Money Magic: A Novel
"But what can you expect of a girl brought up in a pigsty. Her mother was mistress of a little miners' hotel in Junction City, Allen says, and the girl boasts of it."
Mrs. Congdon smiled. "I'm dying to talk with her. She's far and away the most interesting of our newly rich, and I like her face. Frank has called, you know?"
"Has he?"
"On business, of course. She has decided to have him paint her husband's picture. She's taken her first step upward, you see."
"I should think she'd be content to have her saloon-keeper husband's face fade out of her memory."
"Frank is enthusiastic. I'm not a bit sure that he didn't suggest the portrait. He is shameless when he takes a fancy to a face. He's wild to paint them both and call it 'The Lion Tamer and the Lion.' He considers Haney a great character. It seems he saw him in Cripple Creek once, and was vastly taken by his pose. His being old and sad now – his face is one of the saddest I ever saw – makes it all the more interesting to Frank. So I'm going to call – in fact, we're going to lunch there soon."
"Oh, well, yes. You artists can do anything, and it's all right. You must come over immediately afterwards and tell me all about it, won't you?"
At this Mrs. Congdon laughed, but, being of generous mind, consented.
Crego was right. Bertha had not yet begun to take on trouble about her social position. She had carried to her big house in the Springs all the ideas and usages of Sibley Junction – that was all. She acknowledged her obligations as a householder, carrying forward the New England democratic traditions. To be next door made any one a neighbor, with the right to run in to inspect your house and furniture and to give advice. The fact that near-at-hand residents did not avail themselves of this privilege troubled her very little at first, so busy was she with her own affairs; but it was inevitable that the talk of her mother's church associates should sooner or later open her eyes to the truth that the distinctions which she had read about as existing in New York and Chicago were present in her own little city. "Mrs. Crego and her set are too stuck up to associate with common folks," was the form in which the revelation came to her.
From one loose-tongued sister she learned, also, that she and the Captain were subjects of earnest prayer in the sewing-circle, and that her husband's Catholicism was a source of deep anxiety, not to say proselyting hostility, on the part of the pastor and his wife, while from another of these officious souls she learned that the Springs, beautiful as it was, so sunlit, so pure of air, was a centre of marital infelicity, wherein the devil reigned supreme.
Her mother's pastor called, and was very outspoken as to Mart and Charles – both of whom needed the Lord's grace badly. He expressed great concern for Bertha's spiritual welfare, and openly prayed for her husband, whose nominal submission to the Catholic Church seemed not merely blindness to his own sin, but a danger to the young wife.
Haney, however, though wounded and suffering, was still a lion in resolution, and his glance checked the exhortation which the minister one day nerved himself to utter. "I do not interfere with any man's faith," said he, "and I do not intend to be put to school by you nor any other livin'. I was raised a Catholic, and for the sake of me mother I call meself wan to this day, and as I am so I shall die." And the finality of his voice won him freedom from further molestation.
Bertha's concern for her creed was hardly more poignant than Haney's, and they never argued; but she did begin to give puzzled thought to the social complications which opened out day by day before her. Charles, embittered by his failures, enlightened her still more profoundly. He had a certain shrewdness of comment at times which bit. "Wouldn't it jar you," said he one day, "to see this little town sporting a 'Smart Set' and quoting Town Topics like a Bible? Why, some of these dinky little two-spot four-flushers draw the line on me because I'm an actor! What d'ye think o' that? I don't mind your Methodist sistern walking wide of me, but it's another punch when these dubs who are smoking my cigars at the club fail to invite me to their houses."
Bertha looked at him reflectively throughout this speech, putting a different interpretation on the neglect he complained of. She had gone beyond disliking him, she despised him (for he was growing bolder each day in his addresses), and took every precaution that he should not be alone with her; and she rose one morning with the determination to tell Mart that she would not endure his brother's presence another day. But his pleasure in Charles' company was too genuine to be disturbed, and so she endured.
The actor's talk was largely concerned with the scandal-mongery of the town, and very soon the young wife knew that Mrs. May, whose husband was "in the last stages," was in love with young Mr. June, and that Mr. Frost, whose wife was "weakly," was going about shamelessly with Miss Bloom, and all this comment came to her ears freighted with its worst significance. Vile suggestion dripped from Charles Haney's reckless tongue.
This was deep-laid policy with him. His purpose was to undermine her loyalty as a wife. His approaches had no charm, no finesse. Presuming on his relationship, he caught at her hand as she passed, or took a seat beside her if he found her alone on a sofa. At such moments she was furious with him, and once she struck his hand away with such violence that she suffered acute pain for several hours afterwards.
His attentions – which were almost assaults – came at last to destroy a large part of her joy in her new home. Her drives, when he sat beside her, were a torture, and yet she could not bring herself to accuse him before the crippled man, who really suffered from loneliness whenever she was out of the house or busy in her household work. He had never been given to reading, and was therefore pathetically dependent upon conversation for news and amusement. He was much at home, too, for his maiming was still so fresh upon him that he shrank from exhibiting himself on the street or at the clubs (there are no saloons in the Springs). Crego, whom he liked exceedingly, was very busy, and Williams was away at the mines for the most part, and so, in spite of Bertha's care, he often sat alone on the porch, a pitiful shadow of the man who paid court to the clerk of the Golden Eagle.
Sometimes he followed the women around the house like a dog, watching them at their dusting and polishing. "You'll strain yourself, Captain," Bertha warningly cried out whenever he laid hold of a chair or brush. And so each time he went back to his library to smoke, and wait until his wife's duties were ended. At such hours his brother was a comfort. He was not a fastidious man, even with the refinement which had come from his sickness and his marriage, and the actor (so long as he cast no imputations on any friend) could talk as freely as he pleased.
Slowly, day by day, Charles regained Mart's interest and a measure of his confidence. Having learned what to avoid and what to emphasize, he now deplored the drink habits of his brothers, and gently suggested that the old father needed help. They played cards occasionally during such times as household cares drew Bertha away, and held much discussion of mines and mining – though here Mart was singularly reticent, and afforded little information about his own affairs. His trust in Charles did not go so far as that. With Crego, however, he freely discussed his condition, for the lawyer had written his new will, and was in possession of it.
"I'm like a battered old tin can," he said once. "Did ye ever try to put a tin can back into shape? Ye cannot. If ye push it back here, it bulges there. The doctors are tryin' hard to take the kinks out o' me, but 'tis impossible – I see that – but I may live on for a long time. Already me mind misgives me about Bertie – she's too young to be tied up to a shoulder-shotten old plug like mesilf."
To this Crego soothingly responded. "I don't think you need to worry. She's as happy as a blackbird in spring."
Once he said to Bertha: "I niver intended to limp around like this. I niver thought to be the skate I am this day," and his despondency darkened his face as he spoke. "I could not blame you if you threw me out. I'm only a big nuisance."
"You will be if you talk like that," she briskly answered, and that is all she seemed to make of his protest. She had indeed been reared in an atmosphere of loyalty to marriage as well as of chastity, and she never for a moment considered her vows weakened by her husband's broken frame.
This fidelity Charles discovered to his own confusion one night as he came home inflamed by liquor and reckless of hand, to find her sitting alone in the library writing a letter. It was not late, but Mart, feeling tired, had gone to bed, and Mrs. Gilman was in Sibley.
Bertha looked up as he entered, and without observing that he was drunk, went on with her writing, which was ever a painful ceremony with her. Dropping his coat where he stood, and with his hat awry on the red globe of his head, the dastard staggered towards her, his eyes lit with a glare of reckless desire.
"Say," he began, "this is luck. I want 'o talk with you, Bertie. I want 'o find out why you run away from me? What's the matter with me, anyhow?"
She realized now the foul, satyr-like mood of the man, and sprang up tense and strong, silently confronting him.
He mumbled with a grin: "You're a peach! What's the matter? Why don't you like me? Ain't I all right? I'm a gentleman."
His words were babble, but the look in his eyes, the loose slaver of his lips, both scared and angered her, and as he pushed against her, clumsily trying to hook his arm about her waist, she struck him sharply with the full weight of her arm and shoulder, and he tottered and fell sprawling. With a curse in his teeth he caught at a chair, recovered his balance, and faced her with a look of fury that would have appalled one less experienced than she.
"You little fool," he snarled, "don't you do that again!"
"Stop!" She did not lift her voice, but the word arrested him. "Do you want to die?" The word die pierced the mist of his madness. "What do you think Mart will say to this?"
He shivered and grew pale under the force of his brother's name uttered in that tone. He began to melt, subsiding into a jelly-mass of fear.
"Don't tell Mart, for Christ's sake! I didn't mean nothing. Don't do it, I beg – I beg!"
She looked at him and seemed to grow in years as she searched his wretched body for its soul. "If you don't pull out of this house to-morrow I'll let him know just the kind of dead-head boarder you are. You haven't fooled me any – not for a minute. I've put up with you for his sake, but to-night settles it. You go! I've stood a lot from you, but your meal-ticket is no good after to-morrow morning – you sabe? It's you to the outside to-morrow. Now get out, or I call Mart."
He turned and shuffled from the room, leaving his battered hat at her feet.
She waited till she heard him close his door; then, with a look of disgust on her face, picked up his hat and coat, and hung them on the rack in the hall. "I'm sorry for Mart," she said to herself. "He was company for him, but I can't stand the loafer a day longer. I hope I never see him again."
He did not get down to breakfast, and for this she was glad; but he sought opportunity a little later to plead for clemency. "Give me another chance. I was drunk. I didn't mean it."
She remained inexorable. "Not for a second," she succinctly replied. "I don't care how you fix it with Mart. Smooth it up as best you can, but fly this coop." And her face expressed such contempt that he crept away, flabby and faltering, to his brother.
"I've been telegraphed for, and must go," he said. "And, by the way, I need a little ready mon to carry me to the little old town. As soon as I get to work I'll send you a check."
Mart handed him the money in silence, and waited till he had folded and put away the bills. Then he said: "Charles, you was always the smart one of the family, and ye'd be all right now if ye'd pass the booze and get down to hard work. It's time ye were off, for ye've done nothin' but loaf and drink here. I've enjoyed your talk – part of the time; but I can see ye'd grow onto me here like a wart, and that's bad for you and bad for me, and so I'm glad ye're going."
"Can't you – " He was going to ask for a position – something easy with big pay – when he saw that such a request would make his telegram a lie.
As he hesitated Mart continued: "No, I'll back no play for ye. I'm a gambler, but I take no chances of that kind. If you see the old father, write and tell me how he is."
Charles, though filled with rising fury, was sober enough to know in what danger he stood, and forcing a smile to his face, shook hands and went out to his carriage – alone.
As Mart met Bertha a few minutes later he remarked, with calm directness: "There goes a cheap rounder and a sponge. I've been a gambler and a saloon-keeper, but I never got the notion that I could live without doin' something. Charles was a smart lad, but the divil has him by the neck, and to give money is to give him drink."
Bertha remained silent, her own indictment was so much more severe.
CHAPTER VIII
BERTHA RECEIVES AN INVITATION
Colorado Springs lies in a shallow valley, under a genial sun, at almost the exact level of the summit of Mt. Washington. From the railway train, as it crawls over the hills to the east, it looks like a toy village, but is, in fact, a busy little city. To ride along its wide and leafy streets in summer, to breathe its crystalline airs in winter, is to lose belief in the necessity of disease. The grave seems afar off.
And yet it was built, and is now supported, by those who, fearing death, fled the lower, miasmatic levels of the world, and who, having abandoned all hope (or desire) of return, are loyally developing and adorning their adopted home. These fugitives are for the most part contented exiles – men as well as women – who have come to enjoy their enforced stay here beside the peaks; and their devotion to the town and its surroundings is unmistakably sincere, for they believe that the climate and the water have prolonged their lives.
Not all even of these seekers for health are ill, or even weakly, at present; on the contrary, many of them are stalwart hands at golf, and others are seasoned horsemen. In addition to those who are resident in their own behalf are many husbands attendant upon ailing wives, and blooming wives called to the care of weazened and querulous husbands, and parents who came bringing a son or daughter on whom the pale shadow of the White Death had fallen. But, after all, these Easterners color but they do not dominate the life of the town, which is a market-place for a wide region, and a place of comfort for well-to-do miners. It is, also, a Western town, with all a Western town's customary activities, and the traveller would hardly know it for a health resort, so cheerful and lively is the aspect of its streets, where everything denotes comfort and content.
In addition to the elements denoted above, it is also taken to be a desirable social centre and a charming place of residence for men like Marshall Haney, who, having made their pile in the mountain camps, have a reasonable desire to put their gold in evidence – "to get some good of their dust," as Williams might say. Here and there along the principal avenues are luxurious homes – absurdly pretentious in some instances – which are pointed out to visitors as the residences of the big miners. They are especially given to good horses also, and ride or drive industriously, mixing very little with the more cultured and sophisticated of their neighbors, for whom they furnish a never-ending comedy of manners. "A beautiful mixture for a novelist," Congdon often said.
Yes, the town has its restricted "Smart Set," in imitation of New York city, and its literary and artistic groups (small, of course), and its staid circle of wealth and privilege, and within defined limits and at certain formal civic functions these various elements meet and interfuse genially if not sincerely. However, the bitter fact remains that the microcosm is already divided into classes and masses in a way which would be humorous if it were not so deeply significant of a deplorable change in American life. Squire Crego, in discussing this very matter with Frank Congdon, the portrait-painter, put it thus: "This division of interest is inevitable. What can you do? The wife of the man who cobbles my shoes or the daughter of the grocer who supplies my sugar is, in the eyes of God, undoubtedly of the same value as my own wife, but they don't interest me. As a social democrat, I may wish sincerely to do them good, but, confound it, to wish to do them good is an impertinence. And when I've tried to bring these elements together in my house I have always failed. Mrs. Crego, while being most gracious and cordial, has, nevertheless, managed to make the upholsterer chilly, and to freeze the grocer's wife entirely out of the picture."
"There's one comfort: it isn't a matter of money. If it were, where would the Congdons be?"
"No, it isn't really a matter of money, and in a certain sense it isn't a matter of brains. It's a question of – "
"Savoir faire."
"Precisely. You haven't a cent, so you say frequently – " Congdon stopped him, gravely.
"I owe you fifty – I was just going down into my jeans to pay it, when I suddenly recalled – "
"Don't interrupt the court. You haven't a cent, we'll say, but you go everywhere and are welcome. Why?"
"That's just it. Why? If you really want to know, I'll tell you. It's all on account of Lee. Lee is a mighty smart girl. She has a cinch on the gray matter of this family."
"You do yourself an injustice."
"Thank you."
Crego pursued his argument. "There isn't any place that a man of your type can't go if you want to, because you take something with you. You mix. And Haney, for example – to return to the concrete again – Haney would make a most interesting guest at one's dinner-table, but the wife, clever as she is, is impossible – or, at least, Mrs. Crego thinks she is."
Congdon fixed a finger pistol-wise and impressively said: "That little Mrs. Haney is a wonder. Don't make any mistake about her. She'll climb."
"I'm not making the mistake, it's Mrs. Crego. I've asked her to call on the girl, but she evades the issue by asking: 'What's the use? Her interests are not ours, and I don't intend to cultivate her as a freak.' So there we stand."
Congdon looked thoughtful. "She may be right, but I don't think so. The girl interests me, because I think I see in her great possibilities."
"Her abilities certainly are remarkable. She needs but one statement of a point in law. She seems never to forget a word I say. Sometimes this realization is embarrassing. When she fixes those big wistful eyes on me I feel bound to give her my choicest diction and my soundest judgments. Haney, too, for all his wild career, attaches my sympathy. You're painting his portrait – why don't you and Lee give them a dinner?"
"Good thought! I told Lee this morning that it was a shame to draw the line on that little girl just because that rotten, bad brother-in-law of hers was base enough to slur her at the club. But, as you say, women can't be driv. However, I think Lee can manage a dinner if anybody can. As you say, we're only artists, and artists can do anything – except borrow money. However, if you want to know, Lee says that this barber lover of Mrs. Haney's has done more to queer her with our set than anything else. They think her tastes are low."
"That incident is easily explained. Winchell knew her in Sibley, and though he has undoubtedly followed her over here for love of her, he seems a decent fellow, and I don't believe intends any harm. I will admit her stopping outside his door to talk with him was unconventional, but I can't believe that she was aware of any impropriety in the act. Nevertheless, that did settle the matter with Helen. 'You can dine with them any day if you wish,' she says, 'but – ' And there the argument rests."
"Of course, you and I can put the matter on a basis of trade courtesy," said Congdon; "but I confess they interest me enormously, and I would like to do them some little favor for their own sakes. Poor Haney will never be more of a man than he is to-day, and that little girl is going to earn all the money she gets before she is done with him."
And so they parted, and Congdon went home to renew the discussion with his wife. "You must call. It's only the decent thing to do, now that the portrait is nearly done," he said.
"I don't mind the calling, Frank," she briskly replied, "and I don't much mind giving a little dinner, but I don't want to get the girl on my mind. She has so much to learn, and I haven't the time nor energy to teach her."
Congdon waved his finger. "Don't you grow pale over that," said he. "That girl's no fool – she's capable of development. She will amaze you yet."
"Well, consider it settled. I'll call this afternoon and ask her to dinner; but don't expect me to advise her and follow her up. Now, who'll we ask to meet her – the Cregos?"
"Yes, I'd thought of them."
"Oh, I know all about it. You needn't stammer. You and Allen are getting a good deal out of the Haneys, and want to be decent in return. Well, I think well of you for it, and I'll do my mite. I'll have young Fordyce in, and Alice; being Quakers and 'plain people,' they won't mind. Ben is crazy to see the rough side of Western life, anyway. Now run away, little boy, and leave the whole business to me."
As Crego had said, the Congdons were privileged characters in the Springs. They were at once haughty with the pride of esthetic cleverness, and humble with the sense of their unworthiness in the wide old-world of art. Lee was contemptuous of wealth when they had a pot of beans in the house, and Frank was imperiously truculent when borrowing ten dollars from a friend or demanding an advance of cash from a prospective patron. They both came of long lines of native American ancestry, and not only felt themselves as good as anybody, but a little better than most. They gave wit for champagne, art instruction for automobile rides, and never-failing good humor for house-room and the blazing fires of roomy hearths.
Mrs. Congdon, of direct Virginian ancestry, was named Lee by a state's-rights mother, who sent her abroad to "study art." She ended by pretending to be a sculptor – and she still did occasionally model a figurine of her friends or her friends' babies; mainly, she was the aider and abettor of her husband, a really clever portrait-painter, whose ill health had driven him from New York to Colorado, and who was making a precarious living in the Springs – precarious for the reason that on bright days he would rather play golf than handle a brush, and on dark days he couldn't see to paint (so he said). In truth, he was not well, and his slender store of strength did not permit him to do as he would. To cover the real seriousness of his case he loudly admitted his laziness and incompetency.
Lee was a devoted wife, and when she realized that his interest in the Haneys was deep and genuine her slight opposition gave way. It meant a couple of thousand dollars to Frank, but money was the least of their troubles – credit seemed to come along when they needed it most, and each of them had become "trustful to the point of idiocy," Mrs. Crego was accustomed to say. Mrs. Crego really took charge of their affairs, and when they needed food helped them to it.
Starting for the Haneys on the street-car that very afternoon, Lee reached the gate just as Bertie was helping Mart into his carriage. There was something so genuine and so touching in this picture of the slender young wife supporting her big and crippled husband that Mrs. Congdon's nerves thrilled and her face softened. Plainly this consideration on the part of Mrs. Haney was habitual and ungrudging.
Bertie, as she faced her caller, saw only a pale little woman with flashing eyes and smiling mouth, whose dress was as neat as a man's and almost as plain (Lee prided herself on not being "artistic" in dress), and so waited for further information.