CHAPTER VIII

POOR HETTY AGAIN

When Chase came back from the table after telling Kite that they would expect him at the appointed time, Wint asked:

“Did he say what he wanted?”

Mrs. Chase exclaimed: “I don’t think you ought to have let him come, Winthrop. I don’t want that man in my house. He--”

Chase answered Wint. “No. Just said he wanted to see us.” He was troubled; and he showed it. “What do you think he wants, Wint? Something about Lutcher?”

Wint shook his head. “I think he’s going to hit at me. Somehow. There’s been a rumor around town all day. They say he has something.”

Chase asked quickly: “Has he? Has he got anything on you, Wint?”

“Not that I know of. There’s nothing he could get. Nothing to get.” He looked at his father in a quick, appealing way. “Dad, I wish you’d just remember that, whatever happens. You know the worst there is to know about me. Anything else is just flat lie.”

His father nodded abstractedly. “Of course. But Kite is confoundedly clever. Now I wonder what he’s--”

“I always told you, Wint, that you hadn’t any business in politics,” Mrs. Chase exclaimed. “I don’t think it’s decent, the way men talk about each other. Why, Mrs. Hullis told me that Jack Routt is going around saying the most terrible things about you. That you--”

“I know, mother. That’s Jack’s idea of a campaign. We’ll show him his mistake next Tuesday.”

“But he says that you--”

“Now, mother,” her husband interrupted, “never mind. Wint, did you hear anything definite about Kite? What he’s planning....”

Wint hesitated; he had heard something definite. Definite but incredible. That which he had heard could not possibly be true; he could not believe it. To tell his father would only disturb the older man; he could not be sure how Chase would react to the report. He held his tongue. “No, nothing definite,” he said.

“Is he’s coming to see you about it, he must have something.”

Wint got up from the table. “Well,” he said abruptly, “we’ll soon know. It’s after seven, now.”

They went into the sitting room to wait; and the waiting was hard. Wint tried to read the daily; his father took a book from the shelves. But Wint’s eyes strayed from the printed columns. He was in a curiously numb state of mind. This was part hopelessness, part the sheer suspense of waiting. Wint was one of those men who in their moments of greatest passion and excitement become outwardly serene and calm. Their own emotions put a physical inhibition on them so that they are still, and do not speak. Once or twice Chase glanced toward his son and saw Wint motionless, apparently absorbed, apparently quite at ease. But actually Wint was stirring to the throbbing of his heart, held still by the very fury of his own dread and anger and suspense.

At fifteen minutes before eight, some one knocked on the front door. Wint said: “There he is,” and got up and went to the door; but when he opened it, Jack Routt stood there. Wint was surprised; he said slowly:

“Oh, you, Jack?”

Routt nodded, a little ill at ease. “Is Kite here?” he asked.

“No. He’s coming.”

Routt smiled ingratiatingly. “I don’t know what he wants. He told me to meet him here about eight, to have a talk with you.”

“Told you to?”

“Yes. I asked him what he meant; and he said to wait. I supposed he had made arrangements with you.”

Wint said dully: “Yes, he has. He’s coming.” And after a moment, he added: “You might as well come in.”

Routt grinned. “You’re damned cordial,” he remarked.

“Oh, that’s all right,” Wint assured him abstractedly. He was thinking so swiftly that he seemed stupefied. His father came into the hall, and Wint said: “Here’s Jack Routt. Kite told him to come.”

Chase looked at Routt uncertainly; and Routt said: “I’ll get out if you say so.”

Wint shook his head. “No. Sit down. Go on in.”

They went into the sitting room; but before they could sit down, some one else knocked. This time it was B. B. Beecham. He stood in the door when Wint opened it, and smiled, and said:

“I’m not sure I understand, Wint. V. R. Kite telephoned me there was to be some sort of a conference here, about a matter for the good of Hardiston. I thought it curious that the word should come from him.”

Wint laughed harshly. “All right, come in,” he said. “I don’t know any more about it than you do. I suppose Kite thought it would be cheaper to use our house than to hire a hall.”

B. B. said simply: “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“Come in,” Wint repeated. “I’m up in the air, that’s all. Routt’s here already. Kite will be along, I suppose.”

“Routt?” B. B. echoed, in surprise.

“Yes; in there.”

Wint and B. B. went into the sitting room where Chase and Routt were talking awkwardly. After the first greetings, no one could think of anything more to say. B. B. broke the silence. “I saw a robin to-day,” he said. “They stay here, sometimes, right through the winter.”

Birds and flowers were B. B.’s hobbies; he knew them all. And other people recognized this interest in him, and shared it. They liked his enthusiasm. Chase said: “Is that so? I had no idea they stayed. It doesn’t seem to me I ever saw one in winter.”

“They live in the sheltered places,” said B. B. “You’ll find them in the woods, and the brushy hollows, and around houses where there is a good deal of shrubbery. Especially if the people put out a lump of suet for them to feed on.”

“Why, everybody ought to do that,” Chase declared, with a quick interest. “You ought to tell them to, in the _Journal_, B. B.”

B. B. smiled and said he was telling people just this, every week. He spoke of other birds. Chase seemed interested. Routt and Wint said nothing. Routt seemed uncomfortable; and that was a strange thing to see in this assured young man. Wint’s eyes were lowered; he was thinking. Lost in a maze of conjectures. Kite would be coming, any minute now.

B. B. was still talking about birds when Kite came. Wint heard footsteps on the walk in front of the house, heard them come up the steps. There were several men. Not Kite alone. The sounds told him that. He waited, sitting still, till they knocked on the front door. Then he went out into the hall and opened the door and saw Kite standing there, his dry little face triumphant, malignantly rejoicing.

Wint looked at Kite steadily for a moment; and then he lifted his eyes and saw, behind Kite, Amos Caretall. And at one side, Ed Skinner of the _Sun_. He had thought there were others. But he saw no one else.

Kite stepped inside the door. Skinner and Amos stood still till Wint asked: “Well--what is it?”

Kite said then: “Come in, Amos. You too, Ed.”

Amos, his big head on one side, his eyes squinting in a friendly way, drawled a question: “How about it, Wint? Kite says he’s got something to talk over. Asked me to come along. But I don’t allow he’s got any right to ask me into your house.”

“Come in, Amos. Both of you,” Wint said; and Kite repeated:

“Yes, come in. I know what I’m talking about. This young man isn’t likely to object.”

“All right, Wint?” Amos asked again; and Wint nodded, and Amos lumbered into the hall. Then Chase came to the door that led from the sitting room into the hall; and at sight of Amos, he stopped very still, with a white face. Wint crossed to his father’s side and told him quietly:

“It’s all right. Kite brought him. It’s all right, dad.”

Chase exclaimed: “How do I know it’s all right? I don’t understand all this mystery. Kite, by what right do you use my house for a meeting place? What is all this, anyway? What is the idea, Kite?”

Kite smiled his dry and mirthless smile; and he said mockingly: “Do not fret yourself, Chase. Our concern is with this young man, with Wint. You shall hear.” He was stripping off his overcoat in a business-like way. This was Kite’s big hour, and he meant to make the most of it. He dropped the coat on the seat in the hall; and Amos and Ed Skinner imitated him; and Kite said briskly, rubbing his hands:

“Now, then, where can we have our little talk?”

Chase looked at Wint uncertainly; and Wint, still held by that curious inhibition which made his voice level and low, said quietly:

“The sitting room. Come in, gentlemen.”

There were not chairs enough for them in the sitting room. Wint went into the dining room for another, and found his mother there, putting away the dishes. She asked in a whisper:

“Who is it, Wint? Mr. Kite?”

Wint nodded. “Yes, mother. Several men. You’d better go upstairs the back way.”

He was so steady that she was reassured; he did not seem excited or disturbed. Yet was there something about him that made her think of a hurt and weary little boy; and she laughed softly, and put her arm around him and made him kiss her. He did so, patting her head; and then he said:

“There, mother. Run along.”

She went out toward the kitchen, and Wint took the chair he had come for into the other room. He found the others all sitting down. Amos had slumped into the biggest and the easiest chair in the room. B. B. sat straight in the straightest chair, his round, firm hands clasped on his knees. B. B.’s legs were short and chubby; and his lap was barely big enough to hold his clasped hands. Ed Skinner and Chase were on the couch at one side of the room. Routt sat on the piano stool, twirling slowly back and forth through a six-inch arc. Kite, in the manner of a presiding officer, had pulled his chair to the table in the middle of the room and sat there very stiffly, his head held high in that ridiculous likeness to a turkey.

Wint placed his chair just inside the door, and sat down. He and Kite were the only composed persons in the room. B. B. looked acutely embarrassed and uncomfortable; Chase was angry; Skinner was nervous; Routt’s ease was palpably assumed. And Amos was fumbling uncertainly with his black old pipe. He asked, when Wint came in:

“Your mother mind smoke in her sitting room?”

Wint said: “No; go ahead.” He filled his own pipe, and Amos sliced a fill from his plug and deliberately prepared his smoke and lighted it. Kite seemed in no hurry to begin. He had taken a letter or two and a slip of paper from his pockets and was studying them in silence. Wint thought he recognized that slip of paper. A check.... It seemed to him that a cold hand clutched his throat. He felt a sick sense of the hopelessness of it all; a sick despair. Not so much on his own account.

Kite at last looked around the room, and said importantly:

“Well, gentlemen!”

Wint’s father could be still no longer. He cried: “See here, Kite, what’s all this tomfoolery? What’s this nonsense? It’s an outrage. Be quick, or be gone. I’ve no time to waste.”

Kite looked at Chase; and then he looked at Wint and asked maliciously: “Do you bid me be gone, too, young man?”

Wint shook his head. “Say what you have to say,” he suggested; and there was a great weariness in his voice.

Kite nodded. “I mean to.” And to Chase: “You see, the young man understands it is in his interest to handle this thing among ourselves.”

“To handle what thing?” Chase demanded. Kite cleared his throat.

“A matter,” he said importantly, “that concerns first of all the good name of Hardiston. A matter that concerns, very intimately, the good name of your son. A matter that will be decisive in the mayoralty campaign now pending. A matter--” His poise suddenly gave way before the fierce rush of his exultation; and he cried: “A matter that will stop this damned Sunday-school nonsense of denying grown men the right to do as they please. That’s what it is, by God! A matter that will show up this young hypocrite in his true light. If I were not merciful, I would have spread it before the town long ago.”

He stopped abruptly, looking from one to the other as though challenging them to deny that he was merciful. No one denied it. B. B. cleared his throat; and the sound was startling in the silence that had followed Kite’s words. Amos puffed slowly at his pipe and squinted across the room at Wint. Wint said nothing. He had scarce heard what Kite said; he was curiously abstracted, as though all this did not concern him. He was like a spectator, looking on.

Chase looked at his son; and there was fear in the man’s eyes. For Kite was so terribly confident. Chase looked at his son, expecting Wint to make denial, to defend himself. But Wint said nothing; Wint did not lift his eyes from the floor. He only puffed slowly and indolently at his pipe, moving not at all.

Kite cleared his throat again; and his dry little eyes were gleaming.

“I have given this matter some thought,” he said. “Some thought, since the facts came into my hands. And I must confess, at first they seemed incredible. I made investigations, I was forced to believe--the whole, black story.” He paused again. He wanted some one to question him, but no one spoke. He went on:

“My first impulse was to cry the truth to the whole town. But I held my hand. I went to the city for the final proof. Got it. And when I came back, it was to find that this young man had caused the arrest of one of my friends, Lutcher, on a ridiculous liquor charge. Simply because Radabaugh discovered Lutcher and three others engaged in a game of cards, drinking as they had a right to do.

“I was indignant; but even then I was merciful. I wanted to give this young man a chance; and I went to him and offered him the chance to save himself.”

He paused, moved one of his hands as though to brush the possibility aside. “But it is unnecessary for me to tell you that his chief trait is a blind and unreasoning stubbornness. It betrayed him, on this occasion. He rejected my offer; refused to take the easy way out.

“That was this morning. I considered. My chief concern was for the good name of Hardiston; that such a man should not be chosen Mayor. This seemed to me the simplest and least painful way to arrange his withdrawal. So I asked you to come here.”

Amos drawled from the depths of his chair: “Did you fetch us here to talk us to death, Kite?”

Kite smiled bitterly. “No, Amos. Be patient.”

Chase was watching Wint, still with that desperate hope in his eyes. They were all watching Wint; but Wint was looking at the floor, following with his eyes the pattern in the rug. This was the end. He had just about decided that. There was in him no more will to fight. He had been a good Mayor. If they didn’t want to re-elect him--that was their affair. He would do no more. He had a sick sense of betrayal. His lips twisted in a bitter little smile.

Kite addressed him directly. “So, young man, we want your withdrawal from the mayoralty race. And this whole matter will end right here.”

Wint still did not lift his head. His father thought the boy was shamed; and his heart was torn. Kite asked sharply: “Come! What do you say?”

Wint looked at Kite, then, for the first time; looked at him with a slow, steady, incurious gaze that made Kite twist in his chair. And he repeated, in a low voice:

“You want me to withdraw?”

“Exactly. Now.”

Wint shook his head gently. “No,” he said, “I won’t withdraw.”

Kite threw up one clenched fist in a furious gesture. “By God, if you don’t you’ll be run out of town!”

“I’m in the fight,” said Wint steadily. He spoke so low they could scarce hear him. “I’m in the fight. I’ll stay.”

“Then I’ll smash you, flat as a pancake. You young fool.”

“Kite,” Wint murmured gently. “I don’t give a damn what you do. I’m in to stay.”

Kite banged his fist on the table. “Then the whole story comes out.”

“Let it come,” said Wint.

“You mean you want me to tell these men here? The black shame?”

“Yes,” Wint assented. “Tell them anything you please.” He lowered his eyes again, resumed his study of the carpet, puffed at his pipe. Kite stared at the boy’s bent head as though he could not believe his eyes, or his ears. He had counted so surely on Wint’s surrender; he had been so sure that Wint would yield.

But Wint.... The fool sat there, passively defying him; daring him. Kite’s face twisted with a sudden furious grimace. He jerked back his head. So be it. He flung defiant eyes around the room; he said abruptly, curtly:

“Very well. Here it is. This young rip is the father of Hetty Morfee’s child.”

There was a moment’s terrible silence in the room. Then Jack Routt cried: “Good Lord, Kite, that can’t be! Wint’s a decent chap.”

Kite snapped at him: “Can’t be? It is. Here’s the very check he gave her, to go away.” He shook the slip of paper in the air. “What do you say to that?”

“I don’t believe it,” Routt insisted. “I’ve known Wint too long.” He got up and strode across and gripped Wint’s shoulder. “Tell him it’s a damned lie, Wint,” he begged.

Wint looked up at Routt with slow, steady eyes; and Routt, after a moment, could not meet them. He turned back to Kite, protesting Wint’s innocence. Their wrangling voices jangled in the silence. B. B. pretended not to hear, stared straight ahead of him. Ed Skinner twisted uneasily where he sat. Amos, deep in his chair, was watching Wint; and Wint’s father was watching Wint, too. Watching his son with a desperate, beseeching look in his eyes.

Wint did not see; he was looking at the floor; and he was thinking of Hetty, thinking what this would mean to her. That which had come to her was already guessed at, in Hardiston; now every one would know beyond need of guessing. She would be outcast; no saving her; but one black road ahead. For the thing would be believed. He knew that. People had been ready to believe before this; ready to accept the mere rumor. His own father, his own mother.... This had been their first thought when he wished to help Hetty. Joan.... She had sought to question him. Yes, they would believe. Every one.

He was not angry at them for their credulity; he pitied them. That they should be so malignant, and so blind. He was quite calm, not at all sorry for himself. Sorry for them. And most of all, he was sorry for Hetty. He had always liked Hetty; a good girl, give her a chance. The stuff of good womanhood in her. Blasted now.... He wished he might find a way to help her. Some way....

A word from Kite to Routt cut through his thoughts. “If you won’t believe me,” Kite exclaimed, “will you believe her?”

“Hetty never said this,” Routt protested; and Kite got up and went swiftly out into the hall, saying over his shoulder:

“Just a minute, then.”

Every one looked toward the door, listening. They heard Kite open the front door and call:

“Lutcher.”

A man answered, outside. Kite asked: “Is she there?” The man said:

“Yes.”

“Send her in,” Kite directed. And they heard the sound of moving feet.

So she had been waiting there, all this time, with Lutcher. Wint thought she must have been miserably unhappy as she waited. When he heard her step in the hall, he looked up and saw her. Her eyes met his for an instant; and Wint was curiously stirred by the pitiful appeal in them. As though she begged him to forgive.... Then her eyes left his. She came in and stood, just inside the door. Kite said:

“Sit down.” He gave her his own chair, by the table. The girl moved apathetically across the room and took the chair. Kite looked down at her.

“Now, Hetty,” he said, in the tone of one who questions a child. “I have been telling them what you told me. They think I am lying. Am I lying?”

She shook her head slowly; and Kite looked from man to man triumphantly. Routt cried:

“Hetty, you don’t understand. He said Wint was your--your baby’s father? That’s not true. It can’t be.”

She looked at Routt; and there was a somber light in her eyes. She said, in a low, steady voice:

“Yes. Sure it’s true.”

Her eyes remained on Routt. He stepped back as though she had struck him. Wint raised his head and looked around the room; saw Amos squinting at his pipe; saw B. B. ill at ease, and Skinner squirming; saw his father white and shaken in his seat. Then Routt turned to him, exclaiming:

“Wint, for God’s sake.... You heard what she said.”

Wint hardly knew himself; he was, suddenly and surprisingly, very calm, and happy with an anguished happiness of renunciation. The old stubborn, prideful Wint would have denied, have fought, have sworn. But Wint looked at Hetty; he was terribly sorry for her. He surrendered himself to a great and splendid magnanimity.

“Yes,” he told Routt. “I heard.”

“But it’s a lie!”

Wint got up slowly, looked around the room, studied them all; and he smiled. “Hetty would not lie about me,” he said. “She and I have always been friends. We are going to be married, right away.”

He held them a moment more with his steady gaze; they were frozen, every man. And then he looked at Hetty, and saw her eyes widen pitifully, and saw her face twist with anguish. And he smiled reassuringly, and he said: “It’s all right, Hetty. Truly. Don’t be afraid.”

While they were still motionless, he turned and went quietly into the hall. Muldoon had been dozing under his chair; the dog scrambled up now and followed him. Wint got his hat and went out of the house, Muldoon upon his heels.

In the room he had left, every man was very still. Only poor Hetty crumpled slowly in her chair; and she dropped her head in her arms upon the table and began to cry, with great, gasping sobs. And she whispered to herself, so harshly that they all could hear:

“My God! My God! Oh, my God!”

END OF BOOK V