Читать книгу The Lords of High Decision - Meredith Nicholson - Страница 6

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FOUR days passed. Wayne Craighill ceased twirling and knotting the curtain cord and held his right hand against the strong light of the office window to test his nerves. The fingers twitched and trembled, and he turned away impatiently and flung himself into a chair by his desk, hiding his hands and their tell-tale testimony deep in his pockets. Half a dozen times he shook himself petulantly and attacked his work with frenzied eagerness, as though to be rid of it in a single spurt; but after an hour thus futilely spent he threw himself back and glared at a large etching, depicting a storm-driven galleon riding wildly under a frightened moon, that hung against the dark-olive cartridge paper on the wall above his desk. Shadows appeared now and then on the ground-glass outer door, and lingered several times, testifying to their physical embodiment by violently seizing and rattling the knob. Craighill scowled at every assault, and presently when some importunate visitor had both shaken and kicked the door, he yawned and sought the window again, looking moodily down, as from a hill-top, upon the city of his birth, where practically all his life had been spent, the City of the Iron Heart, lying like a wedge at the confluence of the two broad rivers.

Wayne had used himself hard, as the lines in his smooth-shaven face testified; but the vigour of the Scotch-Irish stock survived in him, and even to-day he carried his tall frame erectly. His head covered with brown hair in which there was a reddish glint, was really fine and his blue eyes, not just now at their clearest, had in them the least hint of the dreamer. His suit of brown—a solid colour—became him: he was dressed with an added scrupulousness as though in conformity to an inner contrition and rehabilitation. He was in his thirtieth year but appeared older to-day as his gaze lay upon the drifting, shifting smoke-cloud that hung above the Greater City.

The son of Colonel Roger Craighill was inevitably a conspicuous person in his native city and his dissipated habits had long been the subject of despairing comment by his fellow-citizens, and the text of occasional lightly veiled sermons in press and pulpit. Dick Wingfield had once remarked that is was too bad that there were only ten commandments, as this small number painfully limited Wayne Craighill’s possible infractions. It was Wingfield who named Wayne Craighill the Blotter, in appreciation of Wayne’s amazing capacity for drink; and it was he who said that Wayne’s sins were merely an expression of the law of compensation and were thrown into the scale to offset Colonel Craighill’s nobility and virtue. Whatever truth may lie in this, it is indisputable that the elder Craighill’s rectitude tended to heighten the colour of his son’s iniquities.

The Blotter had been drunk again. This is what would be said all over the Greater City. At the clubs it would be remarked that he had also had a fight with two policemen, and that he had been put in pickle at the Country Club and then smuggled to his office to await the arrival of Colonel Craighill, who had been to Cleveland to address something or other. The nobler his father’s errands abroad, the wickeder were the Blotter’s diversions in his absences. The last time that Roger Craighill had attended the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church Wayne had amused himself by violating all the city ordinances that interposed the slightest barriers to the enjoyment of life as he understood it. But the Blotter, it is only just to say, was still capable of shame. His physical and moral reaction to-day were acute; and he shrank from facing the world again. More than all, the thought of meeting his father face to face sent the hot blood surging to his head, intensifying its dull ache. His sister Fanny would be likely to show her sympathy and confidence by promptly giving a tea or a dinner to which he would be specially bidden, to demonstrate to the world that in spite of his derelictions his family still stood by him. The remembrance of past offenses, and of the definite routine that his restorations followed, only increased his misery. The usual interview with his father, with whose mild, martyr-like forbearance he had long been familiar, rose before him intolerably.

A light tap at the inner door of Wayne’s room caused him to leap to his feet and stand staring for a moment at a shadow on the ground glass. The door led into Roger Craighill’s room, and as he had been thinking of his father, the knock struck upon his senses ominously. He hesitated an instant, curbing an impulse to fly; then the door opened cautiously, and Joe Denny slipped in, seated himself carelessly on a table in the centre of the room, and nursed his knee.

Consider Joe a moment; he is not the humblest figure in this chronicle: a tall, lithe young fellow, unmistakably Irish-American, with a bang of black hair across his forehead, and a humorous light in his dark eyes. His grin is captivating but we are conscious also of shrewdness in his face. (It took sharp sprinting to steal second when Joe had the ball in his hand!) He is trimly dressed in ready-made exaggeration of last year’s style. His red cravat is fastened with a gold pin in the similitude of crossed bats supporting a tiny ball, symbol of our later Olympian nine. You may, if you like, look up Joe Denny’s batting record for the time he pitched in the Pennsylvania State League, and you will thereby gauge the extent of New York’s loss in having bought his “release” only a week before he broke his wizard’s arm.

Joe, at ease on the table, viewed Mr. Wayne Craighill critically, but with respect. In his more tranquil moments Joe spoke a fairly reputable English derived from the public schools of his native hills, but his narrative style frequently took colour of the idiom of the diamond, and under stress of emotion he departed widely from the instruction imparted by the State of Pennsylvania on the upper waters of the Susquehanna.

“Say, the Colonel’s due on the 4:30.”

Wayne straightened himself unconsciously and his glance fell upon the desk on which lay an accumulation of papers awaiting his inspection and signature.

“Who said so? I thought he wasn’t due till to-morrow.”

“I was up at the house when Walsh telephoned for the machine to go to the station. I guess the Colonel wired Walsh.”

“I’d like to know why Walsh couldn’t have done me the honour to tell me,” said Wayne sourly.

“I guess Walsh don’t know you’re back. They asked me in the front office a while ago and I told ’em I guessed you were up at the Club; and then I came in here through the Colonel’s room to see if you had stayed put.”

Craighill was silent for a moment, then he asked:

“How long was I gone this time, Joe?”

He addressed young Denny without condescension, in a tone of kindness that minimized the obvious differences between them.

“It was Wednesday night you broke loose, and this is Saturday all right.”

“I must have bumped some of the high places—my head feels like it. How about the newspapers?”

“Nothing doing! Walsh fixed that up all right. You see it was like this: you made a row on the steps of the Allequippa Club when I was trying to steer you home. I’d been waiting on the curb with a machine till about 1 A. M., and some of the gents followed you out of the Club and wanted you to come back and go to bed; and when a couple of cops came along, properly not seeing anything, and not letting on, you must up and jump on one of ’em and pound his head. Then the other cop broke into the fuss, and there was a good deal doing and I got you into the machine and slid for the Country Club and got a chauffeur’s bed in the garage and sat on you till you went to sleep.”

Wayne shrugged his shoulders.

“Was that all I did? It sounds pretty tame; I must be getting better—or worse.”

He drew a cigarette from his case and struck a match before he remembered a rule that forbade smoking in office hours; then he found a cigar and chewed it unlighted. Joe eyed the littered desk reflectively.

“Say, you’d better brush that off before the Colonel comes.”

“Put that stuff out of sight,” commanded Wayne and tossed him his keys. “See here, Joe, I started Wednesday night and Thursday night I made a row on the Club steps, and you took me out to Rosedale in the machine and kept me there till you smuggled me in here this afternoon. That’s all right enough, but there was another chap in the row at the Club—I thought I was fighting the whole force, and you say there were two policemen there. There was another fellow besides the policemen.”

“Forget it! Forget it!” grinned Denny, waving his hand airily. “The bases were full for a few minutes and a young gent came along and took our side against the cops, see? The two cops had us going some and this little chap blowing in out of a minor league rapped a two-bagger on the biggest cop’s chin. ‘You Mr. Craighill’s chauffeur?’ he says to me, sweet and gentle-like; and between us we picked you up and threw you into the machine and I cut for the tall, green hills. As the coal-oil lit up and she got in motion, I looked back, and our little friend that hit the cop was a handin’ the cop his card.”

Craighill frowned fiercely with the effort of memory.

“Who was this man that took my part? He must have followed me out of the Club.”

“Nit; he was new talent; and listen—he was a Bible-barker.”

“A minister?”

“Sure. He wore his collar buttoned behind and a three-story vest. He wasn’t as tall as you or me but he was good and husky and he lined out three on the cop’s mug, snappy and zippy, like a triple-play in a tied game.”

“A priest? It wasn’t Father Ryan?”

“It wasn’t the father; it was new talent, I tell you. The gent who came up here to see you the night you broke loose. He was out looking for you Thursday night; guess he heard you were going some. And after he spiked the cop and we got off in the machine there he stood bowing and tipping his dice to the cops and handing ’em his card.”

Light suddenly dawned upon Wayne.

“Paddock; O Lord!” he ejaculated.

A clock tinkled five on the mantel and Wayne’s manner changed. He pointed to the outer door.

“You’d better clear out. Stop in the front office and tell Mr. Walsh I’m here, do you understand?”

“Say, Mrs. Blair’s been lookin’ for you; she’s had the ’phone goin’ for two days. She flew in her machine to Rosedale to look for you but they were on and didn’t give it away. You better call her up.”

“Yes, I’ll attend to it; clear out.”

Already Colonel Craighill had quietly entered the adjoining room followed by an office boy bearing a travelling bag. On his desk lay a dozen sheets of paper, hardly larger than a playing card, and these he examined with the swift ease of habit. They were reports, condensed to the smallest compass, and expressed in bald dollars and tons all the Craighill enterprises. It was thus that Roger Craighill, like a great commander, viewed the broad field of his operations through the eyes of others. Bank balances; totals of bills payable and receivable; so much coal mined at one point; so many tons of coke ready for shipment at another; the visible tonnage in the general market; the day’s prices—these bare data were communicated to the chief daily at the close of business, and in his frequent absences were sent to him by wire. He summoned a boy.

“Please say to Mr. Walsh that I’m ready to see him.”

Walsh appeared instantly: he had, indeed, been awaiting the summons, and was prepared for it. A definite routine attended every return of the chief to his headquarters. He invariably called Walsh, his chief of staff; and thereafter was ready to see his son. In every business office the high powers are merely tolerated by the subordinates, to whom the senior partner or the president is usually “the boss” or “the old man.” Roger Craighill was not to be so apostrophized even behind his back: he was “the Colonel” to everyone. To a few contemporaries only was Craighill “Roger” and these were citizens bound together by memories of the old city, who as young men had cheered Kossuth through the streets in 1851, and who a decade later had met in the Committee of Safety or marched South with musket or sword in hand.

“Ah, Walsh, how is everything going? I see that the pumps at No. 18 are out of order again. I think I’d better go after the Watkins people personally about that; we’ve been patient enough with them.”

Walsh nodded. He was short and thick and quite bald. He had formerly been the “credit man” of one of the Craighill enterprises, which, it happened, was a wholesale grocery; but he had grown into the confidence of Roger Craighill and when Craighill organized the grocery business into a corporation and began directing it from the fourteenth story of the Craighill building, Walsh became Craighill’s confidential man of affairs, with broad administrative powers.

Walsh thrust his hands into the pockets of his office coat and began talking at once of several matters of importance connected with the Craighill interests. Craighill nodded oftener than he spoke as Walsh made his succinct statements. There was no sentiment in Walsh; his voice was as dry and hard as his facts. He had studied credits so long that his life’s chief concern was solvency. He could tell you any day in the week the amount of bituminous coal in the bins at Cincinnati or Louisville; or whether the corner grocers of Johnstown or Youngstown had paid for their last purchases from the Wayne-Craighill Company. Craighill’s inquiries were largely perfunctory, a fact not lost upon Walsh, who fidgeted in his chair.

“Everything seems all right,” said Craighill, turning round and facing Walsh. “By the way, did the home papers report my address before the Western Reserve Society? Here’s a very fair account of it from the Cleveland papers. I’d be glad if you’d look it over. I’m often troubled, Walsh, by the amount of time these public and semi-public matters take, but in one way and another I am well repaid. They inject a certain variety into my life, and the acquaintances and friendships I have made among statesmen, educators, financiers and men of affairs are really of great value to me.”

“Um.”

Walsh twirled the clipping in his fingers. The discussion of anything outside the range of business embarrassed him. It was perfectly proper for Roger Craighill to spend his time with other gentlemen of wealth and influence in making after-dinner speeches and in seeking ways and means of ameliorating the condition of the poor whites or the poor blacks of the South, or in stimulating interest in the merit system, or in reforming the currency. Walsh thought favourably of these things, though he did not think of them deeply or often.

“Ah, Wayne!”

The moment had arrived for the son to show himself and Wayne Craighill entered from his own room and walked quickly to his father’s desk. Walsh rose and examined the young man critically with his small, shrewd eyes, then left with an abrupt good night. Father and son greeted each other cordially; the father held the young man’s hand a moment as they stood by the desk.

“Wayne, my boy!” said the elder warmly, “sit down. How’s Fanny? She came home from York Harbour rather early this year.”

“Oh, she’s all right,” replied Wayne, though he had not seen his sister during his father’s absence. He assumed that the fact of his latest escapade was known to his father. Everyone always seemed to know, though for several years Roger Craighill had suspended the rebukes, threats and expostulations with which he had met Wayne’s earlier lapses. His father’s cordiality put Wayne on guard at once: he suspected that he was to be taken to task for his sins with a severity that had drawn interest during his immunity.

“I am sorry to see that you have overdrawn your account somewhat,” remarked Colonel Craighill, holding up one of the papers and examining it through his eye-glasses. His manner was now that of a teacher who has summoned an erring student for reproof. The mildness of his manner irritated Wayne, who was, moreover, honestly surprised by his father’s statement.

“I didn’t know that; in fact I don’t believe that can be right, sir. What’s the amount?”

“Four thousand dollars.”

Wayne’s surprise increased.

“It’s an error. I have overdrawn no such amount; I’m sure of that.” But his head still ached and he sought vainly for an explanation of the item on the sheet his father passed over to him.

“Wayne,” began Colonel Craighill, “I simply cannot have you do this sort of thing. It’s bad for you, for you can have no need of any such sum of money in addition to your regular income and your salary; and it’s bad for the office discipline. I have prided myself that some of the foremost men of the country have placed their sons in my care. Think of the effect on these young men out there,”—he waved his hand toward the outer offices—“of your extravagant, wasteful ways.”

Wayne was familiar enough with the black depths of his infamy and he knew his value as an example; but he groped blindly for an explanation of the overdraft. Suddenly the knowledge flashed upon him that it represented the price of some shares in a coal-mining company in which his father was interested. They had been offered for sale in the settlement of an estate and as he supposed that the Craighill interests already controlled the property he had purchased them on his own account a few days before, with a view to turning them over to his father on his return if he wished them. The amount was small as such transactions go, and as he had not the required sum in bank he overdrew his account in the office. His own income from various sources—real estate, bonds and shares representing his half of the considerable fortune left by Mrs. Craighill—was collected through the office, where he kept an open account. His father’s readiness to pillory him increased the irritability left by his latest dissipation. A four-year-old child will not brook injustice; there is nothing a man resents more. He could very quickly turn his father’s criticism by an explanation; but just now in his bitterness he shrank from commendation. The gravamen of his offense was trifling; he had been misjudged; his pride had been touched; he refused to justify himself.

He returned to his own room where a little later Walsh found him. Walsh, having tapped on the outer door, was admitted in sulky silence and squeezed his fat bulk into a chair by Wayne’s desk. He gazed at the son of his chief with what, for Walsh, approximated benevolence.

“I’ve been drunk,” remarked Wayne, with an air of suggesting an inevitable topic of conversation.

“Um,” growled Walsh. “I had heard something of it.”

“I suppose everybody has heard it. My sprees seem to lack a decent cloistral quiet some way. Joe told me you had shut up the newspapers. When my head stops aching I’ll try to thank you in proper language.”

“I’ll tell you how you can avoid getting drunk in the future if you are interested,” remarked Walsh.

“If you mean burning down the distilleries I’d like you to know that I’m not in a mood for joking.”

“Um. I was not going to advise you to commit arson. I have never offered you any advice before; I’m going to give you some now. You’ve got about all there is out of drink and you’d better get interested in something else. The only way to stop is to quit, and you can do it. I’ve a notion that you and I are going to be better acquainted in the future. Such being the idea I’d like to be sure that you are going to keep straight. You make me tired.”

Wayne was not sure that he understood. No one, least of all his father’s grim, silent lieutenant, had ever spoken to him in just this tone, and he was surprised to find that Walsh’s method of attack interested him. He was humble before the old fellow in the linen coat.

“What’s the use, Tom? I’m well headed for the bottom; better let me go on down.”

“The top is less crowded and more comfortable than the bottom. Just as a matter of my own dignity I’d stay up as high as I could if I were you. I had a good chance to go down myself once, but I took a dip or two and it didn’t look good down below—too many bones. Um. That’s all of that.”

He chewed an unlighted cigar ruminantly until Wayne spoke.

“The Colonel’s going to get married.”

“Um,” Walsh nodded. His emotions were always under control and Wayne did not know whether he had imparted fresh information or not. He imagined he had, for it was not likely that his father would make a confidant of Walsh in any social matter.

“The Colonel knows his own business.”

“As a matter of fact, does he?”

“Um.”

Walsh’s cigar pointed to a remote corner of the ceiling, but his eyes were fixed on Wayne. He had apparently no intention of discussing Colonel Craighill’s marriage and he abruptly changed the subject.

“You bought fifty shares of Sand Creek stock the other day from the Moore estate.”

Wayne scowled; these were the shares he had overdrawn his office account to buy, with the intention of turning them over to his father, and his father’s criticism of the overdraft rankled afresh.

“Yes; I bought fifty shares. How did you find it out?”

“Tried to buy ’em myself and found you had beat me to ’em.”

“I overdrew my office account to buy them. I thought father would want them; but now he can’t have them.”

“Why?”

“Because in a fit of righteousness he jumped me for my overdraft. It was the first time I was ever over; you know that, and it would have squared itself in a few days anyhow. But if you want those shares——”

“I don’t want ’em. The Colonel wants ’em. He told me to get ’em but I didn’t know there was any great rush about it. The Colonel’s friends in New York, that he got into the Sand Creek Company, asked him to pick up those shares; their control is by a narrow margin, and they wanted to fortify themselves. They’d looked to the Colonel to take care of this little bunch. Does he know you’ve got ’em?”

“Oh, no; not on your life! After jumping me for buying them? My dear Tom Walsh, there are moments when the worm will turn!”

This was the first occasion on which Wayne had ever spoken of his father to Walsh except in terms of respect, and Walsh was perfectly aware of it.

“If I were you I’d turn those shares over to the Colonel.”

“If it’s anything to you—if you’re going to be criticized for failing to get them, I’ll give them to him—or I’ll sell them to you.”

“No, you don’t have to worry about me, my boy; I can take care of myself, but I don’t want you to feel that way toward your father. It ain’t healthy; it ain’t right.”

“Please don’t do that, Tom. My head aches, and you’re too good a fellow to preach. I didn’t know those shares were so valuable; it was just a piece of fool luck that I got them. I suppose they thought letting me have them was the same as passing them over to father.”

“That’s the way it ought to be.”

“But, dear old Tom,” and he laid his hand on Walsh’s thick knee, “dear old Tom, it isn’t, it isn’t, it ain’t!”