Chapter Seventeen

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_ Olive found Kathryn Brenton in the extreme of disarray. The littered room was as unlovely as the careless costume, and Kathryn's personal grooming matched them both. It really was not her fault, she explained in fretful apology. She had not expected to see a soul, that morning; but the maid had given warning all at once, really apropos of nothing, and was up-stairs, packing. They were such selfish creatures. It was up and out, at a minute's notice, and you can take care of yourself as best you can. If she had behaved herself, and not gone off in a tantrum, she would have been there to open the door, and then Olive wouldn't have caught her in that old dressing gown she had put on just for breakfast. All this was delivered volubly in the front hall, while Kathryn closed the door behind her guest and then drew down the blinds, by way of hospitable intimation to any later comers that she was not at home. That done, she led the way into the living-room, while Olive, at her heels, registered her impression of any woman who would be willing thus to present herself above the breakfast table to any man, least of all her husband. However, it was plain that, with Kathryn and her husband, the least of all had become the most, and that, too, at an epoch when, if ever, Kathryn needed to take the very greatest care to fix upon herself the seal of lifelong and admiring devotion. Of course, there might be such a thing as a devotion void of any admiration. Olive Keltridge, however, was not a woman to accept that sort of thing. Neither, she reflected swiftly, was Scott Brenton quite the sort of man to offer it. Meanwhile, Kathryn, seated in a chair a good deal lower than the laws of perfect grace dictated, huddled her shabby dressing gown about her, ran a vaguely apologetic hand through her puggy pompadour, and went on with her domestic narration. "It's so queer what sets them off, Miss Keltridge. One never knows when they will fly up in a temper; at least, the kind I seem to get. I never have the luck you do. Why, you have had the same second girl, ever since we moved here." "The? Oh, Margaret? Yes, she has been with us about nine years." Olive smiled. "She seems almost like a member of the family, by now." Kathryn shook her head in self-pity. The self-pity loosened a little tail of hair which arose, rampant, from the exact middle of her crown. However, Kathryn lacked a mirror within range, and so she talked on quite as contentedly, despite the waving, waggling tail. "Yes, so many other people seem to get that kind of girls, so devoted and such competent ones; but, for my part, I don't see where they find them. I pay the very highest prices, and I always look up their references; but they all are just alike. I have had nine different cooks, the last five months, and each one was a little worse than--" "I met Mr. Brenton just now," Olive cut in, with decision. "Did you?" his wife inquired indifferently. "I didn't know he had gone out." "Yes." Olive's decision increased a little. "I thought he wasn't looking very well." "Scott? Oh, he's well enough. What should ail him?" Kathryn loosened her soggy draperies for an instant, then tightened them in the reverse direction. "He hasn't a worry to his name, hardly a care." Struggle as she would, Olive knew her accent was becoming more dry with every sentence that she uttered. "I should have supposed the church--" "Church? That's nothing. At least, it's only in his line of business, the thing that he set his heart upon and trained for. I wonder what he would say, if he had the care of this great house." "It is larger than most rectories," Olive made polite assent. But swiftly Kathryn retrieved her blunder. "Of course," she added; "I always have been accustomed to a large house. It is only that this one seems to me inconvenient. The back stairs are so very central, and the telephones are so badly placed, one in the study, and the other away out in the back of the hall. Really, you would think, to see them, that the rector and the servants were the only ones to be considered, and not the housekeeper at all." Stolidly regardless of the criticism, Olive returned to her former theme. She did this of a distinct purpose, too. It seemed to her to be quite incredible that the woman before her could be blind to her husband's haggard face. None the less, watching Kathryn, she could not in sincerity accuse her of any shamming. "It really has worried us, my father and me, that Mr. Brenton hasn't looked quite as strong lately, as when he came here," she insisted. "Oh, I think he is quite well. Men," Kathryn gave a vindictive sort of flap to the front breadths of her dressing gown; "never know what it is to be really ill. I tell Scott, if he were in my place--" In mercy to probabilities, Olive interrupted. "Saint Peter's has grown so fast, since he came here," she said. Kathryn promptly took umbrage at the singular number of the pronoun. "I'm sure we've done our best," she answered tartly. "It has been hard work, though, in such a dead old town as this." "But, with all the college girls--" Olive was beginning. Kathryn cut her short. "They count for nothing in the parish. They just come to church, when they get up in season; that's about all. Of course, it would be a good thing if they did count for more. The poor old church is in need of something young and lively; now and then it seems to me to be fairly doddering. Poor Scott feels it, too. He can't help it. Every man and woman in the congregation was born, ready made, with a whole set of prejudices, born in a rut that nothing can break down. I tell him--" Once more Olive interrupted. Indeed, it was her only method of driving in an entering wedge of speech. "That is what we old New Englanders love, Mrs. Brenton," she said, with a sweetness that was almost acid. "Remember that we and our ancestors have lived in these same houses since King George the Third's day, and then you will forgive us for some of our ready-made prejudices." Kathryn glanced up suspiciously. Then she sought to flay her guest with all discretion. "Really? How very tiresome you must have found it!" she made answer. "Not at all. It's the other thing that we find so tiresome," Olive assured her, not without some malice. "Where did you see Mr. Brenton?" Kathryn asked her quite abruptly. "He was going to call on Mr. Opdyke." "Reed, or the professor?" This time, Olive's accent was not to be mistaken. "Mr. Reed Opdyke," she said. Kathryn ignored the rebuke completely. "How is Reed?" she queried. Then Olive gave it up, and left her to her chosen methods. "About the same." "Isn't there anything I can do for him yet?" Kathryn inquired, with an abrupt letting down of her terse dignity. "It does seem a shame I can't do something to help the poor fellow along, especially when it is so many years that I have known him. It's not as if he were a mere acquaintance, of course, and I want him to feel quite at liberty to send for me, whenever he wants me." "I am sure he does, Mrs. Brenton," Olive assured her, with gentle malice, for not in vain was "the poor fellow" phrase rankling in her mind. "Then why in the world doesn't he send?" Kathryn asked rather injudiciously. Olive dodged the only direct answer she could have made. "Perhaps he shrinks a little--" she was starting. Kathryn, still regardless of the waggling little tail, shook her head in vehement negation. "Oh, he wouldn't be shy with me, Miss Keltridge. Remember, I'm quite an old married woman now; there's no reason he should feel at all--Besides, he sees you," she added, her voice sharpening with the sudden recollection. Olive laughed. "Me? Oh, I'm totally amorphous, Mrs. Brenton, a mere lump of old associations. It's good for Mr. Opdyke to have somebody to giggle with occasionally." Kathryn's voice betrayed her dislike of the flippant answer. "Poor dear man! I guess he doesn't giggle very often. Really, Miss Keltridge, I sometimes wonder if you realize how very sad it is." "Very likely not," Olive said dryly. "No; that's what I say. You see him so often that you get used to it. It is so easy to take such things as a matter of course." "You think so?" The dryness was increasing. "It never had occurred to me to feel like that." "No?" Then all at once Kathryn dropped her antagonisms and smiled across at Olive. "Dear Miss Keltridge, I don't want to gossip; but, between old friends like ourselves, one can speak out. Has it ever seemed strange to you that we none of us know just what is wrong with Reed Opdyke? Or do you know?" "I have no idea at all." "But don't you ever wonder?" "No; it's not my business," Olive said curtly. Then her sense of downright honour undermined her curtness. "Yes; after all, I suppose that, being human, I do wonder now and then." "Then you don't know, either?" "How should I?" "You see him so very often." Olive stiffened. "Really, Mrs. Brenton, it's not a thing one talks about." "Oh?" Kathryn's accent was indescribable. "I supposed he'd talk to you. Or haven't you ever asked him?" "I have not." Kathryn leaned a little nearer. "After all, Miss Keltridge, doesn't that seem a little bit--" Olive waited. "Self--er--centred?" "I don't see how. Mr. Opdyke would tell me, if he cared to have me know." "Unless he thought you would find it out by intuition," Kathryn suggested balmily, as she leaned back in her chair and smoothed her dressing gown. It was with difficulty that Olive downed her amusement. "Intuition, as a rule, doesn't count for much with spines and internal injuries," she said. Kathryn once more became eager. "Then it is his spine, poor dear man?" And once more Olive became dry. "I should think it highly probable from the way they are treating him." "Terrible; isn't it?" And Olive almost forgave her hostess all things, for the sake of the one word of honest and spontaneous pity, devoid of all "poor dears." Then her forgiveness waned. "However, if I were in your place, I'd ask him outright what is the trouble. I think the Opdykes owe it to their friends to speak out and end the mystery, and put a stop to all the gossip." "Is there gossip?" Olive queried disdainfully, as she arose. Still seated, Kathryn stared up at her with eyes that were determined to lose no flicker of an answering confession. "Of course. In a case like this, there's bound to be. There's every sort of story floating about. Some people even go so far as to say that they only brought home the top end of him; that all that shows below his waist is only a padded roll of blankets. That's one reason I want so much to see him; I know I could tell whether there was any truth in such absurd stories." She pulled herself up short; then went on with a change of tone. "Of course, though, what I really want is to help him pass the time, if I can. He must be very lonely for thoroughly congenial people. Must you go? Be sure you give the poor dear man my message. And good bye. Next time, I do hope I shall have a respectable maid to let you out. I'm quite ashamed--Good bye." Out on the steps in the clean February air and sunshine, Olive drew in a deep, full breath. "Poor, dear old Reed!" she said. And then, in quite another tone, "Poor Mr. Brenton! How totally impossible she is!" And, meanwhile, the "puffic' fibbous," quite unaware of their discussion of his personality and its injuries, lay smiling mirthfully up into the eyes of his old friend. "Spit it out, Brenton! Rift it aff yer chist!" he adjured him. "Something has gone bad inside your Denmark, and I'm so far kindred to the blessed angels that I don't tell any tales." Brenton squirmed with a physical uneasiness that was an outward and visible sign of his spiritual one. "What's the use?" "Ease your mind. It's a good thing to get rid of waste matter, if 't is waste. Else, if it's any good, it will gain value by being set forth in order. Go ahead with your firstly. By the way, why don't you smoke?" "Because I have a conscience," Brenton told him bluntly. "Approaching Lent; or on my account? Don't mind me. I rather long for the smell of the stuff, even if the taste of it is forbidden me. Really, Brenton," and Opdyke looked up at him with singularly unclouded eyes; "that's about my present life in epitome. I offer you the idea for your next sermon." "Sermon be hanged! I don't serve up my friends, by way of garnishing my theoretical beliefs," Brenton objected shortly. Opdyke made a wry face. "That's where you miss your innings, then. I understand, by way of Ramsdell, that the Methodist incumbent lately preached a sermon upon resignation, and did me the honour of taking me, quite specifically, to illustrate his climax. That is what I call fame, Brenton, a greater fame than any I ever could have garnered in by way of engineering." "Beastly thing to do!" Brenton made brief comment. "Wasn't it? When I get on my legs again, if ever I do, I'll call him out and lick him. By the way, the last of my cigars are in that drawer. Don't let them spoil. Well, as I was saying, what humbugs you parsons are!" Brenton, digging in the chaos of the drawer before him, lifted up his head. "Aren't we, though!" he said, with sudden energy. "Hullo!" Reed stared at him in astonishment. "You've found it out?" "I have." "How long since?" Brenton hesitated. "Six or eight months." Reed laughed unconcernedly. "Coincident with my home-coming, Scott? I hope I didn't bring the seeds of disaffection with me. But, for a fact, is that the present row?" "Yes." There came a long silence. Then Reed spoke. "Brenton, you always were a curiously constructed creature mentally. What is the matter? Is your present ecclesiastical harness galling you?" "Yes." Brenton lighted a match with exceeding awkwardness. "Bedding is inflammable, Brenton," Reed warned him. "Therefore I advise you to keep a steady hand. I'm too big a brand for a slim chap like you to pluck from the burning, to our mutual comfort. Apropos, there's another grand idea for your sermon. You can suppress the naughty nicotine motif for the theme, if you choose. But what in thunder, made you put on the harness, in the first place?" "Filial devotion." "Exactly. I remember. But you chose another pattern, sloughed off the work-horse collar of Calvinism in favour of the lighter ritualistic bridle, if I may speak picturesquely. You made your choice. Now what's the matter? Hitched up too short; or have you kicked over the traces?" "No; not yet." Brenton spoke grimly, his overcast gray eyes offering a curious contrast to the sunny brown ones of the man lying flat and still before him. This time, Reed looked anxious. "I wouldn't, Scott," he said, and a little note of affection came into his tone. "You'll sure be sorry." "But, if I can't help it?" "You can." Reed spoke crisply. "I can't. The whole thing is galling me, I tell you, the whole--" Brenton hesitated; "infernal sham." The last two words he flung out with a heavy defiance. "Sham isn't a polite word for that sort of thing," Opdyke answered swiftly. "You're the parson, Brenton; I am nothing but a sinner cut down in my prime. Still, in your place, I think I wouldn't call it all a sham. There's too much good inside it. When one has all the time there is, one thinks it out, good and bad, to the bitter end. And there's any amount more good than bad in the whole combination." Brenton nodded; but the nod implied more denial than assent. "Perhaps," he said slowly. "Still, it's any amount less provable." "Proof be hanged! You'll never succeed in reducing the moral universe to a set of molecular equations, Brenton. Best give it up, and take what's left in the most thankful spirit that you can, not let the unprovable part of it get on your nerves like this." Brenton chewed the end of his cigar, as if it had been the cud of his spiritual discontent. "But, by my profession, I am here to preach the truth," he burst out at length. "Preach it, then," Opdyke advised him calmly. "According to my notion, truth can always be proved." "Prove it, then," Opdyke advised him, with unabated calm. "It won't." Brenton spoke with the curt elision of his country ancestry. Opdyke watched him steadily for more than a minute. Then,-- "Brenton, don't make an ass of yourself," he besought his friend. "You have befuddled your brain with such big words as truth and proof; but don't go on your nerves about it. You are doing any amount of good, from all accounts, here in the town. If you keep steady and sane, you'll come to where you have an influence with a big, big I, and end by really counting for something in the place you've chosen. If your harness galls you, then pad it up. You can make it fit, if you spend a little time on it. But, if you go restive and kick over the traces and bolt, you'll do a lot of harm, not only to yourself, but to the people who'll go plunging after you, without having brains enough to know just why they do it. Yes, I know I am preaching; but what of it? I got the habit, years ago," his smile was strangely gentle, strangely full of such love as is rarely given by one man to another; "when old Mansfield put you in my care. No; I know you weren't aware of it, but he did. Anyhow, it has given me a sense of responsibility over you, and I hate the notion of lying here on my back, and seeing you preparing to make a mess of your whole life, at just this stage of the game." "Thanks, Opdyke." Brenton shut his hand on the long, nervous fingers, shut it and left it there. "But would it be a mess?" "For the present, yes. Later, it's another question. You've put yourself under fire, and you've gone panicky; I know the feeling. I had it, first time I saw a premature blast go off and hurt a man, and I nearly chucked the whole profession and went into a banking office. Later, I steadied, found out that even an occasional killing," he winced at his own words, even as he spoke them; "doesn't count for much, beside the good done by the total output of a mine. Therefore I kept on, studied the mine and shut my eyes to the victims. In the end, I steadied, and so will you. However, Scott," and the long, nervous fingers shut hard about the hand above them; "I am quite well aware that the intermediate stage of funking the side issue is bound to give us an occasional bad half-hour. Still, as you love your profession, hang on to it by the last little corner, until you steady down." "Yes." Brenton spoke slowly, while there flashed before him in swift alignment all the details for which his profession stood: place and popularity and influence, the best of human and social ties, the fulfilled ambitions, the closest sort of contacts with his kind. All these he saw, as rounded out to their fullest measure. Beside them was himself, outwardly active, spiritually as stark and still as was the broken body of his friend before him. In that instant, it was given to Brenton to measure himself beside his possibilities, and the measure was not wholly reassuring. "Yes," he repeated slowly; "but what is going to be the final good gained by my hanging on, in case I never steady down?" Reed compressed his lips. Then, out of his own experience, he spoke. "In that case, at least you'll have had the satisfaction of finding out that, science and theology to the contrary notwithstanding, in the final end it's solely up to you." _

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