Читать книгу The Great Accident - Ben Ames Williams - Страница 5

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AMOS CARETALL’S home was not a pretentious affair. He lived in a house that had not been built as other houses are; it had, like Topsy, “just growed.” It began as a one-story, four-room brick structure, and spread in wings and “ells” and upper stories until now it numbered ten rooms and was a thing fearful and wonderful to behold. In these ten rooms, Agnes and her father and old Maria Hale, the darky who cooked for them and looked after them, rattled around in a somewhat lonely fashion. For Mrs. Caretall was ten years dead, and the two Caretall boys had gone away to college and afterward had builded homes of their own in other regions.

Amos Caretall was not rich; but he was well off. He had made his money in coal, and when the visible supply of coal began to peter out, he had looked into politics, gone to the state legislature for two terms, and then to Congress. In Congress he had done well. The Hardiston district forgot, where he was concerned, the old rule that a Congressman shall have but two terms. They sent him back again and again. He was now in his fifth term, and his power at home and abroad was growing.

His most valuable quality was imagination. He was not an able man; he knew little about political economy, national finance, sociology, the science of government. He knew little and cared less. For by virtue of a keen imagination, he was able to construct in his own mind hypothetical situations, and then hire experts to meet them for him. Peter Gergue was one of these experts. Gergue’s field was human nature and Hardiston County. He knew every one in the county, and he had an uncanny faculty for predicting how a man would react to given circumstances. This faculty extended to men in the mass, and enabled him to predict the political effect of a given course of action with surprising accuracy. Amos Caretall had learned to take Gergue’s advice blindly. His home-coming at this time, for example, was in response to Gergue’s message of a week previous. That message had been brief.

“If Chase is elected Mayor, he’ll beat you for the House next year,” Gergue had written.

Caretall wired: “I’m coming home.” And he came.

But there was no trace of concern in his amiable countenance as they rode to his home now. He joked Joan Arnold into gayety, laughed Wint Chase out of his sulkiness, and pinched his daughter’s cheek until she threatened to ditch the car if he kept it up. Thus, when they stopped before the house, every one was in good humor.

They stopped, and Wint Chase was the first to alight. A muffled bark greeted him from the house, and he laughed and ran up the walk and opened the door. A wiry, tan-colored dog rushed out and engulfed him; Muldoon, an Irish terrier of parts, who had been left behind because he would neither ride in an automobile nor calmly suffer his master to do so. Muldoon was one creature whom Wint unreservedly loved; and Muldoon returned the affection. Master and dog, the first transports over, came down the walk again as the others climbed from the car.

Amos Caretall was urging them all to come in. Jack Routt said he would; but Joan shook her head. “I can’t,” she laughed. “I promised mother to bring home some bread.”

“I’ll take it out in the car,” Agnes pleaded. “Please....”

Joan stuck to her guns. Agnes pouted. Wint did not commit himself; he seemed to take it for granted that he would go with Joan. She turned to him. “You stay, Wint!”

The old sulky light flamed in his eyes again. “No—I’m going with you.”

They left the others, amid a little flurry of farewells from Agnes, and turned uptown. Muldoon circled them madly, running at top speed in a desperate effort to work off the spirits generated during his confinement. Joan laughed at the dog, whistled him to her, stooped to tug at his ears affectionately. “You’re full of it, aren’t you, Muldoon?”

He whined aloud in his desperate desire to answer her, then darted away again. She straightened and they went on, the girl still smiling. Wint looked at her once, and then again, and then he, too, smiled—at her and at the dog.

“He’s a clown,” he said.

She nodded. “He’s a fine dog, Wint.”

“He’s a dog of sense. He thinks well of you.” He laughed. “I’ll give him to you some day.”

She looked up at him seriously, understanding in her eyes. “I hope so, Wint,” she said.

There was something besides understanding in her eyes, something faintly accusing; and he flushed and said hotly: “Don’t look at me like that. Please. I’m—I mean to—make it come true.”

“I hope so, Wint,” she said again.

They spoke no more for a time. Presently she stopped at the bakery and they went in together. The sweet odor of hot bread and sugar and spice clouded about them as he opened the door. A round little woman greeted them.

“Is your cream bread all gone, Mrs. Mueller?” Joan asked.

“No. Not yet. How many loaves?”

“Two, please.”

The little woman brought two loaves, still soft from the great ovens and still warm, and wrapped them gently, careful not to bruise them. She handed the package to Joan. Wint tried to take it, but Joan shook her head, laughing at him. “Last time you mashed them flat,” she said; “I’ll carry them.”

“I’ll be careful,” he promised, and took the package from her with calm mastery, a mastery to which she yielded with a faint tremor of happiness. They continued more swiftly on their way.

Presently she asked: “How does the work go?”

He shook his head. “Badly. I’ve no—knack for it. And father and I weren’t meant to pull in double harness.”

“You must learn to, Wint. Give him a chance.”

He nodded. “But we—grate on each other. He fires up at the least mistake.”

“You’ve been hard on his patience.”

He stiffened faintly. “Possibly.”

She laid her hand on his arm. “Now don’t sulk, Wint. Please.”

“I’m not sulking.”

“You’re too quick on the trigger. You get angry at the least thing.” She laughed softly, in a way that robbed her words of sting. “Wint, you’re as proud as a peacock, and as stubborn as a mule. As soon as any one criticizes you for doing a thing—you go right off and do it again. That’s no way to do, Wint.”

He made no comment, and when she looked at him, she saw that his face was set and hard, and she laid a hand on his arm. “Wint—don’t you think I’m a—good friend of yours?”

“If you’re not more than that, Joan—I’m through.” His eyes searched hers; she met his bravely.

“I am—more than that, Wint. So you must let me tell you things frankly. Wint, you must learn to see that when people criticize you, or advise you, it’s more often than not because they really wish you well. Most people wish other people well, Wint.”

“That has not been my experience.”

She shook his arm, laughing. “Wint! Don’t be silly! You talk like a disappointed man—when you ought to talk like a fine, strong, hopeful one.”

He laid his hand on hers, where it rested in the crook of his arm. “You’re a big-heart, Joan. You like every one, and trust them and every one is good to you. You—can’t get my viewpoint.”

“I can too, Wint. For you haven’t any viewpoint. You’re just the plaything of a little devil of perversity that makes you do things you know you—oughtn’t to do—just to prove that you can.”

They came, abruptly, to her gate. She paused to say good-by. His eyes were angry; but he said quietly: “May I come to-night?”

She shook her head. “Not every night, Wint. To-morrow?”

“Please?”

“I—no, Wint.”

He straightened stiffly. “Very well. Good night.” He lifted his hat and stalked away.

Joan looked after him for a moment, her eyes disturbed, unhappy; then she smiled a tender little smile, as a mother smiles at a wayward boy, and turned into the house.

At the corner, Wint looked back. She was gone. He went on toward his own home, Muldoon at his heels, in a hot surge of rebellion. Halfway home, he asked himself what it was that made him rebellious, angry; and when he could find no reasonable answer to this question, he became more angry than ever. He was angry at himself; but he convinced himself that he was angry at others....

Winthrop Chase, Senior, had built a home for himself a dozen years before, in the first rush of great wealth from the furnace. It was a monumental house, of red, pressed brick, with a slate roof and a fence of iron pickets around the yard. It had been, when he built it, the finest house in town. Now, however, its supremacy was challenged by a dozen others, and the elder Chase had half decided to tear it down and build another that would defy competition. Mrs. Chase opposed this, gently and half-heartedly. She thought they were very comfortable.

But it was a losing fight, and she knew it. Her husband was accustomed to have his way. He would have it in the end.

Wint pushed open the iron gate—it dragged on its hinges so that it had worn a deep groove in the stone paving that led to the porch—and closed it behind him, and went up to the door. He opened it and went in; and in the dim light of the hall he encountered a girl. For an instant, he failed to recognize her; then:

“Why, hello—Hetty,” he said.

“Hello, Wint.”

“What are you doing here?” He dropped his hat on the hall bench.

“I’ve come to work for your mother.” She hesitated. “Supper’s ready. They’re sitting down.”

“Oh!” He looked at Hetty again. They had been schoolmates. Her seat had been just in front of his one year. He remembered, with sudden vividness, the day he stuck chewing gum in her hair. Her hair was red; a pleasant, dark red; and it was very luxuriant. “Oh—all right,” he said, and went into the dining room. His father and mother were at the table. “I see you’ve got a girl, mother,” he said.

“Yes—I’ve got Hetty Morfee.” Mrs. Chase sighed. “I’ve had the most awful time, Wint. I do hope she stays. Girls are terrible hard to get, in this town. They—”

Mrs. Chase was loquacious. Her speeches were never finished. She was always interrupted in mid-career. Otherwise, she would have talked on endlessly.

“That steak looks as though she could cook,” said Wint. “Give me some.”