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CHAPTER XVIII - CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS
I have said hard words of San Francisco; they must scarce be
literally understood (one cannot suppose the Israelites did
justice to the land of Pharaoh); and the city took a fine revenge
of me on my return. She had never worn a more becoming
guise; the sun shone, the air was lively, the people had flowers
in their button-holes and smiles upon their faces; and as I made
my way towards Jim's place of employment, with some very
black anxieties at heart, I seemed to myself a blot on the
surrounding gaiety.
My destination was in a by-street in a mean, rickety building;
"The Franklin H. Dodge Steam Printing Company" appeared
upon its front, and in characters of greater freshness, so as to
suggest recent conversion, the watch-cry, "White Labour Only."
In the office, in a dusty pen, Jim sat alone before a table. A
wretched change had overtaken him in clothes, body, and
bearing; he looked sick and shabby; he who had once rejoiced
in his day's employment, like a horse among pastures, now sat
staring on a column of accounts, idly chewing a pen, at times
heavily sighing, the picture of inefficiency and inattention. He
was sunk deep in a painful reverie; he neither saw nor heard
me; and I stood and watched him unobserved. I had a sudden
vain relenting. Repentance bludgeoned me. As I had predicted
to Nares, I stood and kicked myself. Here was I come home
again, my honour saved; there was my friend in want of rest,
nursing, and a generous diet; and I asked myself with Falstaff,
"What is in that word honour? what is that honour?" and, like
Falstaff, I told myself that it was air.
"Jim!" said I.
"Loudon!" he gasped, and jumped from his chair and stood
shaking.
The next moment I was over the barrier, and we were hand in
hand.
"My poor old man!" I cried.
"Thank God, you're home at last!" he gulped, and kept patting
my shoulder with his hand.
"I've no good news for you, Jim!" said I.
"You've come--that's the good news that I want," he replied.
"O, how I've longed for you, Loudon!"
"I couldn't do what you wrote me," I said, lowering my voice.
"The creditors have it all. I couldn't do it."
"Ssh!" returned Jim. "I was crazy when wrote. I could never
have looked Mamie in the face if we had done it. O, Loudon,
what a gift that woman is! You think you know something of
life: you just don't know anything. It's the GOODNESS of the
woman, it's a revelation!"
"That's all right," said I. "That's how I hoped to hear you, Jim."
"And so the Flying Scud was a fraud," he resumed. "I didn't
quite understand your letter, but I made out that."
"Fraud is a mild term for it," said I. "The creditors will never
believe what fools we were. And that reminds me," I
continued, rejoicing in the transition, "how about the
bankruptcy?"
"You were lucky to be out of that," answered Jim, shaking his
head; "you were lucky not to see the papers. The _Occidental_
called me a fifth-rate Kerbstone broker with water on the brain;
another said I was a tree-frog that had got into the same
meadow with Longhurst, and had blown myself out till I went
pop. It was rough on a man in his honeymoon; so was what
they said about my looks, and what I had on, and the way I
perspired. But I braced myself up with the Flying Scud. How
did it exactly figure out anyway? I don't seem to catch on to
that story, Loudon."
"The devil you don't!" thinks I to myself; and then aloud: "You
see we had neither one of us good luck. I didn't do much more
than cover current expenses; and you got floored immediately.
How did we come to go so soon?"
"Well, we'll have to have a talk over all this," said Jim with a
sudden start. "I should be getting to my books; and I guess you
had better go up right away to Mamie. She's at Speedy's. She
expects you with impatience. She regards you in the light of a
favourite brother, Loudon."
Any scheme was welcome which allowed me to postpone the
hour of explanation, and avoid (were it only for a breathing
space) the topic of the Flying Scud. I hastened accordingly to
Bush Street. Mrs. Speedy, already rejoicing in the return of a
spouse, hailed me with acclamation. "And it's beautiful you're
looking, Mr. Dodd, my dear," she was kind enough to say.
"And a miracle they naygur waheenies let ye lave the oilands. I
have my suspicions of Shpeedy," she added, roguishly. "Did ye
see him after the naygresses now?"
I gave Speedy an unblemished character.
"The one of ye will niver bethray the other," said the playful
dame, and ushered me into a bare room, where Mamie sat
working a type-writer.
I was touched by the cordiality of her greeting. With the
prettiest gesture in the world she gave me both her hands;
wheeled forth a chair; and produced, from a cupboard, a tin of
my favourite tobacco, and a book of my exclusive cigarette
papers.
"There!" she cried; "you see, Mr. Loudon, we were all prepared
for you; the things were bought the very day you sailed."
I imagined she had always intended me a pleasant welcome;
but the certain fervour of sincerity, which I could not help
remarking, flowed from an unexpected source. Captain Nares,
with a kindness for which I can never be sufficiently grateful,
had stolen a moment from his occupations, driven to call on
Mamie, and drawn her a generous picture of my prowess at the
wreck. She was careful not to breathe a word of this interview,
till she had led me on to tell my adventures for myself.
"Ah! Captain Nares was better," she cried, when I had done.
"From your account, I have only learned one new thing, that
you are modest as well as brave."
I cannot tell with what sort of disclamation I sought to reply.
"It is of no use," said Mamie. "I know a hero. And when I
heard of you working all day like a common labourer, with
your hands bleeding and your nails broken--and how you told
the captain to 'crack on' (I think he said) in the storm, when he
was terrified himself--and the danger of that horrid mutiny"--
(Nares had been obligingly dipping his brush in earthquake
and eclipse)--"and how it was all done, in part at least, for Jim
and me--I felt we could never say how we admired and thanked
you."
"Mamie," I cried, "don't talk of thanks; it is not a word to be
used between friends. Jim and I have been prosperous
together; now we shall be poor together. We've done our best,
and that's all that need be said. The next thing is for me to find
a situation, and send you and Jim up country for a long holiday
in the redwoods--for a holiday Jim has got to have."
"Jim can't take your money, Mr. Loudon," said Mamie.
"Jim?" cried I. "He's got to. Didn't I take his?"
Presently after, Jim himself arrived, and before he had yet done
mopping his brow, he was at me with the accursed subject.
"Now, Loudon," said he, "here we are all together, the day's
work done and the evening before us; just start in with the
whole story."
"One word on business first," said I, speaking from the lips
outward, and meanwhile (in the private apartments of my
brain) trying for the thousandth time to find some plausible
arrangement of my story. "I want to have a notion how we
stand about the bankruptcy."
"O, that's ancient history," cried Jim. "We paid seven cents,
and a wonder we did as well. The receiver----" (methought a
spasm seized him at the name of this official, and he broke off).
"But it's all past and done with anyway; and what I want to get
at is the facts about the wreck. I don't seem to understand it;
appears to me like as there was something underneath."
"There was nothing IN it, anyway," I said, with a forced laugh.
"That's what I want to judge of," returned Jim.
"How the mischief is it I can never keep you to that
bankruptcy? It looks as if you avoided it," said I--for a man in
my situation, with unpardonable folly.
"Don't it look a little as if you were trying to avoid the wreck?"
asked Jim.
It was my own doing; there was no retreat. "My dear fellow, if
you make a point of it, here goes!" said I, and launched with
spurious gaiety into the current of my tale. I told it with point
and spirit; described the island and the wreck, mimicked
Anderson and the Chinese, maintained the suspense.... My pen
has stumbled on the fatal word. I maintained the suspense so
well that it was never relieved; and when I stopped--I dare not
say concluded, where there was no conclusion--I found Jim and
Mamie regarding me with surprise.
"Well?" said Jim.
"Well, that's all," said I.
"But how do you explain it?" he asked.
"I can't explain it," said I.
Mamie wagged her head ominously.
"But, great Caesar's ghost! the money was offered!" cried Jim.
"It won't do, Loudon; it's nonsense, on the face of it! I don't say
but what you and Nares did your best; I'm sure, of course, you
did; but I do say, you got fooled. I say the stuff is in that ship
to-day, and I say I mean to get it."
"There is nothing in the ship, I tell you, but old wood and iron!"
said I.
"You'll see," said Jim. "Next time I go myself. I'll take Mamie
for the trip; Longhurst won't refuse me the expense of a
schooner. You wait till I get the searching of her."
"But you can't search her!" cried I. "She's burned."
"Burned!" cried Mamie, starting a little from the attitude of
quiescent capacity in which she had hitherto sat to hear me, her
hands folded in her lap.
There was an appreciable pause.
"I beg your pardon, Loudon," began Jim at last, "but why in
snakes did you burn her?"
"It was an idea of Nares's," said I.
"This is certainly the strangest circumstance of all," observed
Mamie.
"I must say, Loudon, it does seem kind of unexpected," added
Jim. "It seems kind of crazy even. What did you--what did
Nares expect to gain by burning her?"
"I don't know; it didn't seem to matter; we had got all there was
to get," said I.
"That's the very point," cried Jim. "It was quite plain you
hadn't."
"What made you so sure?" asked Mamie.
"How can I tell you?" I cried. "We had been all through her.
We WERE sure; that's all that I can say."
"I begin to think you were," she returned, with a significant
emphasis.
Jim hurriedly intervened. "What I don't quite make out,
Loudon, is that you don't seem to appreciate the peculiarities of
the thing," said he. "It doesn't seem to have struck you same as
it does me."
"Pshaw! why go on with this?" cried Mamie, suddenly rising.
"Mr. Dodd is not telling us either what he thinks or what he
knows."
"Mamie!" cried Jim.
"You need not be concerned for his feelings, James; he is not
concerned for yours," returned the lady. "He dare not deny it,
besides. And this is not the first time he has practised
reticence. Have you forgotten that he knew the address, and
did not tell it you until that man had escaped?"
Jim turned to me pleadingly--we were all on our feet.
"Loudon," he said, "you see Mamie has some fancy; and I must
say there's just a sort of a shadow of an excuse; for it IS
bewildering--even to me, Loudon, with my trained business
intelligence. For God's sake, clear it up."
"This serves me right," said I. "I should not have tried to keep
you in the dark; I should have told you at first that I was
pledged to secrecy; I should have asked you to trust me in the
beginning. It is all I can do now. There is more of the story,
but it concerns none of us, and my tongue is tied. I have given
my word of honour. You must trust me and try to forgive me."
"I daresay I am very stupid, Mr. Dodd," began Mamie, with an
alarming sweetness, "but I thought you went upon this trip as
my husband's representative and with my husband's money?
You tell us now that you are pledged, but I should have thought
you were pledged first of all to James. You say it does not
concern us; we are poor people, and my husband is sick, and it
concerns us a great deal to understand how we come to have
lost our money, and why our representative comes back to us
with nothing. You ask that we should trust you; you do not
seem to understand; the question we are asking ourselves is
whether we have not trusted you too much."
"I do not ask you to trust me," I replied. "I ask Jim. He knows
me."
"You think you can do what you please with James; you trust to
his affection, do you not? And me, I suppose, you do not
consider," said Mamie. "But it was perhaps an unfortunate day
for you when we were married, for I at least am not blind. The
crew run away, the ship is sold for a great deal of money, you
know that man's address and you conceal it, you do not find
what you were sent to look for, and yet you burn the ship; and
now, when we ask explanations, you are pledged to secrecy!
But I am pledged to no such thing; I will not stand by in silence
and see my sick and ruined husband betrayed by his
condescending friend. I will give you the truth for once. Mr.
Dodd, you have been bought and sold."
"Mamie," cried Jim, "no more of this! It's me you're striking;
it's only me you hurt. You don't know, you cannot understand
these things. Why, to-day, if it hadn't been for Loudon, I
couldn't have looked you in the face. He saved my honesty."
"I have heard plenty of this talk before," she replied. "You are
a sweet-hearted fool, and I love you for it. But I am a clear-
headed woman; my eyes are open, and I understand this man's
hypocrisy. Did he not come here to-day and pretend he would
take a situation--pretend he would share his hard-earned wages
with us until you were well? Pretend! It makes me furious!
His wages! a share of his wages! That would have been your
pittance, that would have been your share of the Flying
Scud--you who worked and toiled for him when he was a
beggar in the streets of Paris. But we do not want your charity;
thank God, I can work for my own husband! See what it is to
have obliged a gentleman. He would let you pick him up when
he was begging; he would stand and look on, and let you black
his shoes, and sneer at you. For you were always sneering at
my James; you always looked down upon him in your heart,
you know it!" She turned back to Jim. "And now when he is
rich," she began, and then swooped again on me. "For you are
rich, I dare you to deny it; I defy you to look me in the face and
try to deny that you are rich--rich with our money--my
husband's money----"
Heaven knows to what a height she might have risen, being, by
this time, bodily whirled away in her own hurricane of words.
Heart-sickness, a black depression, a treacherous sympathy
with my assailant, pity unutterable for poor Jim, already filled,
divided, and abashed my spirit. Flight seemed the only
remedy; and making a private sign to Jim, as if to ask
permission, I slunk from the unequal field.
I was but a little way down the street, when I was arrested by
the sound of some one running, and Jim's voice calling me by
name. He had followed me with a letter which had been long
awaiting my return.
I took it in a dream. "This has been a devil of a business," said
I.
"Don't think hard of Mamie," he pleaded. "It's the way she's
made; it's her high-toned loyalty. And of course I know it's all
right. I know your sterling character; but you didn't, somehow,
make out to give us the thing straight, Loudon. Anybody might
have--I mean it--I mean----"
"Never mind what you mean, my poor Jim," said I. "She's a
gallant little woman and a loyal wife: and I thought her
splendid. My story was as fishy as the devil. I'll never think
the less of either her or you."
"It'll blow over; it must blow over," said he.
"It never can," I returned, sighing: "and don't you try to make
it! Don't name me, unless it's with an oath. And get home to
her right away. Good by, my best of friends. Good by, and
God bless you. We shall never meet again."
"O Loudon, that we should live to say such words!" he cried.
I had no views on life, beyond an occasional impulse to commit
suicide, or to get drunk, and drifted down the street, semi-
conscious, walking apparently on air, in the light-headedness of
grief. I had money in my pocket, whether mine or my creditors'
I had no means of guessing; and, the Poodle Dog lying in my
path, I went mechanically in and took a table. A waiter
attended me, and I suppose I gave my orders; for presently I
found myself, with a sudden return of consciousness, beginning
dinner. On the white cloth at my elbow lay the letter,
addressed in a clerk's hand, and bearing an English stamp and
the Edinburgh postmark. A bowl of bouillon and a glass of
wine awakened in one corner of my brain (where all the rest
was in mourning, the blinds down as for a funeral) a faint stir
of curiosity; and while I waited the next course, wondering the
while what I had ordered, I opened and began to read the epoch
-making document.
"DEAR SIR: I am charged with the melancholy duty of
announcing to you the death of your excellent grandfather, Mr.
Alexander Loudon, on the 17th ult. On Sunday the 13th, he
went to church as usual in the forenoon, and stopped on his
way home, at the corner of Princes Street, in one of our
seasonable east winds, to talk with an old friend. The same
evening acute bronchitis declared itself; from the first, Dr.
M'Combie anticipated a fatal result, and the old gentleman
appeared to have no illusion as to his own state. He repeatedly
assured me it was 'by' with him now; 'and high time, too,' he
once added with characteristic asperity. He was not in the least
changed on the approach of death: only (what I am sure must
be very grateful to your feelings) he seemed to think and speak
even more kindly than usual of yourself: referring to you as
'Jeannie's yin,' with strong expressions of regard. 'He was the
only one I ever liket of the hale jing-bang,' was one of his
expressions; and you will be glad to know that he dwelt
particularly on the dutiful respect you had always displayed in
your relations. The small codicil, by which he bequeaths you
his Molesworth and other professional works, was added (you
will observe) on the day before his death; so that you were in
his thoughts until the end. I should say that, though rather a
trying patient, he was most tenderly nursed by your uncle, and
your cousin, Miss Euphemia. I enclose a copy of the testament,
by which you will see that you share equally with Mr. Adam,
and that I hold at your disposal a sum nearly approaching
seventeen thousand pounds. I beg to congratulate you on this
considerable acquisition, and expect your orders, to which I
shall hasten to give my best attention. Thinking that you might
desire to return at once to this country, and not knowing how
you may be placed, I enclose a credit for six hundred pounds.
Please sign the accompanying slip, and let me have it at your
earliest convenience.
"I am, dear sir, yours truly,
"W. RUTHERFORD GREGG."
"God bless the old gentleman!" I thought; "and for that matter
God bless Uncle Adam! and my cousin Euphemia! and Mr.
Gregg!" I had a vision of that grey old life now brought to an
end--"and high time too"--a vision of those Sabbath streets
alternately vacant and filled with silent people; of the babel of
the bells, the long-drawn psalmody, the shrewd sting of the
east wind, the hollow, echoing, dreary house to which "Ecky"
had returned with the hand of death already on his shoulder; a
vision, too, of the long, rough country lad, perhaps a serious
courtier of the lasses in the hawthorn den, perhaps a rustic
dancer on the green, who had first earned and answered to that
harsh diminutive. And I asked myself if, on the whole, poor
Ecky had succeeded in life; if the last state of that man were not
on the whole worse than the first; and the house in Randolph
Crescent a less admirable dwelling than the hamlet where he
saw the day and grew to manhood. Here was a consolatory
thought for one who was himself a failure.
Yes, I declare the word came in my mind; and all the while, in
another partition of the brain, I was glowing and singing for my
new-found opulence. The pile of gold--four thousand two
hundred and fifty double eagles, seventeen thousand ugly
sovereigns, twenty-one thousand two hundred and fifty
Napoleons--danced, and rang and ran molten, and lit up life
with their effulgence, in the eye of fancy. Here were all things
made plain to me: Paradise--Paris, I mean--Regained, Carthew
protected, Jim restored, the creditors...
"The creditors!" I repeated, and sank back benumbed. It was all
theirs to the last farthing: my grandfather had died too soon to
save me.
I must have somewhere a rare vein of decision. In that
revolutionary moment, I found myself prepared for all extremes
except the one: ready to do anything, or to go anywhere, so
long as I might save my money. At the worst, there was flight,
flight to some of those blest countries where the serpent,
extradition, has not yet entered in.
On no condition is extradition
Allowed in Callao!
--the old lawless words haunted me; and I saw myself hugging
my gold in the company of such men as had once made and
sung them, in the rude and bloody wharfside drinking-shops of
Chili and Peru. The run of my ill-luck, the breach of my old
friendship, this bubble fortune flaunted for a moment in my
eyes and snatched again, had made me desperate and (in the
expressive vulgarism) ugly. To drink vile spirits among vile
companions by the flare of a pine-torch; to go burthened with
my furtive treasure in a belt; to fight for it knife in hand, rolling
on a clay floor; to flee perpetually in fresh ships and to be
chased through the sea from isle to isle, seemed, in my then
frame of mind, a welcome series of events.
That was for the worst; but it began to dawn slowly on my
mind that there was yet a possible better. Once escaped, once
safe in Callao, I might approach my creditors with a good
grace; and properly handled by a cunning agent, it was just
possible they might accept some easy composition. The hope
recalled me to the bankruptcy. It was strange, I reflected: often
as I had questioned Jim, he had never obliged me with an
answer. In his haste for news about the wreck, my own no less
legitimate curiosity had gone disappointed. Hateful as the
thought was to me, I must return at once and find out where I
stood.
I left my dinner still unfinished, paying for the whole, of
course, and tossing the waiter a gold piece. I was reckless; I
knew not what was mine and cared not: I must take what I
could get and give as I was able; to rob and to squander
seemed the complementary parts of my new destiny. I walked
up Bush Street, whistling, brazening myself to confront Mamie
in the first place, and the world at large and a certain visionary
judge upon a bench in the second. Just outside, I stopped and
lighted a cigar to give me greater countenance; and puffing this
and wearing what (I am sure) was a wretched assumption of
braggadocio, I reappeared on the scene of my disgrace.
My friend and his wife were finishing a poor meal--rags of old
mutton, the remainder cakes from breakfast eaten cold, and a
starveling pot of coffee.
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Pinkerton," said I. "Sorry to inflict my
presence where it cannot be desired; but there is a piece of
business necessary to be discussed."
"Pray do not consider me," said Mamie, rising, and she sailed
into the adjoining bedroom.
Jim watched her go and shook his head; he looked miserably
old and ill.
"What is it, now?" he asked.
"Perhaps you remember you answered none of my questions,"
said I.
"Your questions?" faltered Jim.
"Even so, Jim. My questions," I repeated. "I put questions as
well as yourself; and however little I may have satisfied Mamie
with my answers, I beg to remind you that you gave me none at
all."
"You mean about the bankruptcy?" asked Jim.
I nodded.
He writhed in his chair. "The straight truth is, I was ashamed,"
he said. "I was trying to dodge you. I've been playing fast and
loose with you, Loudon; I've deceived you from the first, I
blush to own it. And here you came home and put the very
question I was fearing. Why did we bust so soon? Your keen
business eye had not deceived you. That's the point, that's my
shame; that's what killed me this afternoon when Mamie was
treating you so, and my conscience was telling me all the time,
Thou art the man."
"What was it, Jim?" I asked.
"What I had been at all the time, Loudon," he wailed; "and I
don't know how I'm to look you in the face and say it, after my
duplicity. It was stocks," he added in a whisper.
"And you were afraid to tell me that!" I cried. "You poor, old,
cheerless dreamer! what would it matter what you did or didn't?
Can't you see we're doomed? And anyway, that's not my point.
It's how I stand that I want to know. There is a particular
reason. Am I clear? Have I a certificate, or what have I to do
to get one? And when will it be dated? You can't think what
hangs by it!"
"That's the worst of all," said Jim, like a man in a dream, "I
can't see how to tell him!"
"What do you mean?" I cried, a small pang of terror at my
heart.
"I'm afraid I sacrificed you, Loudon," he said, looking at me
pitifully.
"Sacrificed me?" I repeated. "How? What do you mean by
sacrifice?"
"I know it'll shock your delicate self-respect," he said; "but
what was I to do? Things looked so bad. The receiver----" (as
usual, the name stuck in his throat, and he began afresh).
"There was a lot of talk; the reporters were after me already;
there was the trouble and all about the Mexican business; and I
got scared right out, and I guess I lost my head. You weren't
there, you see, and that was my temptation."
I did not know how long he might thus beat about the bush
with dreadful hintings, and I was already beside myself with
terror. What had he done? I saw he had been tempted; I knew
from his letters that he was in no condition to resist. How had
he sacrificed the absent?
"Jim," I said, "you must speak right out. I've got all that I can
carry."
"Well," he said--"I know it was a liberty--I made it out you
were no business man, only a stone-broke painter; that half the
time you didn't know anything anyway, particularly money and
accounts. I said you never could be got to understand whose
was whose. I had to say that because of some entries in the
books----"
"For God's sake," I cried, "put me out of this agony! What did
you accuse me of?"
"Accuse you of?" repeated Jim. "Of what I'm telling you. And
there being no deed of partnership, I made out you were only a
kind of clerk that I called a partner just to give you taffy; and so
I got you ranked a creditor on the estate for your wages and the
money you had lent. And----"
I believe I reeled. "A creditor!" I roared; "a creditor! I'm not in
the bankruptcy at all?"
"No," said Jim. "I know it was a liberty----"
"O, damn your liberty! read that," I cried, dashing the letter
before him on the table, "and call in your wife, and be done
with eating this truck "--as I spoke, I slung the cold mutton in
the empty grate--"and let's all go and have a champagne
supper. I've dined--I'm sure I don't remember what I had; I'd
dine again ten scores of times upon a night like this. Read it,
you blaying ass! I'm not insane. Here, Mamie," I continued,
opening the bedroom door, "come out and make it up with me,
and go and kiss your husband; and I'll tell you what, after the
supper, let's go to some place where there's a band, and I'll
waltz with you till sunrise."
"What does it all mean?" cried Jim.
"It means we have a champagne supper to-night, and all go to
Napa Valley or to Monterey to-morrow," said I. "Mamie, go
and get your things on; and you, Jim, sit down right where you
are, take a sheet of paper, and tell Franklin Dodge to go to
Texas. Mamie, you were right, my dear; I was rich all the time,
and didn't know it."
Content of CHAPTER XVIII - CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS [Robert Louis Stevenson's novel: The Wrecker]
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