In the Heart of a Fool

He came in enveloping them in one all-encompassing hug and cried:

“Well ’y gory, girls, you certainly are the three graces, the three fates, and the world, the flesh and the devil all in one–what say?”

But the Morton daughters were not to be silenced. Ruth took in a deep breath and began:

“Well, now see here, father, do you know what people are saying about–”

“Of course–I was just coming to that, Ruthie,” answered the Captain. “Amos Adams he says, ‘Well, Cap,’ say he, ‘I was talking to Cleopatra and she says Queen Victoria had a readin’ to the effect that there was a boy named Amos Ezra Morton Adams over on one of the stars in the southwest corner of the milky way that would be busting into this part of the universe in about three years, more or less’–what say?”

The old man laughed and Ruth flushed red, and ran away. The Captain saw his suit lying on the sofa.

“Somepin new–” interjected the Captain. “Thought I’d kind o’ bloom out; sort o’ to let folks know that the old man had a little kick in him yet–eh? And now, girls–listen; let’s all go out to the Country Club for dinner to-night, and I’ll put on my new suit and you kind of rig up in your best, and we’ll make what George calls a killing–what say?” He put his hands in his pockets and looked critically at his new clothes. The flight of Ruth had quieted Emma, but Martha came swooping down on him with “Now, father–look here–about that Country Club party–”

The Captain shot a swift glance at Martha, and saw Emma looking at him from the kitchen door.

“What party?” he exclaimed. “Can’t I ask my girls out for a little innocent dinner without its being called a party–eh? Now, you girls get your things on and come on. As for me, the limousine will be at the door at eight!”

He disappeared up the stairs and in the Morton household, two young women, woeful and heavy hearted, went about their toilets, while in the Brotherton establishment, one large fat man in suspenders felt the rush of sudden tears on his shirt front and marveled at the ways of the sex. When the Mortons were in the midst of their moist and lugubrious task, the thin, cracked little voice of the Captain called out:

“Girls–before you go, don’t forget to put that cold beef on and stew it to-night for hash in the morning–eh?”

It was a beautiful party that Captain Morton gave at the Country Club house that evening. And at the end of a most gorgeously elaborate dinner, wherein were dishes whose very names the Captain did not know, he rose among his guests seated at the U-shaped table in the big dining room with the heavy brown beams in the ceiling, a little old man by his big chair, which stood beside a chair unoccupied.

“Friends,” he said, “when a man gets on in his seventies, at that uncertain time, when he does not know whether to be ashamed of his years or proud of his age,” he smiled at Daniel Sands, who clicked his false-teeth in appreciation of the phrase, “it would seem that thoughts of what the poet calls ‘the livelier iris’ on the ‘burnished dove’ would not inconvenience him to any great extent–eh? At seventy-five a young fellow’s fancy ought to be pretty well done lightly turning to thoughts of love–what say? But by cracky–they don’t.”

He paused. The Morton girls in shame looked at their plates. “So, I just thought I’d have this little party to tell you about it. I wanted to surprise the girls.” There was only a faint clapping of hands; for tears in the eyes of the three Morton daughters discouraged merriment.

“A man, as I was saying, never gets too old–never gets too crabbed, for what my friend Amos’s friend Emerson calls ‘a ruddy drop of manly blood’–eh? So, when that ‘ruddy drop of manly blood’ comes a surging up in me, I says I’ll just about have a party for that drop of manly blood! I’m going to tell you all about it. There’s a woman in my mind–a very beautiful woman; for years–a feller just as well breakdown and confess–eh?–well for years she’s been in my mind pretty much all the time–particularly since Ruthie there was a baby and left alorn and alone–as you may say–eh? And so,” he reached down and grasped a goblet of water firmly, and held it before him, “and so,” he repeated, and his old eyes glistened and his voice broke, “as it was just fifty years ago to-night that heaven opened and let her come to me, before I marched off to war–so,” he hurried along, “I give you this toast–the vacant chair–may it always, always, always be filled in my heart of hearts!”

He could not drink, but sank with his head on his arms, and when they had ceased clapping their hands, the old man looked up, signaled to the orchestra, and cried in a tight, cracked voice, “Now, dern ye–begin yer fiddlin’!”

Whereupon the three Morton daughters wept and the old ladies gathered about them and wept, and Mrs. Hilda Herdicker’s ton of jet heaved as in a tidal wave, and the old men dried their eyes, and only Lila Van Dorn and Kenyon Adams, holding hands under the table, really knew what it was all about.

Now they have capered through these pages of this chapter–all of the people in this story in their love affairs. Hand in hand, they have come to the footlights, hand in hand they have walked before us. We have seen that love is a passion with many sides. It varies with each soul. In youth, in maturity, in courtship, in marriage, in widowhood, in innocence, and in the wisdom of serpents, love reflects the soul it shines on. For love is youth in the heart–youth that always beckons, that always shapes our visions. Love ever sheens and shimmers brightly from within us; but what it shows to the world–that is vastly different with each of us. For that is the shadow of his inmost being.

CHAPTER XLIII

WHEREIN WE FIND GRANT ADAMS CALLING UPON KENYON’S MOTHER, AND DARKNESS FALLS UPON TWO LOVERS

Once in a while an item appeared in the Harvey Tribune that might have been found nowhere else, and for reasons. For instance, the issue of the Tribune that contained the account of the Captain’s party also contained this item, which Daniel Sands had kept out of every other paper in town:

“Mortimer Sands, son of D. Sands of the Traders’ Bank, has returned from Arizona, where he has been seeking health. He is hopeful of ultimate recovery.”

Another item of interest appeared in the same issue of the paper. It related that T. Van Dorn, former Judge of the District Court, is in Washington, D. C., on legal business.

The Adams family item, which the paper never failed to contain, was this:

“K. Adams will leave next week for New York, where his new opera, ‘Rachel,’ will have its first appearance next autumn. He will be missed in our midst.”

And for a paper with no subscribers and no patronage, it is curious to note that the Tribune carried the news above mentioned to all of Harvey, and all of Harvey discussed the news. Not that the town did not know more or less of the facts as hereinabove related; but when a fact is read in print it becomes something different from a fact. It becomes a public matter, an episode in the history of the world.

In the same issue of the paper was a statement from Grant Adams that he had decided to throw his life with the Socialists and with that group known as the revolutionary Socialists. Grant was enough of a personage, and the declaration was short enough and interesting enough, to give it a place in the newspapers of the country for a day. In the State where he lived, the statement created some comment–mostly adverse to Dr. Nesbit, whose political association with Grant Adams had linked the Doctor’s name with Grant’s. Being out of power, Dr. Nesbit felt these flings. So it happened that when, the Sunday following the announcement, Grant came with his father and Kenyon in the rattling old buggy up to the Nesbit home on Elm Street, Amos Adams found a rollicking, frivolous, mischievous host–but Grant Adams found a natty, testy, sardonic old man, who made no secret of his ill-humor.

Kenyon found Lila, and the two with their music indoors made a background for the talk on the veranda. Nathan Perry, who came up for a pill or a powder for one of his flock, sat for a time on the veranda steps. For all his frivoling with the elder Adams, Nathan could see by the way the loose, wrinkled skin on the Doctor’s face kept twitching when Grant spoke, that the old man had something on his mind.

“Grant,” cried the Doctor, in his excited treble, “do you realize what an ornate, unnecessary, unmitigated conspicuous, and elaborate jack you’ve made of yourself? Do you–young man? Well, you have. Your revolution–your revolution!” shrilled the old man. “Damn sight of revolution you’ll kick up charging over the country with your water-tank patriots–your–your box-car statesmen–now, won’t you?”

“Here–Doctor,–come–be–”

But the Doctor would not let Grant talk. The chirrup of the shrill old voice bore in upon the younger man’s protest with, “Now, you let me say my say. The world’s moving along–moving pretty fast and generally to one end, and that end is to put food in the bellies, clothes on the back, and brains in the head of the working man. The whole trend of legislation all over the world has gone that way. Hell’s afire, Grant–what more do you want? We’ve given you the inheritance tax and the income tax and direct legislation to manipulate it, and, by Ned, instead of staying with the game and helping us work these things out in wise administration, you fly the coop, and go squawking over the country with your revolution and leave me–damn it, Grant,” piped the little, high voice, sputtering with rage, “you leave me–with my linen pants on a clothes-line four miles from home!”

Then slowly the little lines began to break in his loose skin. A faint smile, then a grin and then a laugh, spread over the old face, and he wiped his watering eyes as he shook his head mournfully.

Grant was gathering himself to reply when Nate Perry rasped in with his high-keyed Yankee voice: “I guess that about covers my views, Grant–if any one should ask you.”

The crusader rose in Grant: “It’s you men who have no sense,” he cried. “You think because I declare war on the profit system that I propose to sail out and overturn it with a few bombs over night. Look here, men; what I propose to do is to demonstrate right here in the Wahoo Valley, where there are all sorts of laboring people, skilled, unskilled, continuous, overpaid and underpaid, foreign and American–utterly unlike, incoherent, racially and industrially–that they have in them capacities for organizing; unused abilities, untried talents that will make them worthy to take a higher place in the economic scale than they now have. If I can amalgamate them, if I can weld them into a consistent, coherent labor mass–the Irish, the Slav, the Jews, the Italians, the Poles, the French, the Dutch, the Letts, and the Mexicans–put to some purpose the love of the poor for the poor, so that it will count industrially, you can’t stop the revolution.” He was wagging his head, waving his stump of an arm and his face showed the temperamental excitement that was in him.

“Go ahead, Grant,” said Perry. “Play out all your line–show us your game.”

“Well, then–here’s my game. For five years we’ve been collecting a district strike fund–all our own, that doesn’t belong to any other organization or federation anywhere. It’s ours here in the Wahoo. It’s independent of any state or national control. I’ve collected it. It’s been paid because these men here in the Valley have faith in me. We have practically never spent a penny of it. There are about ten thousand workers in the Valley–some, like the glassblowers, are the aristocracy of labor; others, like the breaker boys, are at the bottom of the scale. But we’ve kept wages up, kept conditions as high as they are anywhere in the country–and we’ve done it without strikes. They have faith in me. So we’ve assessed them according to their wages, and we have on hand, with assessments and interest, over a third of a million dollars.”

He looked at Perry, and nodded his head at the Doctor. “You fellows think I’m a cream-puff reformer. I’m not. Now, then–I’ve talked it over with our board–we are going to invest that money in land up and down the Valley–put the women and children and old men on it–in tents–during the growing season, and cultivate that land in three-acre tracts intensively. Our Belgian glassblowers and smelter men have sent for their gardeners to teach us. Now it’s merely a question of getting the land and doing the preliminary organization. We want to get as much land as we can. Now, there’s my game. With that kind of a layout we can win any strike we call. And we can prove to the world that labor has the cohesive coöperating faculty required to manage the factories–to take a larger share of the income of industry, if you please. That’s my revolution, gentlemen. And it’s going to begin right here in the Wahoo Valley.”

“Well,” returned Nate Perry, “your revolution looks interesting. It’s got some new gears, at least.”

“Go it while you’re young,” piped the Doctor. “In just about eighteen months, you will be coming to me to go on your bond–to keep out of jail. I’ve seen new-fangled revolutions peter out before.”

“Just the same,” replied Grant, “I’ve pinned my faith to these men and women. They are now working in fear of poverty. Give them hope of better things instead of fear and they will develop out of poverty, just as the middle class came out under the same stimulus.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” interrupted Perry, “but I do know that I could take that money and put three thousand families to work on the land in the Wahoo Valley and develop the best labor in the country.”

He laughed, and Grant gazed, almost flared, so eager was his look, at Perry for a moment, and said: “When the day of the democracy of labor comes–and it will come and come soon–men like you will take leadership.”

There was more high talk, and Nathan Perry went home with his pill.

When he was gone, the music from indoors came to the three men. “That’s from his new opera, father,” said Grant, as his attention was attracted to the violin and piano.

“Good Lord,” exclaimed the Doctor, “I’ve heard so much of that opera that I caught myself prescribing a bar from the opening chorus for the grip the other day!”

The two elder men looked at each other, and the Doctor said, “Well, Amos–that’s mostly why I asked you to come up to-day. It wasn’t for the society of your amateur revolutionist–you may be sure of that.”

The Doctor tempered his words with a smile, but they had pricks, and Grant winced. “I suppose we may as well consider Lila and Kenyon as before the house?”

“Kenyon came to me last night,” said Grant, “wanting to know whether he should come to father first, or go to Dr. Nesbit, or–well, he wondered if it would be necessary to talk with Lila’s own father.” All the grimness in Grant’s countenance melted as he spoke of Kenyon and the battered features softened.

“And that is what I wish to talk about, Grant,” said the Doctor gently. “They don’t know who Kenyon is–I mean, they don’t know about his parentage.” Grant looked at the floor. Slowly as the old shame revived in him, its flush rose from his neck to his face and met his tousled hair. The two old men looked seriously at one another. The Doctor emphasized the solemnity of the occasion by lighting a pipe.

“I don’t know–I really don’t know what is right here,” he said finally. “Is it fair to Laura to let her daughter marry the son of a woman who, more than any other woman in the world, has wronged her? I’m sure Laura cherishes no malice toward Kenyon’s mother. Yet, of course,” the Doctor spoke deliberately and puffed between his words, “blood is blood. But I don’t know how much blood is blood, I mean how much of what we call heredity in human beings is due to actual blood transmission of traits, and how much is due to the development of traits by family environment. I’m not sure, Amos, that this boy’s bad blood has not been entirely eliminated by the kindly, beautiful family environment he has had with you and yours. There seems to be nothing of the Müllers in him, but his face and his music–I take it his music is of German origin.”

“I don’t know–I don’t know, Doctor,” answered Amos. “I’ve tried to take him apart, and put him together again, but I can’t find where the parts belong.”

And so they droned on, those three wiseacres–two oldish gentlemen and a middle-aged man, thinking they could change or check or dam the course of true love. While inside at the piano on the tide of music that was washing in from God only knows what bourne where words are useless and passions speak the primitive language of souls, Lila and Kenyon were solving all the problems set for them by their elders and betters. For they lived in another world from those who established themselves in the Providence business out on the veranda. And on this earth, even in the same houses, and in the same families, there is no communication between the worlds. With our powerful lenses of memory we men and women in our forties gaze earnestly and long at the distant planets of youth, wondering if they are really inhabited by real people–or mere animals, perchance–if they have human institutions, reasonable aspirations or finite intelligences. We take temperatures, make blood counts and record blood pressure, reckon the heart-beats, and think we are wondrous wise. But wig-wag as we may, signal with what mysterious wireless of evanescent youth-fire we still hold in our blood, we get nothing but vague hints, broken reminiscences, and a certain patchwork of our own subconscious chop logic of middle age in return. There is no real communication between the worlds. Youth remains another planet–even as age and childhood are other planets.

Now, after the three wise men had considered the star glowing before them, they decided thus:

“Well,” quoth the Doctor, “it seems absolutely just that Lila should know who her husband is, and that Laura should know whom her child is marrying. So far as I am concerned, I know this Adams blood; I’ll trust it to breed out any taint; but I have no right to decide for Lila; I have no right to say what Laura will do–though, Grant, I know in my heart that she would rather have her child marry yours than to have anything else come about that the world could hold for her. And yet–she should know the truth.”

Grant sat with his head bowed, and his eyes on the floor, while the Doctor spoke. Without looking up, he said: “There’s some one else to consider, Doctor–there’s Margaret–after all, it’s her son; it’s her secret. It’s–I don’t know what her rights are–perhaps she’s forfeited them. But she is at least physically his mother.”

The Doctor looked up with a troubled face. He ran his hand over the place where his pompadour once used to rise, and where only a fuzz responded to the stroke of his dry palm, and answered:

“Grant–through it all–through all the tragedy that she has brought here, I’ve kept that secret for Margaret. And until she releases me, I can never break my silence. A doctor–one of the right sort–never could. Whatever you feel are her rights–you and she must settle. It must be you, not I, to tell this story, even to my own flesh and blood, Grant.”

Grant rose and walked the long, straight stretch of the veranda. His shoulders, pugnacious, aggressive, and defiant, swayed as he walked heavily and he gazed at the floor as one in shame. Finally he whirled toward the Doctor and said:

“I’m going to his mother. I’m going now. She may have mighty few rights in this matter–she cast him off shamefully. But she has just one right here–the right to know that I shall tell her secret to Laura, and I’m going to talk to her before I tell Laura. Even if Margaret clamors against what I think is right, I shall not stop. But I’m not going to sneak her secret away without her knowing it. I suppose that’s about the extent of her rights in Kenyon: to know before I tell his wife who he really is, so that Margaret will know who knows and who does not know her relation to him. It seems to me that is about the justice of the case.” The Doctor puffed at his pipe, and nodded a slow assent.

“Now’s as good a time as any,” answered the Doctor, and added: “By the way, Amos–I had a telegram from Washington this morning, saying that Tom is to be made Federal judge in the new district. That’s what he’s doing in Washington just now. He is one of those ostensible fellows,” piped the Doctor. “Ostensibly he’s there trying to help land another man; but Tom’s the Van Dorn candidate.”

He smoked until his pipe revived and added, “Well, Tom can afford it; he’s got all the money he needs.”

Grant, who heard the Doctor’s news, did not seem to be disturbed by it. His mind was occupied with more personal matters. He stood by a pillar, looking off into the summer day.

“Well, I suppose,” he looked at his clothes, brushed the dust from the top of his shoes by rubbing them separately against the calves of his legs, straightened his ready-made tie and felt of the buttons on his vest, “I suppose,” he repeated, “I may just as well go now as at any other time,” and he strode down the steps and made straight for the Van Dorn home.

When he came to the Van Dorn house he saw Margaret sitting alone in the deep shade of a vine-screened piazza. She wore a loose flowing purple house garment, of a bizarre pattern which accented her physical charms. But not until he had begun to mount the steps before her did he notice that she was sound asleep in a gaping and disenchanting stupor. Yet his footstep aroused her, and she started and gazed wildly at him: “Why–why–you–why, Grant!”

“Yes, Margaret,” he answered as he stood hat in hand on the top step before her, ignoring her trembling and the terror in her eyes. “I’ve come to have a talk with you–about Kenyon.”

She looked about her, listened a second, shuddered, and said with quivering facial muscles and shaky voice, “Yes–oh, yes–about Kenyon–yes–Kenyon Adams. Yes, I know.”

The eyes she turned on him were dull and her face was slumped, as though the soul had gone from it. A tremor was visible in her hands, and the color was gone from her drooping lips. She stared at him for a moment, stupidly, then irritation came into her voice, as he sat unbidden in a porch chair near her. “I didn’t tell you to sit down.”

“No.” He turned his face and caught her eyes. “But I’ll be comfortable sitting down, and we’ve got more or less talking to do.”

He could see that she was perturbed, and fear wrote itself all over her face. But he did not know that she was vainly trying to get control of herself. The power of the little brown pellets left her while she slept, and she was uncertain of herself and timid. “I–I’m sick–well–I–I–why, I can’t talk to you now. Go ’way,” she cried. “Go ’way, won’t you, please–please go ’way, and come some other time.”

“No–now’s as good a time as any,” he replied. “At any rate, I’ll tell you what’s on my mind. Mag, now pay attention.” He turned his face to her. “The time has come when Lila Van Dorn and her mother must know who Kenyon is.”

She looked vacantly at him, then started and chattered, “Wh-wh-wh-wha-what are you s-s-sas-saying–do you mean?”

She got up, closed the door into the house, and came tottering back and stood by her chair, as the man answered:

“I mean, Maggie, exactly what I said. Kenyon wants to marry Lila. But I think, and Doctor Nesbit thinks, that before it is settled, Lila and her mother, and you might as well include Mrs. Nesbit, must know just who their daughter is marrying–I mean what blood. Now do you get my idea?”

As he spoke, the woman, clutching at her chair back, tried to quiet her fluttering hands. But she began panting and a sickly pallor overcame her and she cried feebly: “Oh, you devil–you devil–will you never let me alone?”

He answered, “Look here, Mag–what’s the matter with you? I’m only trying to play fair with you. I wouldn’t tell ’em until you–”

“Ugh!” She shut her eyes. “Grant–wait a minute. I must get my medicine. I’ll be back.” She turned to go. “Oh, wait a minute–I’ll be back in five minutes–I promise, honest to God, I’ll be right back, Grant.” She was at the door. As she fumbled with the screen, he nodded his assent and smiled grimly as he said, “All right, Maggie.”

When he was alone, he looked about him, at the evidence of the Van Dorn money in the temple of Love. The outdoor room was furnished with luxuries he had never seen. He sniffed as though he smelled the money that was evident everywhere. Beside Margaret’s chair, where she had dropped it when she went to sleep, was a book. It was a beautifully bound copy of the Memoirs of some titled harlot of the old French court. He was staring absent-mindedly at the floor where the book lay when she came to the door.