvring because of rooted antipathy to Simon. As matters stood, however, she resolved to do the ignorant and unambitious young thing a service in spite of herself. Instead of a few days, Julia begged to keep the invalid indefinitely, and it was owing to her entreaties, rather than to Simon's arguments, that Rachel finally consented to remain a fortnight.

Then Julia applied herself, with the utmost discretion, to furthering the romance. She attempted to prick the girl to interest by discreetly praising Simon. He was very much looked up to by members of the Jewellers' Association of which he was the president; as a business man, as a member of society at large, he was irreproachable: and she made these statements without a curl of the lip. Rachel listened in silence. Then Julia employed other tactics. She waxed spiteful in her remarks about her cousin; she even laughed at his peculiarities. An oyster was not more secretive, and save for his trick of running his fingers through his hair in moments of agitation or excitement, one would never dream that he knew an emotion. At that, the other raised resentful eyes. She saw nothing ridiculous about Mr. Hart; on the contrary, his manner was unusually dignified. In justice to him she avowed the fact, then would say no more.

As yet Rachel was too weak to consider her situation. Grief had excluded every other emotion; even memory of Emil had flagged. Ill at ease and oppressed by the luxury around her, she strove to conceal every sign of her desperate sorrow and it was only at night that she relaxed command over herself. Then, convulsed with sobs, she lay in the darkness and, stretching out her hands, whispered, "Grandfather, are you there?" Her despair was the deeper because of the fantastic conceit that old David's simple soul was kept away by the richness of her surroundings. Had she remained in the poor rooms of the tenement, his spirit could have found her readily, descending out of that patch of pure sky visible through the dormer windows, even as the souls of saints and angels descend out of the blue in old pictures.

These woful imaginings, incident to physical weakness, for a time oppressed her; but later, as her strength came, she turned from them. She began to look at life with apprehensive eyes, though she still said little.

Simon felt that she was reading him and agonized under her gaze. Vainly he tried to speak the word that honour, pity, decency demanded. Could he have beheld her existing without masculine companionship, he would have released her, but the possibility of an unknown rival in the shrouded future, a rival whose love she would return, sealed his lips. Out of her presence the tension of the situation was relieved. When no longer confronted by her helpless and mutely accusing youth, it was a simple matter for him to convince himself that the step he had contemplated was unnecessary. Girls as young as she were material easily moulded; if she did not love him now, she would later. Meanwhile the situation was ambiguous, and for that reason, if for no other, an early marriage was advisable.

Despite these arguments, he began to show the effect of mental torture. The man was passing through fire. At last even Julia was moved by his look. As Rachel was the cause of the unnatural, strained situation, she proposed that something be done to rouse her spirits.

"Give her a taste of pleasure," Julia advised, "She's a little frozen ghost now, but I've yet to see the girl whose gloom won't yield to amusement and excitement."

With an eagerness almost pathetic, Simon agreed to this proposal. But just what could they do?

The answer came promptly: "Dress her properly and carry her off to some gay resort for the early spring. I will take her in charge, if you say so?"

But before they had developed a plan, the problem was unexpectedly solved. Emily Short was the curative agent.

It was a cold morning in March, and Emily, barring the interruption of the doctor's visit, had been with Rachel for an hour when Simon arrived. As he entered his cousin's hall he met the physician who was just getting into his great-coat. Simon paused to consult him.

"These women are certainly astonishing creatures," the physician remarked, settling his muffler. "The more experience I have in the medical profession, the more I feel that, owing to their nervous vitality, their recuperative power is prodigious. Miss Beckett has just had some news, I gather," he explained, "and it's done more for her than any amount of tonics. I imagine she knows very clearly what she wants to do, and my advice is, don't oppose her. Good morning, Mr. Hart." And the doctor passed out through the door which was opened for him by the obsequious butler.

Simon felt a sense of gnawing irritation.

"Now does that mean that he advises allowing her to return to that unsanitary tenement, if that chances to be her wish," he asked himself, "or has Julia set something on foot without consulting me?"

It was not without a struggle that Simon had brought himself to trust his cousin; and now, in spite of her continued kindness and avowed interest in his plans, he constantly dreaded her interference.

It being the usual hour for his visit, he did not have himself announced, but proceeded directly to Julia's sitting room where Rachel usually spent the morning. As he went toward the door, the thick carpet deadened his footsteps and he heard Rachel speaking in a voice wrought to a high pitch:

"I never imagined things happened this way outside of novels. But is Father alive? What do you say?"

"I should hardly say that he is," replied Emily. "If he were merely sending the money to you by this person, who is so afraid of telling his name, he'd have been apt to write and explain things."

"Yes, of course. But I must do what I can to find this John Smith. Oh, I shall get well now! And isn't it providential, all this money, and from my own Father? I can pay my debts now." The tone was jubilant.

Simon Hart, with a sensation of fear and guilt, did not wait to hear more. Pushing aside the strings of beads, the rattling of which jarred intolerably on his nerves, he entered the coquettish apartment. As he approached Rachel, avoiding collision with the divers chairs, screens, tables with which the place was littered, his face revealed little of what he was feeling.

On perceiving him, she half rose. Her breath grew short--or did he imagine it?--her eyes narrowed, then filled once more with the irradiating light of happiness. As their hands met he observed that her cheeks were glowing. Only her extreme slenderness and her cropped head told the story of recent illness.

"Oh, such news!" she cried, striving to repress her excitement. "Here, sit down," indicating a chair beside her own, "and Emily, you tell him." And as the little toy-maker took up the tale, Rachel looked into his face. But hardly had Emily opened her lips than she was silenced.

"No, no, I'll tell him myself. What do you think! _I've heard from my Father_! He has never seen me, I have never seen him, but suddenly he sends some money." Here Rachel's eyes shot a question--or again, did he imagine it?

"But you haven't exactly heard from him," Emily Short interrupted; "you don't know anything positively."

At these words, to Simon's relief, Rachel turned from him. "But I tell you I do know something positively, and that's enough," with a gesture of pride, "if I never hear anything more. He sent this money to my mother. Do you suppose that explains nothing to me?"

All at once she was the incarnation of tenderness and defiance. She had retained from childhood a picture of her father limned in the quaint language of old David. Now she in turn presented the portrait to these strangers. In the light of that mystical tribunal, buttressed so strongly by love and imagination, Thomas Beckett stood forth a figure vastly human, passionate and compelling; and she defied them to judge him otherwise.

But all at once she ceased twisting the tassels which adorned her girdle and dropped her chin in the cup of her hand.

"Sometimes I feel that it was all owing to the sea," she continued; "had we lived further inland I believe Father wouldn't have left us. For the land is stationary, even the trees are tied to it by the foot; while the sea--every drop is free. It can dash and gnaw its way through the hardest substances. But man is not like the sea. He may hurl himself upon life, yes--" The sentence concluded in a sigh.

At the beginning of this agitated speech Simon had gazed at her with anxious curiosity; then he grew jealous of this father who drew her thoughts so far afield from all he knew or sympathized with. He began to congratulate her.

She did not heed him.

"So you can see how it came about, can't you?" and she looked first at him and then at Emily. "Restless, dissatisfied, tormented, that's what Father was. He asked something of life which life didn't give him, and when the new ship he had helped to build was finished, he simply sailed away in her."

This defence was painful to Simon, and Rachel all at once felt his attitude.

"See," she said in an altered voice, "all this gold; seven hundred dollars of it," and she indicated a box on the table. "It came from a place in Massachusetts. Read this," thrusting into his hand a card on which were printed the words:

"To Mrs. Lavina Beckett from her husband Thomas Beckett."

"And there was no letter of explanation? Do you mean to say that you have no clue as to who forwarded the money?" Simon asked the question because it seemed to be demanded of him. In reality he was not curious.

"Yes, we have a clue, but there was no letter except one which André Garins, my old school friend, said was written to the postmaster at Old Harbour by a man signing himself John Smith. This man asked if my mother was still living there, but the postmaster is new to the place, and doesn't know much about the people at the Point anyway; so he wrote back that Mother was dead and that André Garins at Pemoquod could probably give him information about the daughter, that is, about me."

"Yes; and just as soon as he gets this letter, that John Smith, or whatever his rightful name is, sends his box of gold post-haste to your friend, and directs on the outside that it be forwarded to you. I tell Rachel that the man, whoever he may be, isn't anxious to have her get in touch with him," added Emily, addressing herself to Simon. "It's my opinion he's keeping back part of the money her father gave him, and I think it's foolish for her to go and get all keyed up."

Simon was saved the necessity of answering.

"But why, if he's dishonest, did he send any money at all? But that's not the point," Rachel went on; "I shan't rest until I've been to that town in Massachusetts to see what I can learn about Father. Why do you both try to discourage me? Oh, you don't understand!" And suddenly the tears were streaming. She was too weak to combat them further.

Simon could not endure the sight of suffering; even the constant and to a degree superficial tragedies of the lower animals and insects tortured him; for that reason he never went near his father's room where flies, still living, impaled on pins, seemed appealing to him for the help he dared not give. Now his face twitched.

"But I assure you I do understand," he protested, "and I will either go myself and make the necessary investigation, or I will accompany you when you are sufficiently strong."

At these words she pressed his fingers warmly, though she shook her head: "No, I should prefer--I should rather go alone."

"Rachel!" he cried, and looked his pain.

"Or I will take Emily."

She rose and pausing beside the table turned over a gold piece; then she passed to a window where she stood.

"Grandfather always said that we should hear from Father sometime," she exulted, "and I've a feeling that he knows _now_" and she glanced round at them with a bright, almost crafty expression.

Simon drummed fingers on a knee. What effect would this wind-fall have on their relationship? That she intended to free herself from her financial obligation he gathered from the words he had chanced to overhear. But as their interests would soon be identical, why did she not ignore so small a matter? unless-- He threw an examining, wretched look toward her and took her decision from the independent bearing of her pretty shoulders.

At this point his reflections were interrupted. Julia had just returned from an early round of the most fashionable shops. She came in, briskly ungloving her hands; then stood still. Rachel sprang toward her. The girl flushed, talked with her hands, laughed. At last she had no unenthusiastic listener. Unaccustomed to the sight of gold, Emily Short, ever since the opening of the box, had been fairly awed. To think that she had left it under the bed the night before, and that morning had conveyed it openly through the streets! Happiness at Rachel's good fortune surged high, none the less her impulse was to temper the other's excitement. Julia was wiser. She smothered Rachel in an embrace. Pushing up her veil she kissed her on both cheeks and even shed a few tears over her. At that moment, despite his dejection, Simon warmed to something like affection for his cousin.

After much argument Rachel was allowed to follow her own course. Accompanied by Emily Short she departed for the mill town from which John Smith had written. She spent a week in a vain search, then giving the matter into the hands of a local detective, she returned to New York.

Simon met the two women at the station. The greetings over, he possessed himself of Rachel's bag and led the way to a cab. She touched his arm.

"Not to Miss Burgdorf's--to Emily's, please."

Each paled. Her eyes as ever read right in.

When she was seated in the cab, she leaned forward: "And you will come this evening?"

He bowed, stiff as a ramrod, strained about the lips.

During the days of Rachel's absence his soul had been a field of conflict. He had written her letters only to destroy them. Why be so certain of her attitude? Women were inexplicable; he might be mistaken. He postponed the decision. Now he must release her; now when the issue was forced, when there was no semblance of generosity in the act. And he despaired of making her believe what he strove to make himself believe, as a last stay to self-respect, that the circumstance of her illness had alone delayed the step. The make-shift engagement had rested on her dire need of money, on his ability to supply it. Why blink the fact?

When the cab containing Rachel and her companion rolled away, he walked toward Fifth Avenue, without realizing what he was doing, stunned as if he had received a blow. For an hour he walked in a sort of stupour. Then he entered a cafe. As the blood circulated sluggishly in his veins, he had fallen into the habit of drinking moderate but constantly repeated quantities of liquor; the stimulant was no more manifest through the pallor of his countenance than wine that is poured into an opaque vessel, but it seemed to quicken his faculties. Summoning an attendant, he gave an order. He remained in the cafe until evening.

When he entered Emily Short's room, Rachel stood near the table well in the light of the lamp. She greeted him with a touch of constraint. More than usual her eyes kept a watch on him. Her whole countenance announced subtly and triumphantly that she had it in her power to redeem her debt: then, perhaps he would release her! This thought seemed to flash even from her hands.

He looked swiftly at her hands. She was fingering a small packet of which his misery divined the nature. She had wrapped it in tissue paper. This girlish device to render the thing she planned to do less distressful, struck a blow at his heart.

"One word--listen to me!" he cried, keeping an agonized gaze on the packet, "I no longer wish--I realize that to unite your life with mine--I know the very thought is painful--"

Lifting his eyes, he saw an expression like a darting of light.

Conscious that he was not speaking as he had intended to speak, he drew his fingers through his hair. "You are free," he stammered, "it was never my intention to hold you to your promise. But it is impossible that you should comprehend my struggle--"

He broke off, striving for his usual calm, and this effort to place a mask over his anguish produced on her much the same effect as the concealing piece of paper had produced on him.

Caught in a tide of emotion, she extended a hand: "But I can--I do understand. Haven't you shown your feeling for me constantly? You have been kind--kind!"

He shook his head. "No, no," he muttered, "not kind; helpless. I tried more than once to release you; I beg you to believe this. But I loved you too much." His face expressed acute suffering; his lower lip trembling so that he could scarcely pronounce the words.

"Can you forgive me?"

No concealment now. A naked, humble, imploring, despairing soul looked from his eyes.

It was not in her to resist such an appeal. Her heart flamed with pity, pity that annihilated all selfish exultation. "There is nothing to forgive."

"But you do forgive me?" he insisted.

"I thank you--I thank you from the bottom of my soul."

Again he shook his head disowning his right to gratitude. His eyes once more watched what she held.

All at once, reading his look, the discrepancy between the nature of her indebtedness and the sordid return she had planned, struck her. She laid the packet on the table.

He looked up, questioningly.

So repugnant did the action she had contemplated now appear to her that she hung her head.

"I no longer wish to give it to you," she said in a stifled voice. "Grandfather's happiness, my own life--can money pay for such things?"

He took her by the hand.

It was some moments before he could regain command of himself. Then he said:

"I am always your friend, Rachel."

She nodded.

For some moments longer they stood, their hands joined. Presently he touched her forehead with his lips. "Good-bye."

She stood as he had left her, her bosom rising and falling softly and heavily, her eyes betraying all that was passing within her. Never did countenance more plainly announce a struggle. By this final act, he had erased from the scroll any charge against him of dishonour and selfishness. Her instinctive trust of him, persisting in the face of his weakness, was vindicated. The flame of her liking leapt higher. Open-lipped, open-eyed, open-eared, she listened to his retreating steps.

Momentarily the consciousness of her debt to him increased. She was allowing him to go--this man who had aided her in the blackest hour of her life; who loved her, who offered her all a man can offer a woman. She placed him high, herself low. She saw him noble, herself craven. To receive so much and to give nothing! It was contrary to her nature. But one return she could make! Above waves of confusion the thought flashed and flashed.

Was she capable of the sacrifice? Deeply she sounded her heart. Her life was empty, irretrievably, permanently empty and desolate, she told herself with the sureness of the tragic young. To what better use put its fruitless days? The idea assumed the brightness of a star above troubled deeps. She sprang to the door, calling.

He did not answer, though his step was still faintly distinguishable in the hall.

Bending over the well of the staircase, she repeated her call.

The footsteps halted: then from the darkness below she heard him ascending.