Читать книгу Below the Salt - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 11

John wakened with a start the next morning to a realization that he had overslept. The clock on the wall of his bedroom said eight forty-five. A quarter to seven was his regular rising hour and so he sprang out of bed with a sense of guilt. He bathed, shaved and dressed in such a frantic hurry that he arrived downstairs in time after all to share some of his host’s breakfast.

The veteran senator, noted for his eloquent and ready tongue, had little to say as he dealt with his steak and corn bread.

“You slept well, John?”

“Yes, sir. But too long, I’m afraid.”

There was silence then, which Peterkin finally broke by appearing at the guest’s elbow and asking his wishes. Steak, chops, a cutlet, bacon and eggs? John would have enjoyed a steak but he asked for bacon and eggs instead. The coffee, which arrived immediately, was excellent and it was accompanied by a melon, the like of which he had never tasted before.

The silent meal was drawing to a close when there was a sound of hoofbeats on the drive and a pleasant but exacting feminine voice demanding one Abimelech; the groom, no doubt.

The senator said, “That will be Amy with the mail,” and became his regular self again with the prospect of normal activities beginning for the day. They could see through the metal blinds that the secretary was accompanied by a man with a large bag, filled no doubt with correspondence. The contents of the bag had been spread out on a table in the living room when they appeared there—cables, telegrams, letters, books, pamphlets, folders, enough mail seemingly for the State Department. John cast an anxious eye on the telegrams and said to himself: “The answer is there! Am I rich or am I going to spend my life grubbing away to save two dollars a week and make good my losses?” His hands were trembling with the suspense.

“Good morning,” said Amy, who was looking cool and efficient, and almost pretty, in a pair of tight-fitting riding breeches and a yellow blouse with a dutch collar. “I hope you two strong, silent men succeeded in getting acquainted last night.”

“We got along well,” answered the senator.

“And you talked about Magna Charta, no doubt.”

The old man gave her a suspicious and somewhat soured glance. “We did. John is well versed on the subject. I suspect this is going to be one of your tart days, Amy.”

“Plenty of reason. The Three Musketeers were all snoring soundly when I left. How well they sleep when once they can persuade themselves to leave the bourbon and get off to bed. I had words with Porthos last night.”

“Let’s see now. Porthos—that’s Seth, isn’t it? What has Seth been doing?”

“He’s been giving you bad advice. He’s convinced you shouldn’t run for another term.”

“If he’s saying that, Amy, he’s merely repeating what I’ve been saying to him.”

The woman began to speak in the most earnest and urgent of tones. “Boss, that’s wrong thinking. You couldn’t possibly be defeated. Why, you can’t quit. You’re the greatest figure in the Senate. You’re the recognized voice of all this great country west of the Mississippi. You’re Mr. American West. The country needs you. Washington wouldn’t be the same place without you. There wouldn’t be anyone to draw crowds to the Senate chamber the way you do. What a scramble there is to get in when the word gets around that Senator O’Rawn is going to speak! The President depends on you. He believes whatever you tell him about the feeling in the West. He takes your advice. Oh, boss, it’s unthinkable that you won’t be in the Senate any more!”

The old man gave her an affectionate smile. “Well, Amy, I’ll say this. You have the issue very much at heart. You feel deeply about it, don’t you?”

“I certainly do. I—I do have your best interests at heart, you know.”

“But, my dear child, it’s not just a case of deciding whether I want to stay in the Senate or not. I would like to be a senator as long as I live. I feel certain I can be re-elected if I stand. But there’s something else to be considered and I’ve told you this before. There is something I must attend to before I die and I can’t do it while I remain in politics. Get this into your head, Amy, I can’t be off on this other matter if I decide to stand for another term. The other matter would undermine my value as a member of the Senate.”

The secretary’s face had become quite heated with the intensity of her feelings. “This mysterious other errand can’t be as important as staying in the government. It just can’t!”

She began to riffle through the mail. Watching her, John said to himself: “Please get to the one about our deal. Please!” His feelings were growing more intense with every second that passed.

“Well, I don’t seem to be able to talk you out of your lunacy, boss,” said Amy, still unreconciled to what seemed to be the inevitable. She bent her head over the mail and her voice showed hesitation as she went on. “There was one thing I said just now which—which was a great understatement. If you care to think back, you may discover what it was.”

It was the senator himself who brought relief to the sorely tried young investor. He looked at John and smiled. “I wouldn’t be surprised if our young friend here is anxious to find out what has happened to Western Tollgate on the Exchange. I’m interested myself. What did happen?”

Amy Shirley found the telegram among fifty or so others. She glanced at it without allowing her expression to give away the secret of the news it contained. She handed it to the senator. “There it is,” she said. “You tell him.”

“It’s bad news!” thought John. “I’m done for, that’s clear.”

The senator read the wire. “Well,” he said. He looked up at John. “Satisfactory on the whole,” he declared, handing back the yellow slip. “We’ve made a profit. We got out yesterday afternoon, at practically the top. Well, that’s fair enough. The profit on your block, John, will be a little in excess of two thousand four hundred dollars.”

“Twenty-four hundred dollars!” cried the visitor.

“Not as good news from Hudson and Sadler, boss,” declared the secretary. “We’ve taken a loss there. And old Jack Hartigan is proving stubborn about those concessions.”

“Old Jack Hartigan is always stubborn,” declared the senator. “He refused his first rattle in the cradle and dashed his first bottle into flinders. Well, the lean with the fat. I rather think John here is pleased on the whole. Perhaps he would like another go at it. Next week the Boncolenco Power people are putting out a new issue. A gilt-edged proposition if there ever was one. What do you say, my boy? Like to plow your profits back in?”

To his own surprise, John heard his voice replying, “Yes, of course, sir.” His voice, moreover, had an eager note to it.

“Good. We’ll see that you get in on the ground floor.”

“I’ll feel much better about this one, sir,” John went on without any hint of doubt or hesitation. “Now I have some capital to risk and I could pay it back if we had losses on this new venture, sir.”

“That’s quite true, my boy. I’m glad to see you are going into this with a commendable sense of responsibility. Well, let’s go whole hog this time. We’ll cut you in for two thousand shares of the Boncolenco issue.”

John caught his breath. He had not planned to take as rash a plunge as this. It had been in his mind, in fact, to say he would go in for five hundred shares. He looked at Amy Shirley and found her watching him. Did she understand what his feelings were? He believed he read sympathy for him in the expression of her eyes.

“All right,” he said, after several moments of intense and painful thought. “Let’s go whole hog, sir. I’ll buy two thousand shares.”

“Amy has gone in for two thousand,” commented the senator. “That shows how good the stuff is. She can seldom be persuaded to risk more than chicken feed. Well, now you can share your anxieties between you.”

John realized that both the senator and the secretary were anxious to plunge into the mail. Hours of intense work undoubtedly lay ahead of them. He rose and excused himself, glad of the chance to get away and give thought to the situation in which he had become involved. The magnitude of this new gamble was causing him to quiver inside as though he had suffered a severe emotional shock. Within the space of a very few minutes he had received what seemed to him a very large fortune and then had found himself putting this wonderful bonanza into peril by pledging himself to an even greater risk! He sat down in his room and thought it over for some time, finally reaching the conclusion that the West was doing something to him, that the bracing air, or perhaps the bracing viewpoint of his new friends, had made him a different man. Certainly the John Foraday who sat for eight hours every day at the proofreading table in the printing shop would never have allowed himself to plunge so casually into breath-taking risks.

After a time he allowed himself to get away from his thoughts and anxieties. He walked about the house on a tour of inspection and found it peculiarly interesting. On the outside it was, he believed, a remarkably accurate replica of a small castle, a very old variety, Norman in all probability. The walls were of solid stone and they were three feet thick, so that the interior remained comfortably cool, even though the world outside seemed as hot as a frying pan. The inside had been ingeniously converted from the ancient plan, however, and offered every modern convenience. John’s own bedroom was as modern as the jet plane or rock and roll, and his bathroom was all chromium and tile.

He spent some time also at the stables, learning how to saddle a horse and receiving more useful information about the business of riding than his experience of the previous evening had taught him. He found himself completely at home in these surroundings. The long rows of stalls with inquisitive eyes at each grating, the smell of fresh hay and liniment, the cheerful whistling of the grooms as they went leisurely about their tasks, the soft twang of their voices—nothing he had ever encountered before had pleased him as much as this. He sat on an upturned bucket and listened to the overseer.

It was apparent at lunch that the morning had been a busy one for the other members of the household. The senator sighed as he took his place at the table and said: “I went through that pile of mail like a buzz saw. But I’m afraid you are in for a day of it, Amy, getting all those letters off.”

Amy Shirley was preoccupied, so much so that she did no more than toy with her food. “Just as well,” she answered. “This press of work will keep my mind off the fatal mistake you are making.”

The senator smiled and turned to John. “My boy, this morning I burnt my bridges behind me. I wired the committee that I wouldn’t be a candidate for re-election as senator from this sovereign state. That, in other words, I was stepping out of politics for good and all.”

The secretary commented furiously. “It broke my heart to type out that message. Such a beautifully worded explanation of your reasons for such an unforgivable step!”

“You die hard, Amy. Well, I’ve crossed the Rubicon—going backward. And I must say that I feel very free, and lighthearted, and pleased with myself. I’m my own man from this day forward. I won’t have great bushels of mail to answer. I won’t have to go to stupid public dinners. I won’t have to make speeches. And I can now go about this other plan of mine, which has been drawing me toward it as though a great magnet, a great spiritual magnet, had been turned on.”

“If you would only tell me what it is!”

“You’ll know in time, my dear. No one is going to hear yet. I don’t want any dropping of monkey wrenches into the machinery.”

“I suspect you are going to commit some incredible folly, boss.”

“It may prove to be a folly. But it will not be one of my making or choosing. And now let’s get on with these chops. I’m sure, Amy, you’ll want only one of the lamb. John, which do you want, lamb or pork?”

“Both,” said John.