The Steadfast Heart/Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Henry G. Woodhouse, no less erect than he had been eight years before, when his bounty had made it possible for Angus Burke to escape from Rainbow, watched unobtrusively and with interest the conduct and accomplishments of his protégé. Angus was, to the splendid old gentleman, a great experiment in humanity, more engrossing to him than a story with an intricate plot. Not only did he watch with the scientific interest of your experimenter, but with the sympathetic eye of one who hopes for, and is willing to do much to bring about, a happy outcome to the experiment…. Having no child of his own, his lonely heart made secret plans for the boy’s future. There were times when he wondered at this; was inclined to question himself, asked why it was he should feel such concern about the development of Angus when there, ready to his hand and docile, was one of his own flesh and blood—young Malcolm Crane…. The answer was, perhaps, that young Crane did not need him. Less apparent was the reason that Judge Crane was, in his devious way, training his son for the dubious career of filling a dead man’s shoes. Mr. Woodhouse, who had filled his own shoes very well indeed, did not, perhaps, like overmuch to consider other feet in his leather….
On the day when Dave Wilkins made his first appearance out of doors and was sitting emaciated and weak in a big chair on Craig Browning’s porch, Mr. Woodhouse had been engaged on some such plans for Angus. On his way to the bank he chanced to pass the house and Wilkins waved to him a thin and feeble hand.
“Young man,” said Mr. Woodhouse as he turned in at the gate, “this is good seeing.”
“Sort of unexpected, too,” Dave replied. “I’m wondering if I’m not an anticlimax.”
“There were times when hope was faint,” said the old gentleman, depositing his shining silk hat on the railing. “And, as to being an anticlimax, Wilkins, it’s a thing no man can be—so long as he retains one useful muscle in his body.”
“The most useful muscle in the human body,” said Dave, “is located inside the skull. As I have lain here, utterly useless, I have wondered if my life in bed were not about as useful as any of my active life has managed to be….”
“Nonsense.”
“What have I done? What have I been? What have I accomplished? I’m stepping along toward fifty, Mr. Woodhouse, and the sum total of my victories is that I’ve kept a one-horse paper out of bankruptcy for twenty years.”
“The sum total of your victories, Wilkins, is that you have lived a life which has gained you many friends—and the respect of your enemies.”
Dave laughed shortly. “That’s like saying that a man’s life has been a success because he had the longest funeral procession ever seen in town…. The world seems to have wagged pretty efficiently without my editorial advice, anyhow…. But then, I’ve had a substitute.” His eyes glowed.
“I’m marveling at Angus,” said Mr. Woodhouse reflectively. “Do you remember when I first saw him? I confess I was dubious. He hadn’t the look of workable raw material.”
“It was always there…. Didn’t I tell you he couldn’t have so much skull behind his ears for nothing?… I’ve laid upstairs and tried to imagine what it must have meant to him to come back to Rainbow—to face Rainbow…. There are different sorts of heroism, Mr. Woodhouse—and some sorts are about as good as others…. How have the folks treated him?”
“So far,” said Mr. Woodhouse, “more as a curiosity than as a menace…. But it hasn’t been easy for him. Rainbow resents him. When its interest in watching him walk on his hind legs has worn off, it will resent him more actively. If he had shown he was afraid the town would have been on his back before this, but he hasn’t shown it. I wonder if he feels it—if he understands.”
“He understands,” said Dave, “better than you or I can ever hope to understand.”
“In another month you’ll be fit for work,” said Henry G.
Dave regarded him inquiringly.
“Your paper—it doesn’t offer opportunities—for more than one. When you go back there’ll be no place for Angus.”
“Wherever I am,” Dave said fiercely, “there will always be a place for Angus.”
“Isn’t it possible he could do better elsewhere?… College, say?”
“He sha’n’t go away again…. He’s back with me—to stay. I won’t let him go.”
“If there were something in Rainbow—”
“Where?” asked Dave bitterly.
“I’ve been watching the boy. He seems to have qualities; a sort of dogged industry, patience, carefulness of detail. Mightn’t those qualities be useful in—say—a bank?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” said Dave shortly.
Henry G. elevated his eyebrows, but made no retort. “I would like to place him in my bank—in a modest place, you know—to help me and to be useful all around—where he could learn the business.”
“It would cause a run on the bank.”
Henry G. unconsciously assumed his most dignified bearing, and tinged it with severity. “It would do no such thing,” he said with decision.
Dave shut his eyes. He considered, considered present and future, considered his own heart and Angus’s happiness. A tear oozed between his closed lids. “For myself—I thank you,” he said. “I’ll put it up to Angus.”
“By all means. Discuss the matter with him. The place, and all of my confidence and backing, will be ready for him when you can spare him.”
Dave watched the erect, stately old man—so aristocratic, so aloof, so lonely in his exclusiveness, yet so kindly, so scrupulously honorable, so sweet and human within the shell which grief had hardened around him. Unhurried, unharried, Henry G. Woodhouse pursued his way through the world, and from the fine calm of his face none might read that his was a well-nigh broken heart. The corroding grief and disgrace of his daughter’s disappearance; the suspense of the mystery surrounding her whereabouts, her fate, her reported death, were always with him—yet always hidden from the greedily prying eyes of Rainbow…. Nightly he prayed that she might be dead….
He did not resent the curiosity of Rainbow, for he knew his people. It was their nature to be curious, and their right. They lived to themselves on an island of humanity, dependent upon the sensations produced by their own soil for the interest which other and larger and more artificial communities find in diverse matters. Curious they were, yet, in their way, kindly, generous, self-sacrificing folk. Whatever prying they might be guilty of, whatever brash questions they might be urged to ask, he condoned because underneath these manifestations lay a quick and abiding sympathy…. A practical sympathy. Rainbow did not send flowers to a home bereaved of a loved member—it baked bread and sent wholesome loaves, it baked pies, it sent by awestruck children cakes upon which the fine arts of the kitchen had been lavished…. Rainbow was a Jekyll and Hyde…. It was in the nature of its life that it should be so.
The old gentleman paced stiffly to his banking office, retired to his private room where hung the oil portrait of his father, and closed the door after him. Before his desk he sat inactive, hands in lap, eyes fixed upon the clean blotting pad. Once, twice, in indecision, he reached toward a small, locked drawer, but as often withdrew his hand and shook his head…. In that little drawer were five photographs of his daughter Kate, the first in infancy, the last in young womanhood. He looked at them almost never. To-day he did not look at them, but resolutely set his hands to the work which called him, putting from his thoughts that which had been and that which might have been—and could never be….
Angus Burke, uninformed of the plans being made for him by others, sat in Dave Wilkins’s chair in Dave Wilkins’s room. He was busy. Even the few months of his man-life had altered him; at once he looked younger and more mature; he looked less phlegmatic and more determined. His face was not less heavy to a first glance, but a second made one grasp after the elusive wraith of a new expression—one which was there, yet vanished under the eye…. Presently he arose, put on his hat, and walked to the hotel for supper. He had taken to going to the hotel after deliberation. After the meal he went to see Dave Wilkins, whom he found, blanket-wrapped, in the Brownings’ parlor.
“Well,” said Dave happily, “I’m almost a man again to-day.”
“I’m—glad.” That was all. Dave’s eyes twinkled. After a few moments of silence he said quizzically, “I don’t calc’late you’d hazard a remark if I waited till midnight.”
Angus grinned. “There isn’t anything to say,” he said.
“Mr. Woodhouse was here to-day—talked about you…. He wants you to come to work for him.” Dave stated the fact suddenly and baldly and then waited to see what expression would alter Angus’s face. But Angus was the better waiter—nothing happened except that Angus waited. “I told him I’d ask you what you thought about it. What do you think?”
“The paper—” Angus began.
“I’ll be back in a month—and then you’ll be out of a job.”
This was true. Angus had never considered it before: When Dave came back he would be superfluous, a burden.
“There—there won’t be anything for me to do,” he said blankly.
“We could make something for you to do. You’re welcome, you’re wanted…. But here, Angus, is a chance, a greater chance than I can ever give you to make something of yourself…. And you would be near me.”
“Could I—keep on sleeping in—my old room over the shop?”
Dave turned away his head…. “That’s part of the bargain. You’ve got to promise to stay there—with me—or I sha’n’t let you go…. You’re my boy, Angus—my son!… Mr. Woodhouse can have your days—but we’ll sleep under the same roof.” The boy gulped and looked out of the window.
“I’ll go….” he said.
“I knew you would…. I’m glad.”
“But,” said Angus after a prolonged silence, “what will—everybody say? Won’t folks be afraid? In the bank? About their money—you know—about their money?”
“Don’t ever say a thing like that again,” said Dave fiercely.
“But—”
“If anybody hints at such a thing in your hearing, I don’t care who or when or where, and you don’t thrash him, I’ll thrash you. Remember that…. When you go to work for Mr. Woodhouse forget everything in your life but that—and me. Make up your mind you are the equal of everybody and better than most. Make up your mind to show ’em all. Climb! Climb higher than any of them. You’re a first-class man, Angus, so act as if you knew it. A show of confidence in yourself is half the battle. You do know it, don’t you?”
Again Angus hesitated. “Yes,” he said presently.
Dave changed the subject. “You’ve never told me how it was you came back to Rainbow? How did you know I was sick? Who told you?”
Angus did not know how to evade questions; indeed it was an art he never learned. His methods were always direct. Now he kept silence.
“I never could figure it out,” said Dave. “Nobody knew where you were but the Brownings and Mr. Woodhouse, and neither of them sent for you.”
“No,” said Angus.
“Who did, then?”
“It was—somebody else.”
Dave wrinkled his nose, as was his custom in moments of perplexity…. He began to understand dimly that something—some incomprehensible scruple—was holding the boy silent.
“Is it a secret?” he asked.
“Nobody said I shouldn’t tell.”
“I see…. Then, of course, you mustn’t tell. I shouldn’t have asked.”
At that instant Lydia Canfield, who had been reading quietly in the next room, hurled her book to the floor and rushed through the portières flushed, eyes snapping, in a rage.
“I did it,” she cried, “I did it…. So there! And I’d do it again.”
"Well…. We-ll….” said Dave.
“And nobody has to keep secrets for me. Nobody.”
“Now, now…. What’s the use setting the house afire?” asked Dave.
“I won’t be shielded. I won’t have him trying to shield me… or anybody else trying it. When I do anything I’m not afraid of the consequences. He needn’t think I’m ashamed of sending for him—or afraid, for I’m not.”
Angus was disconcerted, highly uncomfortable, and a little frightened. He did not know what to make of Lydia’s outburst, nor see wherein his transgression lay.
“I’m sure,” said Dave with mock stateliness, “that I’m under a weight of obligation to you for sending for Angus. It was the wise thing to do.”
“Of course I knew that,” she said. “Anybody with sense would. But I don’t want anybody protecting me—and you just understand that from now on, Angus Burke!” Whereat she flounced out of the room, leaving Angus aghast and Wilkins shaking with laughter. It was Angus’s first encounter with the incomprehensibility of woman’s temper.