Читать книгу Red and Black - Grace S. Richmond - Страница 7

Table of Contents

ROBERT BLACK was dressing for a dinner—a men’s dinner, to which Samuel Lockhart had invited him, and Tom Lockhart had commanded him.

“You see, I’ve got to be there,” Tom had explained. “And Dad always asks a lot of ponderous old personages who bore you to death—or else make you red with rage at some of their fossil ideas. The only thing that saves the case for me to-night is that you’re coming. I’ve stipulated that I sit near you—see? Mother wouldn’t hear of my being next you—that honour is reserved for one of your trustees.”

“I assure you I’m immensely flattered,” Black had replied, with a real sense of warmth about the heart. He had grown steadily fonder of this interesting boy who was all but a man. “But isn’t your good friend Doctor Burns to be there? Surely he’d save anybody from boredom.”

“There!” Tom’s tone was mocking. “Yes, he’ll be there—after he comes—and before he goes. He’ll come in just in time for the salad—no evening dress, just good old homespun, because he’s had no time to change. Then he’ll be called out before the coffee and the smokes—but he’ll ask for a cup, just the same, and swallow it standing. Then he’ll go out—and all the lights’ll go out for me with him—except, that you’re there to keep the brain fires burning.”

Black had laughed at this dismal picture and had told the youngster that he would endeavour to save his life in the crisis. But now, as he dressed, he was not looking forward to the event. To tell the truth, although he had been present at many college and fraternity banquets, this was actually his first experience at a formal dinner in a private home. He was even experiencing a few doubts as to how to dress.

Good judgment, however, assured him that the one safe decision for a clerical diner-out was clerical dress. Having satisfied himself that every hair was in place, but having found one of his accessories missing, he went in search of Mrs. Hodder.

“I don’t seem to find a handkerchief in my drawer, Mrs. Hodder,” he announced, standing in the doorway of the kitchen and glancing suggestively toward a basketful of unironed clothes below the table at which his housekeeper sat.

“You don’t, Mr. Black?” Mrs. Hodder exclaimed. “Mercy me—I’ll iron you one in a jiffy. If I may make so bold as to say so, sir, it’s not my fault. You use handkerchiefs rather lavish for one who—who owns so few.”

“Haven’t I enough? I’ll get some more at once. Do I—do you mind telling me if I look as if I were going out to dinner?”

The housekeeper turned and surveyed him. Approval lighted her previously sombre eye. “You look as if you were just going to get married,” she observed.

An explosion of unclerical-like laughter answered her. “But I’m dressed no differently from the way I am on Sundays,” he reminded her.

“You have your gown on in the pulpit. And the minute you come home you’re out of that long coat and into the short one. I’ve never seen you stay looking the way you do now five minutes, Mr. Black.”

“That must be why I’m so unhappy now. I’ve got to stay in this coat for an entire evening. Pity me, Mrs. Hodder! And don’t wait up, please. I may be rather late.”

He marched away, followed by the adoring gaze of his housekeeper. Mrs. Hodder’s austerity of countenance belied her softness of heart. If the minister had guessed how like a mother she felt toward him he might have been both touched and alarmed.

Arrived at the Lockharts’, he found himself welcomed first by Tom, who met him, as if accidentally, at the very door.

“The heavy-weights are all here,” announced the boy under his breath, his arm linked in Black’s, as he led his friend upstairs. “Bald—half of ’em are bald! And the rest look as solemn as if this were a funeral instead of a dinner. Maybe they feel that way. I’m sure I do. I say—don’t you wish we could jump into my car and burn it down the road about fifty miles into the moonlight? There’s a gorgeous moon to-night.”

“Ask me after the dinner is over, and I’ll go.”

“What? Will you? You won’t—no such luck!”

“Try me and see.”

“You bet I will. See here—you promise? It’ll be late, I warn you. Father’s dinners drag on till kingdom come.”

“Any time before morning.” And Black looked into the laughing, incredulous eyes of the youth before him.

“You’re no minister,” Tom chuckled. “You’re a dead game sport.” Then he drew back suddenly at the flash in the black eyes.

“Don’t make a mistake about that,” suggested Black, quietly.

“Oh—I guess you are a minister, all right,” admitted Tom, respectfully. “And I guess perhaps I want you to be.”

“I’m very sure you do.” Black smiled again. “Did you think I couldn’t take a late spin in your car without compromising my profession?”

“I just thought—for a minute,” whispered the boy, “I saw a bit of a reckless devil look out of your eyes. I thought—you wanted to get away, like me, from this heavy dinner business—and go to—just any old place!”

“Perhaps I do. But I don’t intend to think about moonlight drives till I’ve done my part here. Come on, Tom—let’s be ‘dead game sports’ and help make things go. Afterward—we’ll take the trail with good consciences.”

“Anything to please you. I was going to bolt whenever R. P. Burns got called out; but I’ll wait for you.”

“You seem to be sure he’ll be called out. Perhaps he won’t, for once.”

“Not a chance. Wait and see,” prophesied Tom; and together they descended the stairs.

Tom stood off at one side, after that, with the apparent deference of youth. His eyes were sharp with interest in Black, whose presence relieved for him the tedium of the affair. He saw the minister shaking hands, making acquaintances, joining groups, with a certain straightforwardness of manner which pleased the critical youth immensely. Like most young men, he despised what is easily recognized in any company as that peculiar clerical atmosphere which surrounds so many men of Black’s profession. He didn’t want a minister to bow a little lower, hold the proffered hand a little longer, speak in a little more unctuous tone than other men. He wanted his minister to hold his head high, to make no attempts to ingratiate himself into his companions’ good graces by saying things too patently calculated to please them; he didn’t want him to agree with everybody—he wanted him to differ with them healthily often. As he watched Black’s way of looking a new acquaintance straight in the eye, as if to discover what manner of man he was, and then of letting the other man take the lead in conversation instead of instantly and skillfully assuming the lead, as if he considered himself a born dictator of the thoughts and words of others—well—Tom said to himself once more that he was jolly glad Robert McPherson Black had come to this parish. Since it always devolved upon the Lockhart family to show first friendliness to new incumbents of that parish, it mattered much to Tom that he could heartily like this man. He was even beginning to think of him as his friend—his special friend. And as, from time to time, his eyes met Black’s across the room, he had a warm consciousness that Black had not forgotten but was looking forward to the hour that should release them both for that fast drive down the empty, moonlit road. Reward enough for a dull evening, that would be, to take the black-eyed Scotsman for such a whirl across country as he probably had never known!

But first—the dinner! And Red hadn’t come—of course he hadn’t—when the party moved out to the dining-room and took their places at the big table with its impressive centrepiece of lights and flowers, its rather gorgeous layout of silver and glass, and its waiting attendants. Red hadn’t arrived when the soup and fish had come and gone; when the roast fowl was served; it wasn’t till Tom had begun to give him up that the big doctor suddenly put his red head in at the door and stood there looking silently in upon the company. Tom sprang up joyfully, and rushed across the room. Red came forward, shook hands with his host, and took his place—opposite Black, as it happened.

And instantly—to two people at least—the room was another place. It’s Stevenson, isn’t it?—who mentions that phenomenon we have all so many times observed—that the entrance of some certain person into a room makes it seem “as if another candle had been lighted!” Wonderful phrase that—and blessed people of whom it can be said! Of such people, certainly R. P. Burns, M.D., was a remarkable type. Nobody like him for turning on not only one but fifty candlepower.

Yet all he did was to sit down—in his customary gray suit, quite as Tom had said he would, having had no time to change—grin round the table, and say, “Going to feed me up from the beginning, Lockhart? Oh, never mind. A good plateful of whatever fowl you’ve had, and a cup of coffee will suit me down to the ground. Coffee not served yet, Parker?” He turned to the manservant at his elbow. “But you see”—with an appealing glance at his host—“I’ve had no lunch to-day—and it’s nearly ten. I’m just about ready for that coffee.” Then he surveyed again the hitherto serious gentlemen about him, who were now looking suddenly genial, and remarked, “You fellows don’t know what it is to be hungry. No one here but me has done an honest day’s work.”

“Do you mind telling us what time yours began, Doctor Burns?” asked Black, across the table.

The hazel eyes encountered the black ones for the second time. Black had been the first man Red looked at as he sat down—his greeting grin had therefore started with Black.

“Twelve-five A. M. No thanks to me. I gave the fellow blue blazes for calling me, but he was one of those persistent chaps, and rang me up every ten minutes till I gave in and went.... Excuse the shop.... What were you all talking about? Keep it up, please, while I employ myself.”

Somebody told him they had been talking about the Great War in Europe—and received a quick, rather cynical glance from the hazel eyes. Somebody else observed that it was to be hoped we’d keep our heads and not get into it—and had a fiery glance shot at him, decidedly disdainful. Then a third man said sadly that he had a son who was giving him trouble, wanting to go and enlist with the Canadians, and he wished he knew how to talk sense into the boy.

“Better thank the Lord you’ve bred such a lad!” ejaculated Red, between two gulps of coffee.

“Of course I am proud of his spirit,” admitted the unhappy father. “But there’s no possible reason why he should do such a wild thing. His mother is nearly out of her mind with fear that if we keep on opposing him he’ll run away.”

“If he does, you’ll wish you had sent him willingly, won’t you?” suggested Black. “Why not let him go?”

William Jennings, treasurer of Black’s church, turned on his minister an astonished eye. “You don’t mean to say you say that?”

“Why not? I have three young nephews over there, in the Scottish ranks. They need all the help they can have from us. If we don’t get in as a country pretty soon now—more than your boy will run away. Look at the fellows who’ve already gone from our colleges, and more going all the time.”

“Mr. Black,”—a solemn voice spoke from down the table—“I’ve been given to understand you are in sympathy with war. I can hardly believe it.”

Black looked at the speaker, and his eyes sparkled with a sudden fire. “That’s rather a strange way of putting it,” he said. “Perhaps you might rather say I am in sympathy with those who have had war thrust upon them. What else is there to do but to make war back—to end it?”

“There are other ways—there must be. A great Christian nation must use those ways—not throw itself blindly into the horrible carnage. Our part is to teach the world the lesson of peace as Christ did.”

“How did He teach it?” The question came back, like a shot.

The man who had spoken delayed a little, finding it difficult to formulate his answer. “Why, by His life, His example, His precepts—” he said. “He was the Man of Peace—He told us to turn the other cheek——”

Red’s keen eyes were on Black now. He had opened his own lips, in his own impulsive way—and had closed them as quickly. “What’s in you?” his eyes said to Black. “Have you got it in you to down this fool? Or must I?” And he forgot how hungry he was.

When Black spoke, every other eye was on him as well. He spoke quietly enough, yet his words rang with conviction. “My Christ,” he said, “if He were on earth now, and the enemy were threatening Mary, His mother, or the other Mary, or the little children He had called to Him, would seize the sword in His own hand, to defend them.”

Red sat back. Over his face swept a flame of relief. Tom breathed quickly. Samuel Lockhart glanced about him, and saw on some faces startled approval and on others astonishment and anger.

Then the talk raged—of course. This was in those days, already difficult to recall, when men differed about the part America should take in the conflict; when dread of involvement called forth strange arguments, unsound logic; when personal fear for their sons made fathers stultify themselves by advocating a course which should keep the boys out of danger. Several of the guests at Mr. Lockhart’s table were fathers of sons in college—substantial business or professional men alive with fear that the war sentiment flaming at the great centres of education would catch the tow and tinder of the young men’s imagination, and that before long, whether America should declare war or not, instead of isolated enlistments the whole flower of the country’s youth would be off for the scene of the great disaster.

Suddenly Red brought his fist down on the table.

“You’re afraid,” he cried, “of the personal issue, you fellows! Forget that you have sons—let the sons forget that they have fathers. What’s America’s plain duty? Good God—it’s as plain as a pikestaff! She’s got to get in—to keep her own self-respect.”

“And to save her own soul,” added Black; and again the eyes of the two men met across the table.

It was at this instant that Tom Lockhart took fire. Up to these last words of Red and Black he had been merely intensely interested and excited; now, suddenly, he was aglow with eagerness to show where he stood, he of the class who in all wars are first to offer themselves. Almost before he knew it he had spoken, breaking the silence which had succeeded upon Black’s grave words.

“I’m ready to go,” he said, and a great flush spread over his fair young face to the roots of his thick, sandy hair.

Then, indeed, the table was in an uproar—a subdued uproar, to be sure, but none the less throbbing with contrary opinion. As for Samuel Lockhart himself, he could only stare incredulously at his boy, but the other men, with the exception of the doctor and the minister, were instantly upon Tom with hurried words of disapproval. William Jennings, who sat next him, turned and laid a remonstrating hand on Tom’s arm.

“My boy,” he said, fiercely—it was he whose son was likely to enlist with Canada—“you don’t know what you’re talking about. For Heaven’s sake, don’t lose your head like my George! There isn’t any call for you youngsters to take this thing seriously—leave it to the ones who are of military age, at least. They’ve got enough men over there, anyway, to see this war through; if we send money and munitions, the way we are doing, that’s our part, and a big part it is, too.”

Well, Tom found himself wishing in a way that he hadn’t spoken up, since it had brought all the heavy-weights down on his undeniably boyish self. And yet, somehow, when he had glanced just once at Red and Black, he couldn’t be entirely sorry. Both had given him a look which he would have done much to earn, and neither had said a word of remonstrance.

Yet, after the dinner, his impression that they were both eager to have him carry his expression of willingness into that of a fixed purpose, suffered an unexpected change. As they rose from the table, at a late hour, Red—who had not been called out yet after all—slipped his arm through Tom’s, and spoke in his ear.

“I’m proud of you, lad,” he said, “but I want you to think this thing through to the end. Duty sometimes takes one form and sometimes another. I’ve been watching your father, and—you see—you dealt him a pretty heavy blow to-night, and he hasn’t been quite the same man since. Go slow—that’s only fair to him. You’re not twenty-one yet, are you?”

“Pretty near. Next January.”

“Keep cool till then. We may be in it as a country by then—I hope so. If we are—perhaps you and I——”

Tom thrilled. “Will you go, Doctor?”

“You bet I will! I’d have been off long ago if—— But I can’t tell you the reason just now. Some day, perhaps. Meanwhile——”

He looked at Tom, and Tom looked at him. Then, both of them, for some unexplainable reason, turned and looked toward Black, whose eyes were following them.

“Do you suppose he’ll go if we do declare war?” whispered Tom.

A queer expression crossed Red’s face. “They mostly don’t—his class,” he said, rather contemptuously.

“Do you think—” Tom hesitated—“he’s—just like his class?”

“Not—just like those I’ve known,” admitted Red, grudgingly. “That is—on the surface. Can’t tell how deep the difference goes, yet.”

“I like him!” avowed Tom, honestly.

Red laughed. “Good for you!” he commented. “I’m—trying rather hard not to like him.”

Tom stared. “Oh—why not?” he questioned, eagerly.

But he didn’t hear the explanation of this extraordinary statement, for one of the older men came up and hauled him away by the arm, and he had a bad time of it, mostly, for the rest of the evening. He was only restrained from making a bolt and getting away from the house by the remembrance of Black’s promise.

The time came, however, when for a moment he feared it was all up with that moonlight spin. He had just slipped out upon the porch and assured himself that the night was continuing to be the finest ever, when he heard Red inside taking leave. He hurried back, and discovered that the other men were evidently about to take the cue and go also. He came around to Black’s elbow in time to hear Red address the minister.

“Happen to be in the mood for a run of a few miles in my car?” Red invited, in his careless way which left a man free to accept or refuse as he chose. “I have to see a patient yet to-night. It was a pretty fine night when I came in.”

Tom couldn’t know—how could he?—what, in the circumstances, it cost Black to reply as he promptly did:

“Thank you—I’d like nothing better—except what I’m going to have: the same thing with Tom Lockhart.”

Now Tom was a gentleman, and he hastened to release Black from his promise, though his face plainly showed his disappointment.

“Please go with the Doctor, if you like, Mr. Black. His car can put it all over mine—and he doesn’t ask anybody very often—as I happen to know.”

Black smiled. “I’m engaged to you, Tom,” he said, “and I’m going with you, if you’ll take me. Mighty sorry I can’t be in two places at the same time, Doctor Burns.”

“All right,” answered Red—and wouldn’t have admitted for a farm that he was disappointed. “As for Tom’s car—it’s a whale,” he added, “and can show my old Faithful the dust any time. Good-night, then!”

Whichever was the better car, certain it was that Black, in Tom’s, had his first sensation of tremendous speed during the hour which followed. The boy was excited by the events of the evening, he was a skillful and daring driver, and he was conscious of being able to give an older man a perfectly new experience. Black had frankly told him that he had never before taken a night drive in a powerful roadster, with the speed limit whatever the driver chose to make it. Under this stimulus Tom chose to make it pretty nearly the extreme of his expensive motor’s power. The result was that very soon the minister’s hat was in his hand, and his close-cut black hair taking the stiff breeze, like Tom’s, as the car gathered herself afresh to fly down each new stretch of clear road.

“Like it?” shouted Tom, suddenly, as he slowed down for a sharp curve.

“It’s great!”

“Don’t mind how fast we go?”

“Not while I trust you—as I do.”

“You do trust me, eh?” The boy’s voice was exultant.

“To the limit.”

“Why do you?”

“Because you know my life is in your hands. You wouldn’t risk cutting it short.”

The motor slackened perceptibly. “There’s not the least danger of that.”

“Of course not—with your hands on the wheel. Go ahead—don’t slow down. You haven’t shown me yet quite what the car can do, have you?”

“Well—not quite. Pretty near, though. I knew you were a good sport. Lots of older men get nervous when we hit—what we were hitting. Not even R. P. B. drives in quite that notch—and he’s no coward. He says it’s all right, if you don’t happen to throw a tire. I never expect to throw one—not at that pace. Never have. Maybe I better not take any chances with the minister in, though.”

“Take any that you’d take for yourself,” commanded Black. Tom, diminishing his pace of necessity for a one-way bridge, glanced quickly round at his companion, to see what Black’s face might reveal that his cool speech did not. He saw no trace of fear in the clean-cut profile outlined against the almost daylight of the vivid night; instead he saw a man seemingly at ease under conditions which usually, Tom reflected, rather strung most fellows up, old or young.

Suddenly Tom spoke his mind: “You are a good sport,” he said, in his ardent young way. “They mostly aren’t, though, in your business, are they?—honestly now? You would go to war, though, wouldn’t you?”

Then he saw a change of expression indeed. Black’s lips tightened, his chin seemed to protrude more than usual—and, as we have stated before, it was a frankly aggressive chin at any time. Black’s head came round, and his eyes seemed to look straight through Tom’s into his cynical young thoughts.

“Tom,” he said—waited a bit, and then went on, slowly and with peculiar emphasis—“there’s just one thing I can never take peaceably from any man—and I don’t think I have to take it. I have the honour to belong to a profession which includes thousands of the finest men in the world—just as your friend Doctor Burns’ profession includes thousands of fine men. You—and others—never think of hitting at the profession of medicine and surgery just because you may happen to know a man here and there who isn’t a particularly worthy member of it. There are quacks and charlatans in medicine—but the profession isn’t judged by them. Is it quite fair to judge the ministry by some man you have known who didn’t seem to measure up?”

“Why—no, of course not,” admitted Tom. “It’s just that—I suppose—well—I don’t think there are so many of ’em who—who——”

“Want to drive seventy miles an hour—at midnight?”

Tom laughed boyishly. “I don’t expect that, of course. But I don’t like long prayers, to tell the truth; and most of the sermons find fault with folks because they don’t happen to come up to the preacher’s mark, and I get fed up on ’em.”

“Do you like Doctor Burns’ medicine? He set your leg once, you told me. Did you like that—especially?”

“Oh, well—if you want to call sermons medicine——” began Tom, slyly.

“That’s exactly what many of them are—or should be—and pretty bitter medicine, too, at that, sometimes. Shouldn’t a man have your respect who dares to risk your dislike by giving you the medicine he thinks you need? Is the man who ventures to stand up and tell you the plain truth about yourself, whether you like it or not, exactly a coward?”

“You’re certainly no coward,” said Tom, with emphasis.

“Did you ever happen to know a minister who you thought was a coward?”

“Not exactly. But—if you want the truth—I don’t think, if this country should get into war, you’d see an awful lot of preachers going into it. Why—they don’t believe in it. They——”

“Wait and see. We shall get into it—sooner or later—I hope sooner. And when we do—I don’t think the regiments will be lacking chaplains.”

“Oh!—chaplains!”

“You think that’s a soft job, do you? Do you happen to have been reading much about the English and French chaplains over there, since the war began? And the priests?”

“Can’t say I have,” admitted Tom.

“The only difference that I can find,” said Black, in a peculiar quiet tone which when he knew him better Tom discovered to mean deadly earnestness—with a bite in it—“between a chaplain’s job and a fighting man’s, is that the right sort of chaplain goes unarmed where the soldier goes armed—and takes about as many chances, first and last. And when it comes to bracing the men’s courage before the fight—and after—well, I think I covet the chaplain’s chance even more than I do the captain’s.”

They drove in silence after that for exactly three and three quarter miles, which, at Tom’s now modified pace, took about five minutes. Then Black said:

“I didn’t answer the other part of your question, did I, Tom?”

“About whether you’d go to war?” Tom turned, with a satisfied smile on his lips. “I’ve been thinking about that. But I guess you answered it, all right.”

At one o’clock in the morning Tom set Black down before the manse. For the last half-hour they had had a jolly talk which had ranged from guns to girls—and back again to guns. Black seemed to know more about the guns than the girls, though he had listened with interest to Tom’s remarks upon both subjects, and had contributed an anecdote or two which had made Tom shout with glee. When Black stood upon the sidewalk, a tall, straight figure in the moonlight, he held out his hand, which Tom gripped eagerly.

“Thank you for the best hour I’ve had in a month. That blew all the fog out of my brain, and put a wonderful new idea into my head.”

“Mind telling me what it is?” Tom asked.

“If you’ll keep it quiet till I have it under way. Do you think we can get a group of fellows, friends of yours and others, to come to my house once a week—say on Monday evenings—to talk over this war situation—study it up—discuss it freely—and plan what we can do about it, over here—before we get over there?”

“Do I think so?” Tom’s tone spoke his pleasure as well as the chuckling laugh he gave. “Do I think so? Why, the fellows will be crazy to come—after I tell ’em about this drive and chin of ours. When they know you burned the road with me at such a clip and never turned a hair, they’ll fall over one another to get to your house.”

He enjoyed to the full the laugh he got back from Black at that—a deep-keyed, whole-souled, delightful laugh, which told of the richness of the man’s nature. Then—

“I’d drive at a hundred, hours on end,” declared Black, “to have you fall in with my schemes like that. Good-night, Tom, and we’ll organize that club to-morrow.”

“To-day, you mean.” Tom reluctantly gave his motor the signal.

“To-day. At eight o’clock to-night. Be on hand early, will you, Tom—to help me make things go from the start?”

“I’ll be sitting on your doorstep at seven thirty.”

“Good. I’ll open the door at seven twenty-nine. Good-night, Tom.”

“Good-night, Mr. Black.”

But so slowly did Tom drive away that he was not out of sight of the manse when the door closed on his friend the minister.