Читать книгу From the Housetops - George Barr McCutcheon - Страница 6

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Braden Thorpe had spent two years in the New York hospitals, after graduation from Johns Hopkins, and had been sent to Germany and Austria by his grandfather when he was twenty-seven, to work under the advanced scientists of Vienna and Berlin. At twenty-nine he came back to New York, a serious-minded, purposeful man, wrapped up in his profession and heterodoxically humane, to use the words of his grandfather. The first day after his return he confided to his grim old relative the somewhat unprofessional opinion that hopelessly afflicted members of the human race should be put out of their misery by attending physicians, operating under the direction of a commission appointed to consider such cases, and that the act should be authorised by law!

His grandfather, being seventy-six and apparently as healthy as any one could hope to be at that age, said that he thought it would be just as well to kill 'em legally as any other way, having no good opinion of doctors, and admitted that his grandson had an exceptionally soft heart in him even though his head was a trifle harder and thicker than was necessary in one so young.

"It's worth thinking about, anyhow, isn't it, granddaddy?" Braden had said, with great earnestness.

"It is, my boy," said Templeton Thorpe; "especially when you haven't got anything serious the matter with you."

"But if you were hopelessly ill and suffering beyond all endurance you'd welcome death, wouldn't you?"

"No, I wouldn't," said Mr. Thorpe promptly. "The only time I ever wanted to shuffle off was when your grandmother first refused to marry me. The second time she refused me I decided to do something almost but not quite so terrible, so I went West. The third time I proposed, she accepted me, and out of sheer joy I very stupidly got drunk. So, you see, there is always something to live for," he concluded, with his driest smile.

"I am quite serious about it, grandfather," said Braden stiffly.

"So I perceive. Well, you are planning to hang out your sign here in New York pretty soon, and you are going to become a licensed physician, the confrère and companion of a lot of distinguished gentlemen who believe just as you do about putting sufferers out of their misery but who wouldn't think of doing it, so I'd advise you to keep your opinions to yourself. What do you suppose I sent you abroad for, and gave you an education that few young men have received? Just to see you kicked out of your profession before you've fairly well put a foot into it, or a knife into a plutocrat, or a pill into a pauper? No, sirree, my boy. You sit tight and let the hangman do all the legal killing that has to be done."

"Oh, I know perfectly well that if I advanced this theory—or scheme—at present, I'd be kicked out of the profession, notwithstanding the fact that it has all been discussed a million times by doctors in every part of the world. I can't help having the feeling that it would be a great and humane thing—"

"Quite so," broke in the old man, "but let us talk of something else."

A month later Braden came to him and announced that he and Anne Tresslyn were betrothed. They had known each other for years, and from the time that Anne was seventeen Braden had loved her. He had been a quiet, rather shy boy, and she a gay, self-possessed creature whose outlook upon life was so far advanced beyond his, even in those days of adolescence, that he looked upon her as the eighth wonder of the world. She had poise, manner, worldly wisdom of a pleasantly superficial character that stood for sophistication in his blissful estimate of her advantages over him, and she was so adroit in the art of putting her finger upon the right spot at precisely the right moment that he found himself wondering if he could ever bring himself up to her insuperable level.

And when he came home after the two years in Europe, filled with great thoughts and vast pretentions of a singularly unromantic nature, he found her so much lovelier than before that where once he had shyly coveted he now desired with a fervour that swept him headlong into a panic of dread lest he had waited too long and that he had irretrievably lost her while engaged in the wretchedly mundane and commonplace pursuit of trifles. He was intensely amazed, therefore, to discover that she had loved him ever since she was a child in short frocks. He expected her to believe him when he said to her that she was the loveliest of all God's creatures, but it was more than he could believe when she declared that he was as handsome as a Greek god. That, of course, to him was a ludicrous thing to say, a delusion, a fancy that could not be explained, and yet he had seen himself in a mirror a dozen times a day, perhaps, without even suspecting, in his simplicity, that he was an extremely good-looking chap and well worth a second glance from any one except himself.

The announcement did not come as a surprise to old Mr. Thorpe. He had been expecting it. He realised that Braden's dilatory tactics alone were accountable for the delay in bringing the issue to a head.

"And when do you expect to be married?" he had inquired, squinting at his grandson in a somewhat dubious manner.

"Within the year, I hope," said Braden. "Of course, I shall have to get a bit of a start before we can think of getting married."

"A bit of a start, eh? Expect to get enough of a practice in a year to keep Anne going, do you?"

"We shall live very economically."

"Is that your idea or hers?"

"She knows that I have but little more than two thousand a year, but, of course, it won't take much of a practice to add something to that, you know."

"Besides, you can always depend upon me to help you out, Braden—that is, within reason," said the other, watching him narrowly out of his shrewd old eyes.

Braden flushed. "You have done more than enough for me already, grandfather. I can't take anything more, you see. I'm going to fight my own way now, sir."

"I see," said Mr. Thorpe. "That's the way to talk, my boy. And what does Anne say to that?"

"She thinks just as I do about it. Oh, she's the right sort, granddaddy, so you needn't worry about us, once we are married."

"Perhaps I should have asked what her mother has to say about it."

"Well, she gave us her blessing," said his grandson, with a happy grin.

"After she had heard about your plan to live on the results of your practice?"

"She said she wasn't going to worry about that, sir. If Anne was willing to wait, so was she."

"Wait for what?"

"My practice to pick up, of course. What do you mean?"

"Just that, of course," said the old man quickly. "Well, my boy, while I daresay it isn't really necessary, I give my consent. I am sure you and Anne will be very happy in your cosy little five-room flat, and that she will be a great help to you. You may even attain to quite a fashionable practice—or clientele, which is it?—through the Tresslyn position in the city. Thousand dollar appendicitis operations ought to be quite common with you from the outset, with Anne to talk you up a bit among the people who belong to her set and who are always looking for something to keep them from being bored to death. I understand that anybody who has an appendix nowadays is looked upon as exceedingly vulgar and is not even tolerated in good society. As for a man having a sound liver—well, that kind of a liver is absolutely inexcusable. Nobody has one to-day if he can afford to have the other kind. Good livers always have livers—and so do bad livers, for that matter. But, now, let us return to the heart. You are quite sure that Anne loves you better than she loves herself? That's quite important, you know. I have found that people who say that they love some one better than anybody else in the world, usually forget themselves—that is to say, they overlook themselves. How about Anne?"

"Rather epigrammatic, aren't you, granddaddy? I have Anne's word for it, that's all. She wouldn't marry me if she loved any one more than she does me—not even herself, as you put it. I am sure if I were Anne I should love myself better than all the rest of the world."

"A very pretty speech, my boy. You should make an exceptionally fashionable doctor. You will pardon me for appearing to be cynical, but you see I am a very old man and somewhat warped—bent, you might say, in my attitude toward the tender passion as it is practised to-day. Still, I shall take your word for it. Anne loves you devotedly, and you love her. The only thing necessary, therefore, is a professional practice, or, in other words, a practical profession. I am sure you will achieve both. You have my best wishes. I love you, my boy. You are the only thing left in life for me to love. Your father was my only son. He would have been a great man, I am sure, if he had not been my son. I spoiled him. I think that is the reason why he died so young. Now, my dear grandson, I am not going to make the mistake with his son that I made with my own. I intend that you shall fight your own battles. Among other things, you will have to fight pretty hard for Anne. That is a mere detail, of course. You are a resolute, determined, sincere fellow, Braden, and you have in you the making of a splendid character. You will succeed in anything you undertake. I like your eye, my boy, and I like the set of your jaw. You have principle and you have a sense of reverence that is quite uncommon in these days of ours. I daresay you have been wicked in an essential sort of way, and I fancy you have been just as necessarily honourable. I don't like a mollycoddle. I don't like anything invertebrate. I despise a Christian who doesn't understand Christ. Christ despised sin but he didn't despise sinners. And that brings us back to Mrs. Tresslyn—Constance Blair that was. You will have to be exceedingly well fortified, my boy, if you expect to withstand the clever Constance. She is the refinement of maternal ambition. She will not be satisfied to have her daughter married to a mere practice. She didn't bring her up for that. She will ask me to come and see her within the next few days. What am I to say to her when she asks me if I expect you and Anne to live on what you can earn out of your ridiculous profession?"

"I think that's all pretty well understood," said Braden easily. "You do Mrs. Tresslyn an injustice, granddaddy. She says it will be a splendid thing for Anne to struggle along as we shall have to do for a while. Character building, is the way she puts it."

"Just the same, I shall expect a message from her before the engagement is announced," said the old man drily.

A hard glitter had come into his eyes. He loved this good-looking, earnest grandson of his, and he was troubled. He lay awake half the night thinking over this piece of not unexpected news.

The next morning at breakfast he said to Braden: "See here, my boy, you spoke to me recently about your desire to spend a year in and about the London hospitals before settling down to the real business of life. I've been thinking it over. You can't very well afford to pay for these finishing touches after you've begun struggling along on your own hook, and trying to make both ends meet on a slender income, so I'd suggest that you take this next year as a gift from me and spend it on the other side, working with my good friend, Sir George Bascombe, the greatest of all the English surgeons. I don't believe you will ever regret it."

Braden was overjoyed. "I should like nothing better, grandfather. By jove, you are good to me. You—"

"It is only right and just that I should give to the last of my race the chance to be a credit to it." There was something cryptic in the remark, but naturally it escaped Braden's notice. "You are the only one of the Thorpes left, my boy. I was an only son and, strange as it may appear, I was singularly without avuncular relatives. It is not surprising, therefore, that I should desire to make a great man out of you. You shall not be handicapped by any failure on my part to do the right thing by you. If it is in my power to safeguard you, it is my duty to exercise that power. Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way or to obstruct your progress. Nothing must be allowed to check your ambition or destroy your courage. So, if you please, I think you ought to have this chance to work with Bascombe. A year is a short time to a chap of your age and experience, and it may be the most valuable one in a long and successful life."

"If I can ever grow to be half as wise and half as successful as you, grandfather, I shall have achieved more than—"

"My boy, I inherited my success and I've been more of a fool than you suspect. My father left me with two or three millions of dollars, and the little wisdom that I have acquired I would pass on to you instead of money if it were possible to do so. A man cannot bequeath his wisdom. He may inherit it, but he can't give it away, for the simple reason that no one will take it as a gift. It is like advice to the young: something to disregard. My father left me a great deal of money, and I was too much of a coward to become a failure. Only the brave men are failures. They are the ones who take the risks. If you are going to be a surgeon, be a great one. Now, when do you think you can go to London?"

Braden, his face aglow, was not long in answering. "I'll speak to Anne about it to-night. If she is willing to marry me at once, we'll start immediately. By Jove, sir, it is wonderful! It is the greatest thing that ever happened to a fellow. I—"

"Ah, but I'm afraid that doesn't fit in with my plan," interrupted the old man, knitting his brows. "It is my idea that you should devote yourself to observation and not to experimentation—to study instead of honeymooning. A bride is out of the question, Braden. This is to be my year and not Anne's."

They were a week thrashing it out, and in the end it was Mrs. Tresslyn who settled the matter. She had had her talk with Mr. Templeton Thorpe, and, after hearing all that he had to say, expressed herself in no uncertain terms on the advisability of postponing the wedding for a year if not longer. Something she said in private to Anne appeared to have altered that charming young person's notions in regard to an early wedding, so Braden found himself without an ally. He went to London early in the fall, with Anne's promises safely stowed away in his heart, and he came back in the middle of his year with Sir George, dazed and bewildered by her faithlessness and his grandfather's perfidy.

Out of a clear sky had come the thunderbolt. And then, while he was still dazed and furious, his grandfather had tried to convince him that he had done him a deuce of a good turn in showing up Anne Tresslyn!

In patience the old man had listened to his grandson's tirade, his ravings, his anathemas. He had heard himself called a traitor. He had smiled grimly on being described as a satyr! When words and breath at last failed the stalwart Braden, the old gentleman, looking keenly out from beneath his shaggy brows, and without the slightest trace of resentment in his manner, suggested that they leave the matter to Anne.

"If she really wants you, my boy, she'll chuck me and my two-million-dollar purse out of the window, so to speak, and she'll marry you in spite of your poverty. If she does that, I'll be satisfied. I'll step down and out and I'll praise God for his latest miracle. If she looks at it from the other point of view—the perfectly safe and secure way, you understand—and confirms her allegiance to me, I'll still be exceedingly happy in the consciousness that I've done you a good turn. I will enter my extreme old age in the race against your healthy youth. I will proffer my three or four remaining years to her as against the fifty you may be able to give her. Go and see her at once. Then come back here to me and tell me what she says."

And so it was that Braden Thorpe returned, as he had agreed to do, to the home of the man who had robbed him of his greatest possession—faith in woman. He found his grandfather seated in the library, in front of a half-dead fire. A word, in passing, to describe this remarkable old man. He was tall and thin, and strangely erect for one of his years. His gaunt, seamed face was beardless and almost repellent in its severity. In his deep-set, piercing eyes lurked all the pains of a lifetime. He had been a strong, robust man; the framework was all that remained of the staunch house in which his being had dwelt for so long. His hand shook and his knee rebelled against exertion, but his eye was unwavering, his chin unflinching. White and sparse was the thatch of hair upon his shrunken skull, and harsh was the thin voice that came from his straight, colourless lips. He walked with a cane, and seldom without the patient, much-berated Wade at his elbow, a prop against the dreaded day when his legs would go back on him and the brink would appear abruptly out of nowhere at his very feet. And there were times when he put his hand to his side and held it there till the look of pain softened about his mouth and eyes, though never quite disappeared.