Читать книгу The Debtor - Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman - Страница 12

Shortly after Captain Carroll started upon his search for his missing son, Randolph Anderson, sitting peacefully in his back office, by the riverward window, was rudely interrupted. He was mounting some new specimens. Before him the great tiger cat lay blissfully on his red cushion. He was not asleep, but was purring loudly in what resembled a human day-dream. His claws luxuriously pricked through the velvet of his paws, which were extended in such a way that he might have served as a model for a bas-relief of a cat running a race. Now and then the tip of his tail curled and uncurled with an indescribable effect of sensuousness. The green things in the window-box had grown luxuriantly, and now and then trailing vines tossed up past the window in the infrequent puffs of wind. The afternoon was very warm. The temperature had risen rapidly since noon. Down below the wide window ran the river, unseen except for a subtle, scarcely perceptible glow of the brilliant sunlight upon the water. It was a rather muddy stream, but at certain times it caught the sunlight and tossed it back as from the facets of brown jewels.

The murmur of the river was plainly audible in the room. It was very loud, for the stream's current was still high with the spring rains. The rustle of the trees which grew on the river-bank was also discernible, and might have been the rustle of the garments of nymphs tossed about their supple limbs by the warm breeze. In fact, a like fancy occurred to Anderson as he sat there mounting his butterflies.

“I don't wonder those old Greeks had their tales about nymphs closeted in trees,” he thought, for the rustle of the green boughs had suggested the rustle of women's draperies.

Then he remembered how Charlotte Carroll's skirts had rustled as she went out of the store that last afternoon when he had spoken to her. There was a soft crispness of ruffling lawns and laces, a most delicate sound, a maidenly sound which had not been unlike the sound of the young leaves of the willows overfolding and interlacing with one another when the soft breeze swelled high. Now and then all the afternoon came a slow, soft wave of warm wind out of the west, and all sounds deepened before it, even the purring song of the cat seemed to increase, and possibly did, from the unconscious assertion of his own voice in the peaceful and somnolent chorus of nature. It was only spring as yet, but the effect was as of a long summer afternoon. Anderson, who was always keenly sensitive to all phases of nature and all atmospheric conditions, was affected by it. He realized himself sunken in drowsy, unspeculative contentment. Even the strange, emotional unrest and effervescence, which had been more or less over him since he had seen Charlotte Carroll, was in abeyance. After all, he was not a passionate man, and he was not very young. The young girl seemed to become merely a part of the gracious harmony which was lulling his soul and his senses to content and peace. He was conscious of wondering what a man could want more than he had, as if he had suspected himself of guilt in that direction.

Then, suddenly, pell-mell into the office, starling the great cat to that extent that he sprang from his red cushion on the window-ledge, and slunk, flattening his long body against the floor, under the table, came the boy Eddy Carroll. The boy stood staring at him rather shamefacedly, though every muscle in his small body seemed on a twitch with the restrained impulse of flight.

“Well,” said Anderson, finally, “what's the trouble, sir?”

Then the boy found his tongue. He came close to the man.

“Say,” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “jest let a feller stay in here a minute, will you?”

Anderson nodded readily. He understood, or thought he did. He immediately jumped to the conclusion that the teasing boys were at work again. He felt a little astonished at this headlong flight to cover of the boy who had so manfully stood at bay a few hours before. However, he was a little fellow, and there had been a good many of his opponents. He felt a pleasant thrill of fatherliness and protection. He looked kindly into the little, pink-flushed face. “Very well, my son,” said he. “Stay as long as you like. Take a seat.” The boy sat down. His legs were too short for his feet to touch the floor, so he swung them. He gazed ingratiatingly at Anderson, and now and then cast an apprehensive glance towards the door of the office. Anderson continued mounting his butterflies, and paid no attention to him, and the boy seemed to respect his silence. Presently the great cat emerged quite boldly from his refuge under the table, crouched, calculated the distance, and leaped softly back to his red cushion. The boy hitched his chair nearer, and began stroking the cat gently and lovingly with his little boy-hand, hardened with climbing and playing. The cat stretched himself luxuriously, pricked his claws in and out, shut his eyes, and purred again quite loudly. Again the little room sang with the song of the river, the wind in the trees, and the cat's somnolent note. The afternoon light rippled full of green reflections through the room. The boy's small head appeared in it like a flower. He smiled tenderly at the cat. Anderson, glancing at him over his butterflies, thought what an angelic aspect he had. He looked a darling of a boy.

The boy, stroking the cat, met the man's kindly approving eyes, and he smiled a smile of utter confidence and trust, which conveyed delicious flattery. Then suddenly the hand stroking the cat desisted and made a dive into a small jacket-pocket and emerged with a treasure. It was a great butterfly, much dilapidated as to its gorgeous wings, but the boy looked gloatingly from it to the man.

“I got it for you,” he whispered, with another glance at the office door. Anderson recognized, with the dismay of a collector, a fine specimen, which he had sought in vain, made utterly worthless by ruthless handling, but he controlled himself. “Thank you,” he said, and took the poor, despoiled beauty and laid it carefully on the table.

“It got broke a little, somehow,” remarked the boy; “it's wings are awful brittle.”

“Yes, they are,” assented Anderson.

“I had to chase it quite a spell,” said the boy, with an evident desire not to have his efforts underestimated.

“Yes, I don't doubt it,” replied Anderson, with gratitude well simulated.

“It seemed rather a pity to kill such a pretty butterfly as that,” remarked the boy, unexpectedly, “but I thought you'd like it.”

“Yes, I like to have a nice collection of butterflies,” replied Anderson, with a faint inflection of apology. In reality, the butterflies' side of it had failed to occur to him before, and he felt that an appeal to science in such a case was rather feeble. Then the boy helped him out.

“Well,” said he, “I do suppose that a butterfly don't live very long, anyhow; he has to die pretty soon, and it's better for human beings to have him stuck on a pin and put where they can see how handsome he is, rather than have him stay out in the fields, where the rain would soak him into the ground, and that would be the end of him. I suppose it is better to save anything that's pretty, somehow, even if the thing don't like it himself.”

“Perhaps you are right,” replied Anderson, regarding the boy with some wonder.

“Maybe he didn't mind dying 'cause I caught him any more than just dying himself,” said Eddy.

“Maybe not.”

“Anyhow, he's dead,” said the boy.

He watched Anderson carefully as he manipulated the insect.

“I'm sorry his wing got broken,” he said. “I wonder why God makes butterflies' wings so awful brittle that they can't be caught without spoiling 'em. The other wing ain't hurt much, anyhow.”

A sudden thought struck Anderson. “Why, when did you get this butterfly?” he asked.

The boy flushed vividly. He gave a sorrowful, obstinate glance at the man, as much as to say, “I am sad that you should force me into such a course, but I must be firm.” Then he looked away, staring out of the window at the tree-tops tossing against the brilliant blue of the sky, and made no reply.

Anderson made a swift calculation. He glanced at a clock on the wall. “Where did you get this butterfly?” he inquired, harmlessly, and the boy fell into the net.

“In that field just beyond the oak grove on the road to New Sanderson,” he replied, with entire innocence.

Anderson surveyed him sharply.

“When is afternoon school out?” asked Anderson.

“At four o'clock,” replied the boy, with such unsuspicion that the man's conscience smote him. It was too easy.

“Well,” said Anderson, slowly. He did not look at the boy, but went on straightening the mangled wing of the butterfly which he had offered on his shrine. “Well,” he said, “how did you get time to go to that field and catch this butterfly? You say it took a long time, and that field is a good twenty minutes' run from here, and it is a quarter of five now.” The boy kicked his feet against the rounds of his chair and made no reply. His forehead was scowling, his mouth set. “How?” repeated Anderson.

Then the boy turned on the man. He slid out of his chair; he spoke loudly. He forgot to glance at the door. “Ain't you smart?” he cried, with scorn, and still with an air of slighted affection which appealed. “Ain't you smart to catch a feller that way? You're mean, if you are a man, after I've got you that big butterfly, too, to turn on a feller that way.”

Anderson actually felt ashamed of himself. “Now, see here, my boy,” he said, “I'm grateful to you so far as that goes.”

“I didn't run away from school,” declared Eddy Carroll, looking straight at Anderson, who fairly gasped.

He had seen people lie before, but somehow this was actually dazzling. He was conscious of fairly blinking before the direct gaze of innocence of this lying little boy. And then his elderly and reliable clerk appeared in the office door, glanced at Eddy, whom he did not know, and informed Anderson, in a slightly impressed tone, that Captain Carroll was in the store and would like to speak to him. Anderson glanced again at his young visitor, who had got, in a second, a look of pale consternation. He went out into the store at once, and was greeted by Carroll with the inquiry as to whether or not he had seen his son.

“My boy has not been seen since he started for school this morning,” said Carroll. “I came here because another little boy, one of my son's small school-fellows, who has succeeded in treading the paths of virtue and obedience, volunteered the information, without the slightest imputation of any guilty conspiracy on your part, that you had been seen leading my son home to your residence to dinner,” said Carroll.

“Your son made friends with me on his way from school this noon,” said Anderson, simply, “and upon his evident desire to dine with me I invited him, being assured by him that his so doing would not occasion the slightest uneasiness at home as to his whereabouts.”

Anderson was indignant at something in the other man's tone, and was careful not to introduce in his tone the slightest inflection of apology.

He made the statement, and was about to add that the boy was at that moment in his office, when Carroll interrupted. “I regret to say that my son has not the slightest idea of what is meant by telling the truth. He never had,” he stated, smilingly, “especially when his own desires lead him to falsehood. In those cases he lies to himself so successfully that he tells in effect the truth to other people. He, in that sense, told the truth to you, but the truth was not as he stated, for the ladies have been in a really pitiable state of anxiety.”

“He is in my office now,” said Anderson, coldly, pointing to the door and beginning to move towards it.

“I suspected the boy was in there,” said Carroll, and his tones changed, as did his face. All the urbanity and the smile vanished. He followed Anderson with a nervous stride. Both men entered the little office, but the boy was gone. Both stood gazing about the little space. It was absolutely impossible for anybody to be concealed there. There was no available hiding-place except under the table, and the cat occupied that, and his eyes shone out of the gloom like green jewels.

“I don't see him,” said Carroll.

Then Anderson turned upon him.

“Sir,” he said, with a kind of slow heat, “I am at a loss as to what to attribute your tone and manner. If you doubt—”

“Not at all, my dear sir,” replied Carroll, with a wave of the hand. “But I am told that my son is in here, and when, on entering, I do not see him, I am naturally somewhat surprised.”

“Your son was certainly in this room when I left it a moment ago, and that is all I know about it,” said Anderson. “And I will add that your son's visit was entirely unsolicited—”

“My dear sir,” interrupted Carroll again, “I assure you that I do not for a moment conceive the possibility of anything else. But the fact remains that I am told he is here—”

“He was here,” said Anderson, looking about with an impatient and bewildered scowl.

“He could not have gone out through the store while we were there,” said Carroll, in a puzzled tone.

“I do not see how he could have done so unobserved, certainly.”

“The window,” said Carroll, taking a step towards it.

“Thirty feet from the ground; sheer wall and rocks below. He could not have gone out there without wings.”

“He has no wings, and I very much fear he never will have any at this rate,” said Carroll, moving out. “Well, Mr. Anderson, I regret that my son should have annoyed you.”

“He has not annoyed me in the least,” Anderson replied, shortly. “I only regret that his peculiar method of telling the truth should have led me unwittingly to occasion your wife and daughters so much anxiety, and I trust that you will soon trace him.”

“Oh yes, he will turn up all right,” said Carroll, easily. “If he was in your office a moment ago, he cannot be far off.”

There was the faintest suggestion of emphasis upon the “if.”

Anderson spoke to the elderly clerk, who had been leaning against the shelves ranged with packages of cereal, surmounted by a flaming row of picture advertisements, regarding them and listening with a curious abstraction, which almost gave the impression of stupidity. This man had lived boy and man in one groove of the grocer business, until he needed prodding to shift him momentarily into any other.

In reality he managed most of the details of the selling. He heard what the two men said, and at the same time was considering that he was to send the wagon round the first thing in the morning with pease to the postmaster's, and a new barrel of sugar to the Amidons, and he was calculating the price of sugar at the slight recent rise.

“Mr. Price,” said Anderson to him, “may I ask that you will tell this gentleman if a little boy went into my office a short time ago?”

The clerk looked blankly at Anderson, who patiently repeated his question.

“A little boy,” repeated the clerk.

“Yes,” said Anderson.

Price gazed reflectively and in something of a troubled fashion at Anderson, then at Carroll. His mind was in the throes of displacing a barrel of sugar and a half-peck of pease by a little boy. Then his face brightened. He spoke quickly and decidedly.

“Yes,” said he, “just before this gentleman came in, a little boy, running, yes.”

“You did not see him come out while we were talking?” asked Anderson.

“No, oh no.”

Carroll asked no further and left, with a good-day to Anderson, who scarcely returned it. He jumped into his carriage, and the swift tap of the horse's feet died away on the macadam.

“Sugar ought to bring about two cents on a pound more,” said the clerk to Anderson, returning to the office, and then he stopped short as Anderson started staring at an enormous advertisement picture which was stationed, partly for business reasons, partly for ornament, in a corner near the office door. It was a figure of a gayly dressed damsel, nearly life-size, and was supposed by its blooming appearance to settle finally the merit of a new health food. The other clerk, who was a young fellow, hardly more than a boy, had placed it there. He had reached the first fever-stage of admiration of the other sex, and this gaudy beauty had resembled in his eyes a fair damsel of Banbridge whom he secretly adored.

Therefore he had ensconced it carefully in the corner near the office door, and often glanced at it with reverent and sheepish eyes of delight. Anderson never paid any attention to the thing, but now for some reason he glanced at it in passing, and to his astonishment it moved. He made one stride towards it, and thrust it aside, and behind it stood the boy, with a face of impudent innocence.

Anderson stood looking at him for a second. The boy's eyes did not fall, but his expression changed.

“So you ran away from your father and hid from him?” Anderson observed, with a subtle emphasis of scorn. “So you are afraid?”

The boy's face flashed into red, his eyes blazed.

“You bet I ain't,” he declared.

“Looks very much like it,” said Anderson, coolly.

“You let me go,” shouted the boy, and pushed rudely past Anderson and raced out of the store. Anderson and the old clerk looked at each other across the great advertisement which had fallen face downward on the floor.

“Must have come in from the office whilst our back was turned, and slipped in behind that picture,” said the clerk, slowly.

Anderson nodded.

“He is a queer feller,” said the clerk, further.

“He certainly is,” agreed Anderson.

“As queer as ever I seen. Guess his father 'll give it to him when he gits home.”

“Well, he deserves it,” replied Anderson, and added, in the silence of his mind, “and his father deserves it, too,” and imagined vaguely to himself a chastening providence for the eternal good of the father even as the father might be for the eternal good of his son. The man's fancy was always more or less in leash to his early training.

Just then the younger clerk, Sam Riggs, commonly called Sammy, entered, and espying at once with jealous eyes the fallen state of his idol in the corner, took the first opportunity to pick her up and straighten her to her former position.