The Best Man (8 page)

“He’s all right, Celie, indeed he is,” said the young fellow caressingly, laying his hand upon his siter’s bowed head. “He’s going to be awfully good to you; he cares a lot for you, and he’s promised to do all sorts of nice things. He says He’ll bring you back soon, and he would never stand in the way of your being with us a lot. He did indeed! What do you think of that? Isn’t it quite different from what you thought he would say? He doesn’t seem to think he’s got to spend the rest of his days in Chicago either. He says there might something turn up that would make it possible for him to change all his plans. Isn’t that great?”

Celia tried to look up and smile through her tears, while the man outside studied the situation a moment in perplexity and then strolled back to watch Gordon and the elder woman.

“You will be good to my little girl,” he heard the woman’s voice pleading. “She has always been guarded, and she will miss us all, even though she has you.” The voice went through Gordon like a knife. To stand much more of this and not denounce himself for a blackguard would be impossible. Neither could he keep his hat on in the presence of this wonderful motherhood, a motherhood that appealed to him all the more that he had never known a mother of his own, and had always longed for one.

He put up his hand and lifted his hat slightly, guarding as much as possible his own face from the view of the man on the station platform, who was still walking deliberately, considerately, up and down, often passing near enough to hear what they were saying. In this reverent attitude, Gordon said, as though he were uttering a sacred vow:

“I will guard her as if she were -  as if I were – as if I were – you” – then he paused a moment and added solemnly, tenderly – “Mother!”

He wondered  it were not desecration to utter such words when all the time he was utterly unable to perform them in the way in which the mother meant! “Impostor!” was the word which rang in his ears now. The clamor about being hindered had ceased, for he was doing his best, and not letting even a woman’s happiness stand in the way of his duty.

Yet his heart had dictated the words he had spoken, while his mind and judgment were busy with his perilous position. He could not gainsay his heart, for he felt that in every way he could he would guard and care for the girl who was to be in his keeping at least for a few minutes until he could contrive some way to get her back to her friends without him.

The whistle of the train was sounding now, and the brakemen were shouting, “All aboard!”

He helped the frail little elderly woman down the steps, and she reached up her face to kiss him. He bent and took the caress, the first time that a woman’s lips had touched his face since he was a little child.

“Mother, I will not let anything harm her,” he whispered, and she said:

“My boy, I trust you!”

Then he put her into the care of her strong young son, swung upon the train as the wheels began to move, and hurried back to the bride. On the platform, walking beside the train, he still saw the man. Going to the weeping girl, Gordon, stooped over her gently, touched her on her shoulder, and drew the window shade down. The last face he saw outside was the face of the baffled man, who was turning back, but what for? Was he going to report to others, and would there perhaps be another stop before they left the city, where officers or detectives might board the train? He ought to be ready to get off and run for his life if there was. There seemed no way but to fee the porter to look after his companion, and leave her, despicable as it seemed! Yet his soul of honor told him he could never do that, no matter what was at stake.

Then, without warning a new situation was thrust upon him. The bride, who had been standing with bowed head and with her handkerchief up to her eyes, just as her brother had left her, tottered and fell into his arms, limp and white. Instantly all his senses were called into action, and he forgot the man on the platform, forgot the possible next stop in the city, and the explanation he had been about to make to the girl; forgot even the importance of his mission, and the fact that the train he was on was headed toward Chicago, instead of Washington; forgot everything but the fact that the loveliest girl he had ever seen, with the saddest look a human face might wear, was lying apparently lifeless in his arms.

Outside the window the man had turned back and was now running excitedly along with the train trying to see into the window; and down the platform, not ten yards behind, came a frantic man with English-looking clothes, a heavy mustache and goatee, shaggy eyebrows, and a sensual face, striding angrily along as fast as his heavy body would carry him.

But Gordon saw none of them.

Five hours before, the man who was hurling himself furiously after the rapidly retreating train had driven calmly through the city, from the pier of the White Star Line to the apartment of a man whom he had met abroad, and who had offered him the use of it during his absence. The rooms were in the fourth story of a fine apartment house. The returning exile noted with satisfaction the irreproachable neighborhood, as he slowly descended from the carriage, paid his fee, and entered the door, to present his letter of introductions to the janitor in charge.

His first act was to open the steamer truck which he had brought with him in the cab, and take therefrom his wedding garments. These he carefully arranged on folding hangers and hung in the closet, which was otherwise empty save for a few boxes on the high self.

Then he hastened to the telephone and communicated with his best man, Jefferson Hathaway; told him the boat was late arriving at the dock, but that he was here at last; gave him a few directions concerning errands he would like to have done, and agreed to be at the church a half-hour earlier than the time set for the ceremony, to be shown just what arrangements had been made. He was told his bride was feeling very tired and was resting, and agreed that it would be as well not to disturb her; they would have time enough to talk afterward; there really wasn’t anything to say but what he had already written. And he would have about all he could do to get there on time as it was. He asked if Jefferson had called for the ring he had ordered and if the carriage would be sent for him in time and then without formalities closed the interview. He and Jefferson were not exactly fond of one another, though Jefferson was the beloved brother of his bride-to-be.

He hung up the receiver and rang for a brandy and soda to brace himself for the coming ordeal which was to bind him to a woman whom for years he had been trying to get in his power and whom he might have loved if she had not dared to scorn him for the devil that she knew was in him. At last he had found a way to subdue her and bring her with her ample fortune to his feet and he felt the exultation of the conqueror as he went about his preparations for the evening.

He made a smug and leisurely toilet, with a smile of satisfaction upon his flabby face. He was naturally a selfish person and had always known how to make other people attend to all bothersome details for him while he enjoyed himself. He was quite comfortable and self-complacent as he posed a moment before the mirror to smooth his mustache and note how well he was looking. Then he went to the closet for his coat.

It was most peculiar, the way it happened, but somehow, as he stepped into that closet to take down his coat, which hung at the back where the space was widest, the opening at the wrist of his shirt-sleeve caught for just an instant in the little knob of the closet latch. The gold button which held the cuff to the wristband slipped its hold, and the man was free almost at once, but the angry twitch he had made at the slight detention had given the door an impetus which set it silently moving on its hinges. (It was characteristics of George Hayne that he was always impatient of the slightest detention.) He had scarcely put his hand upon his wedding coat when a soft steel click, followed by utter darkness, warned him that his impatience had entrapped him. He put out his hand and pushed at the door, but the catch had settled into place. It was a very strong, neat little catch, and it did its work well. The man was a prisoner.

At first he was only annoyed, and gave the door an angry kick or two, as if of course if would presently release him meekly; but then he bethought him of his polished wedding shoes, and desisted. He tried to find a knob and shake the door, but the only knob was the tiny brass one on the outside of the catch, and you cannot shake a plain surface reared up before you. Then he set his massive, flabby shoulder against the door and pressed with all his might, till his bulky linen shirt front creaked with dismay, and his wedding collar wilted limply. But the door stood like adamant. It was massive, like the man, but it was not flabby. The wood of which it was composed had spent its early life in the open air, drinking only the wine of sunshine and sparkling air, wet with the dews of heaven, and exercising against the north blast. It was nothing for it to hold out against this pillow of a man, who had been nurtured in the dissipation and folly of a great city. The door held its own, and if doors do such things, the face of it must have laughed to the silent room; and who knows but the room winked back? It would be but natural that a room should resent a new occupant in the absence of a beloved owner.

He was there, safe and fast, in the still dark, with plenty of time for reflection. And there were things in his life that called for his reflection. They had never had him at an advantage before.

In due course of time, having exhausted his breath and strength in fruitless pushing, and his vocabulary in foolish curses, he lifted up his voice and roared. No other word would quite describe the sound that issued from his mighty throat. But the city roared placidly below him, and no one minded him in the least.

He sacrificed the shiny toes of the shoes and added resounding kicks on the door to the general hubbub. He changed the roar to a bellow like a mad bull, but still the silence that succeeded it was as deep and monotonous as ever. He tried going to the back of the closet and hurling himself against the door, but he only hurt his soft muscles with the effort. Finally he sat down on the floor of the closet.

Now the janitor’s wife, who occupied an apartment somewhat overcrowded, had surreptitiously borrowed the use of this closet the week before, in order to hang therein her Sunday gown, whose front breadth was covered with grease-spots, thickly overlaid with French chalk. The French chalk had done its work and removed the grease-spots, and now lay thickly on the floor of the closet, but the imprisoned bridegroom did not know that, and he sat down quite naturally to rest from unusual exertions, and to reflect on what could be done next.

The immediate present passed rapidly in review. He could not afford more than ten minutes to get out of this hole. He ought to be on the way to the church at once. There was no knowing what nonsense Celia might get into her head if he delayed. He had known her since her childhood, and she had always scorned him. The hold he had upon her now was like a rope of sand, but only he knew that. If he could but knock that old door down! If he only hadn’t hung up his coat in the closet! If the man who built the house only hadn’t put such a fool catch on the door! When he got out he would take time to chop it off! If only he had a little more room, and a little more air! It was stifling! Great beads of perspiration went rolling down his hot forehead, and his wet collar made a cool band about his neck. He wondered if he had another clean collar of that particular style with him. If he only could get out of this accursed place! Where were all the people? Why was everything so still? Would they never come and let him out?

He reflected that he had told the janitor he would occupy the room with his baggage for two or three weeks perhaps, but he expected to go away on a trip this very evening. The janitor would not think it strange if he did not appear. How would it be to stay here and die? Horrible thought!

He jumped up from the floor and began his howlings and gyrations once more, but soon desisted, and sat down to be entertained by a panorama of his past life which is always unpleasantly in evidence at such times. Fine and clear in the darkness of the closet stood out the nicely laid scheme of deviltry by which he had contrived to be at last within reach of a coveted fortune.

Occasionally would come the frantic thought that just through this little mishap of a foolish clothespress catch he might even yet lose it. The fraud and trickery by which he had an heiress in his power did not trouble him so much as the thought of losing her – at least of losing the fortune. He must have that fortune, for he was deep in debt, and – but then he would refuse to think, and get up to batter at his prison door again.

Four hours his prison walls enclosed him, with inky blackness all around save for a faint glimmer of light, which marked the well-fitted base of the door as the night outside drew on. He had lighted the gas when he began dressing, for the room had already been filled with shadows, and now, it began to seem as if that streak of flickering gas light was the only thing that saved him from losing his mind.

Somewhere from out of the dim shadows a face evolved itself and gazed at him, a haggard face with piercing hollow eyes and despair written upon it. It reproached him with a sin he thought long-forgotten. He shrank back in horror and the cold perspiration stood out upon his forehead, for the eyes were the eyes of the man whose name he had forged upon a note involving trust money fifteen years before; and the man, a quiet, kindly, unsuspecting creature had suffered the penalty in a prison cell until his death some five years ago.

Sometimes at night in the first years after his crime, that face had haunted him, appearing at odd intervals when he was plotting some particularly shady means of adding to his income, until he had resolved to turn over a new leaf, and actually gave up one or two schemes as being too unscrupulous to be indulged in, thus acquiring a comforting feeling of being virtuous. But it was long since the face had come. He had settled it in his mind that the forgery was merely a patch of wild oats which he had sown in his youth, something to be regretted but not too severely blamed for, and thus forgiving himself he had grown to feel that it was more the world’s fault for not giving him what he wanted than his own for putting a harmless old man in prison. Of the shame that had killed the old man he knew nothing, nor could have understood. The actual punishment itself was all that appealed to him. He was ever one that had to be taught with the lash, and then only kept straight while it was in sight.