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From the Housetops, a novel by George Barr McCutcheon |
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Chapter 30 |
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_ CHAPTER XXX Anne's strictest injunction to Simmy Dodge bore upon the anonymity of the contributions to the various specified charities. Huge sums were to be delivered at stated intervals, covering a period of six months. At the end of that period she would have contributed the whole of her fortune to charity and, through its agencies, to humanity. The only obligation demanded in return from any of these organisations was a pledge of secrecy, and from this pledge there was to be no release until such time as the donor herself announced her willingness to make public the nature and extent of her benefactions. It was this desire to avoid publicity that appealed most strongly to Thorpe. As for poor Simmy,—he could not understand it at all. Grimly, Anne's lover refused to interfere with her plans. He went about his work from that day on, however, with a feverish eagerness and zest, and an exaltation that frequently lifted him to a sort of glory that he could neither define nor deny. There were moments when he slipped far back into the depths, and cursed himself for rejoicing in the sacrifice she was apparently so willing to make. And at such times he found that he had to resist an impulse that was almost overwhelming in its force: the impulse to rush down to her and cry out that the sacrifice was not necessary! Mrs. Tresslyn came to see him shortly after Anne's return to the city. She was humble. When she was announced, he prepared himself for a bitter scene. But she was not bitter, she was not furious; on the contrary, she was gentler than he had ever known her to be. "If you do not take her now, Braden," she said in the course of their brief interview, "I do not know what will become of her. I blame myself for everything, of course. It was I who allowed her to go into that unhappy business of getting Mr. Thorpe's money, and I _am_ to blame. I should have allowed her to marry you in the beginning. I should not have been deceived by the cleverness of your amiable grandfather. But, you see I counted on something better than this for her. I thought,—and she thought as well,—that she could one day have both you and the money. It is a pretty hard thing to say, isn't it? I saw her to-day. She is quite happy,—really it seems to me she was radiantly happy this morning. Simmy has arranged for the first instalment of five hundred thousand dollars to be paid over to-morrow. She herself has selected the securities that are to make up this initial payment. They are the best of the lot, Simmy tells me. In a few months she will be penniless. I don't know what is to become of her, Braden, if you do not take her when all this absurd business is over. You love her and she loves you. Both of you should hate me, but Anne, for one, does not. She is sorrier for me than she is for herself. Of course, you are to understand one thing, Braden." She lifted her chin proudly. "She may return to me at any time. My home is hers. She shall never want for anything that I am able to give her. She is my daughter and—well, you are to understand that I shall stand by her, no matter what she does. I have but one object in coming to see you to-day. I need not put it into words." A few days later Simmy came in, drooping. "Well, the first half-million is gone. Next month another five hundred thousand goes. I hope you are happy, Brady." "I hope Anne is happy," was all that Thorpe said in response. * * * * * No word came to him from Anne. She was as silent as the sphinx. Not a day passed that did not find him running eagerly,—hopefully,—through his mail, looking for the letter he hoped for and was sure that eventually she would write to him. But no letter came. The only news he had of her was obtained through Simmy, who kept him acquainted with the progress of his client's affairs, forgetting quite simply the admonition concerning secrecy. Thorpe virtually abandoned his visits to the home of the young Tresslyns. He had them out to dinner and the theatre occasionally. They talked quite freely with him about the all-important topic, and seemed not to be unhappy or unduly exercised over the step Anne had taken. In fact, George was bursting with pride in his sister. Apparently he had no other thought than that everything would turn out right and fair for her in the end. But the covert, anxious, analysing look in Lutie's eyes was always present and it was disconcerting. He avoided the little flat in which he had spent so many happy, and in a sense profitable hours, and they appreciated his reason for doing so. They kept their own counsel. He had no means of knowing that Anne Thorpe's visits were but little more frequent than his. Anne's silence, her persistent aloofness, began to irritate him at last. Weeks had passed since her return to the city and she had given no sign. He had long since ceased his sly pilgrimages to the neighbourhood of Washington Square. Now as the days grew shorter and the nights infinitely longer, he was conscious, first, of a distinct feeling of resentment toward her, and later on of an acute sense of uneasiness. The long, dreary hours of darkness fed him with reflections that kept him awake most of the night, and only his iron will held his hand and nerves steady during the days between the black seasons. The theatre palled on him, books failed to hold his attention, people annoyed him. He could not concentrate his thoughts on study; his mind was forever journeying. What was she doing? Every minute of the day he was asking that question of himself. It was in the printed pages of the books he read; it was on the lips of every lecturer he listened to; it was placarded on every inch of scenery in the theatre,—always: "Where is she to-night? What is she doing?" And then, at last, one cold, rainy night in late November he resumed his stealthy journeys to lower Fifth Avenue atop of the stage, protected by a thick ulster and hidden as well as he could be in the shelter of a rigidly grasped umbrella. Alighting in front of the Brevoort, he slunk rather than sauntered up the Avenue until he came to the cross-town street in which she lived,—in which he once had lived. It was a fair night for such an adventure as this. There were but few people abroad. The rain was falling steadily and there was a gusty wind. He had left his club at ten o'clock, and all the way down the Avenue he was alone on the upper deck of the stage. Afterwards he chuckled guiltily to himself as he recalled the odd stare with which the conductor favoured him when he jestingly inquired if there was "any room aloft." Walking down the street toward Sixth Avenue, he peered out from beneath the umbrella as he passed his grandfather's house across the way. There were lights downstairs. A solitary taxi-cab stood in front of the house. He quickened his pace. He did not want to charge himself with spying. A feeling of shame and mortification came over him as he hurried along; his face burned. He was not acting like a man, but as a love-sick, jealous school-boy would have behaved. And yet all the way up Sixth Avenue to Fifty-ninth Street,—he walked the entire distance,—he wondered why he had not waited to see who came forth from Anne's house to enter the taxi-cab. For a week he stubbornly resisted the desire to repeat the trip down-town. In the meantime, Simmy had developed into a most unsatisfactory informant. He suddenly revealed an astonishing streak of uncommunicativeness, totally unnatural in him and tantalising in the extreme. He rarely mentioned Anne's name and never discussed her movements. Thorpe was obliged to content himself with an occasional word from Lutie,—who was also painfully reticent,—and now and then a scrap of news in the society columns of the newspapers. Once he saw her in the theatre. She was with other people, all of whom he knew. One of them was Percy Wintermill. He began on that night to hate Wintermill. The scion of the Wintermill family sat next to Anne and there was nothing in his manner to indicate that he had resigned himself to defeat in the lists. If Anne saw him she did not betray the fact. He waited outside for a fairer glimpse of her as she left the theatre. What he saw at close range from his carefully chosen position was not calculated to relieve his mind. She appeared to be quite happy. There was nothing in her appearance or in her manner to indicate that she suffered,—and he _wanted_ her to suffer as he was suffering. That night he did not close his eyes. He had said to her that he would never marry her even though she gave up the money she had received from his grandfather, and she had said—how well he remembered!—that if George was worth thirty thousand dollars to Lutie, which was her _all_,—he was worth two millions to her, and her _all_. She was paying for him now, just as Lutie had paid for George, only in Lutie's case there was the assurance that the sacrifice would bring its own consolation and reward. Anne was going ahead blindly, trusting to an uncertainty. She had his word for it that the sacrifice would bring no reward through him, and yet she persisted in the vain enterprise. She had likened herself, in a sense, to Lutie, and now he was beginning to think of himself as he had once thought of George Tresslyn! He recalled his pitying scorn for the big, once useless boy during that long period of dog-like watchfulness over the comings and goings of the girl he loved. He had felt sorry for him and yet pleased with him. There was something admirable in the stubborn, drunken loyalty of George Tresslyn,—a loyalty that never wavered even though there was no such thing as hope ahead of him. As time went on, Thorpe, the sound, sober, indomitable Thorpe,—began to encourage himself with the thought that he too might sink to the extremities through which George had passed,—and be as simple and as firm in his weakness as the other had been! He too might stand in dark places and watch, he too might slink behind like a thing in the night. Only in his case the conditions would be reversed. He would be fighting conviction and not hope, for he knew he had but to walk into Anne's presence and speak,—and the suspense would be over. She was waiting for him. It was he who would have to surrender, not she. He fought desperately with himself; the longing to see her, to be near her, to test his vaunted self-control, never for an instant subsided. He fought the harder because he was always asking himself why he fought at all. Why should he not take what belonged to him? Why should he deny himself happiness when it was so much to be desired and so easy to obtain? But always when he was nearest to the breaking point, and the rush of feeling was at flood, there crept up beside him the shadow that threatened his very existence and hers. He had taken the life of her husband. He had no right to her. Down in his heart he knew that there was no moral ground for the position he took and from which he could not extricate himself. He had committed no crime. There had been no thought of himself in that solemn hour when he delivered his best friend out of bondage. Anne had no qualms, and he knew her to be a creature of fine feelings. She had always revolted against the unlovely aspects of life, and all this despite the claim she made that love would survive the most unholy of oppressions. What was it then that _he_ was afraid of? What was it that made him hold back while love tugged so violently, so persistently at his heart-strings? At times he had flashes of the thing that created the shadow, and it was then that he grasped, in a way, the true cause of his fears. Back of everything he realised there was the most uncanny of superstitions. He could not throw off the feeling that his grandfather, in his grave, still had his hand lifted against his marriage with Anne Tresslyn; that the grim, loving old man still regarded himself as a safeguard against the connivings of Anne! His common sense, of course, resisted this singular notion. He had but to recall his grandfather's praise of Anne just before he went to his death. Surely that signified an altered opinion of the girl, and no doubt there was in his heart during those last days of life, a very deep, if puzzled, admiration for her. And yet, despite the conviction that his grandfather, had he been pressed for a definite statement would have declared himself as being no longer opposed to his marriage with Anne, there still remained the fact that he had gone to his grave without a word to show that he regarded his experiment as a failure. And he had gone to his grave in a manner that left no room for doubt that his death was to stand always as an obstacle in the path of the lovers. There were times when Braden Thorpe could have cursed his grandfather for the cruel cunning to which he had resorted in the end. He could not free himself of the ridiculous, distorted and oft-recurring notion that his grandfather was watching him from beyond the grave, nor were all his scientific convictions sufficient to dispel the fear that men live after death and govern the destinies of those who remain. But through all of these vain struggles, his love for Anne grew stronger, more overpowering. He was hollow-eyed and gaunt, ravenous with the hunger of love. A spectre of his former self, he watched himself starve with sustenance at hand. Bountiful love lay within his grasp and yet he starved. Full, rich pastures spread out before him wherein he could roam to the end of his days, blissfully gorging himself,—and yet he starved. And Anne, who dwelt in those elysian pastures, was starving too! Once more he wavered and again he fell. He found himself at midnight standing at the corner above Anne's home, staring at the darkened unresponsive windows. Three nights passed before he resumed the hateful vigil. This time there were lights. And from that time on, he went almost nightly to the neighbourhood of Washington Square, regardless of weather or inconvenience. He saw her come and go, night after night, and he saw people enter the house to which he held a key,—always he saw from obscure points of vantage and with the stealth and caution of a malefactor. He came to realise in course of time that she was not at peace with herself, notwithstanding a certain assumption of spiritedness with which she fared into the world with others. At first he was deceived by appearances, but later on he knew that she was not the happy, interested creature she affected to be when adventuring forth in search of pleasure. He observed that she tripped lightly down the steps on leaving the house, and that she ascended them slowly, wearily, almost reluctantly on her return, far in the night. He invariably waited for the lights to appear in the shaded windows of her room upstairs, and then he would hurry away as if pursued. Once, after roaming the streets for two hours following her return to the house, he wended his way back to the spot from which he had last gazed at her windows. To his surprise the lights were still burning. After that he never left the neighbourhood until he saw that the windows were dark, and more often than otherwise the lights did not go out until two or three o'clock in the morning. The significance of these nightly indications of sleeplessness on her part did not escape him. Bitterly cold and blustering were some of the nights. He sought warmth and shelter from time to time in the near-by cafés, always returning to his post when the call became irresistible. It was his practice to go to the cheap and lowly cafés, places where he was not likely to be known despite his long residence in the community. He did not drink. It had, of course, occurred to him that he might find solace in resorting to the cup that cheers, but never for an instant was he tempted to do so. He was too strong for that! Curiosity led him one night to the restaurant of Josiah Wade. He did not enter, but stood outside peering through the window. It was late at night and old Wade was closing the place. A young woman whom Thorpe took to be his wife was chatting amiably with a stalwart youth near the cash register. He did not fail to observe the furtive, shifty glances that Wade shot out from under his bushy eyebrows in the direction of the couple. He knew, through Simmy, that the last of Templeton Thorpe's money would soon pass from Anne's hands. A million and a half was gone. The time for the last to go was rapidly approaching. She would soon be poorer than when she entered upon the infamous enterprise. There would still remain to her the house in which she lived. It was not a part of the purchase price. It was outside of the bargain she had made, and the right to sell it was forbidden her. But possesion of it was a liability rather than an asset. He wondered what she would do when it came down to the house in which she lived. Again and again he apostrophized himself as follows: "My God, what am I coming to? Is this madness? Am I as George Tresslyn was, am I no nobler than he? Or was he noble in spite of himself, and am I noble in the same sense? If I am mad with love, if I am weak and accursed by consequences, why should not she be weaker than I? She is a woman. I am—or was—a man. Why should I sink to such a state as this and she remain brave and strong and resolute? She keeps away from me, why should I not stay away from her? God knows I have tried to resist this thing that she resists, and what have I come to? A street loafer, a spy, a sneak, a dog without a master. She is doing a big thing, and I am doing the smallest thing that man can do. She loves me and longs for me and—Oh, what damned madness is it that brings me to loving her and longing for her and yet makes of me a thing so much less worthy than she?" And so on by the hour, day and night, he cursed himself with questions. * * * * * The end came swiftly, resistlessly. She paused at the bottom of the steps as the automobile slid off into the chill, windy night. For the first time in all his vigil, he noted the absence of the footman who always ran up the steps ahead of her to open the door. She was alone to-night. This had never happened before. Mystified, he saw her slowly ascend the steps and pause before the door. Her body drooped wearily. He waited long for her to press the electric button which had taken the place of the ancient knob that jangled the bell at the far end of the hall. But she remained motionless for what seemed to him an interminable time, and then, to his consternation, she leaned against the door and covered her face with her hands. A great weight suddenly was lifted from his soul; a vast exaltation drove out everything that had been oppressing him for so long. He was free! He was free of the thing that had been driving him to death. Joy, so overwhelming in its rush that he almost collapsed as it assailed him, swept aside every vestige of resistance,—and, paradox of paradoxes,—made a man of him! He was a man and he would—But even as his jaw set and his body straightened in its old, dominant strength, she opened the door and passed into the dim hall beyond. He was half across the street when the door closed behind her, but he did not pause. His hand came from his pocket and in his rigid fingers he held the key to his home—and hers. At the bottom of the steps he halted. The lights in the drawing-room had been switched on. The purpose that filled him now was so great that he waited long there, grasping the hand rail, striving to temper his new- found strength to the gentleness that was in his heart. The fight was over, and he had won—the man of him had won. She was in that room where the lights were,—waiting for him. The moment was not far off when she would be in his arms. He was suffocating with the thought of the nearness of it all! He mounted the steps. As he came to the top, the door was opened and Anne stood there in the warm light of the hall,—a slender, swaying figure in something rose-coloured and—and her lips were parted in a wondering, enchanted smile. She held out her arms to him. [THE END] _ |
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