The Firing Line

CHAPTER XXI
REINFORCEMENTS

All day Portlaw had been telephoning and telegraphing the various stations along the New York Central Railroad, following the schedule from his time-table and from the memoranda given him by young Mrs. Malcourt; and now the big, double, covered buckboard and the fast horses, which had been sent to meet them at Pride's, was expected at any moment.

"At least," Portlaw confided with a subdued animation to Wayward, "we're going to have a most excellent dinner for them when they arrive. My Frenchman is doing the capons in Louis XI style—"

"Somebody," said Wayward pleasantly, "will do you in the same style some day." And he retired to dress, laughing in an odd way. But Portlaw searched in vain for the humour which he had contrived somehow to miss. He also missed Malcourt on such occasions—Malcourt whose nimble intelligence never missed a trick!

"Thank the Lord he's coming!" he breathed devoutly. "It's bad enough to have a man dying on the premises without having an earthly thing to do while he's doing it.... I can see no disrespect to Hamil if we play a few cards now and then."

His valet was buttoning him up when Malcourt arrived and walked coolly into his room.

"Louis! Damnation!" ejaculated Portlaw, purple with emotion.

"Especially the latter," nodded Malcourt. "They tell me, below, that Hamil is very sick; wait a moment!—Mrs. Malcourt is in my house; she is to have it for herself. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes—"

"All right. I take my old rooms here for the present. Tell Williams. Mrs. Malcourt has brought a maid and another trained nurse for emergencies. She wanted to; and that's enough."

"Lord, but I'm glad you've come!" said Portlaw, forgetting all the reproaches and sarcasms he had been laboriously treasuring to discharge at his superintendent.

"Thanks," said Malcourt drily. "And I say; we didn't know anybody else was here—"

"Only his aunt and Wayward—"

Malcourt cast a troubled glance around the room, repeating: "I didn't understand that anybody was here."

"What difference does that make? You're coming back to stay, aren't you?"

Malcourt looked at him. "That's supposed to be the excuse for our coming.... Certainly; I'm your superintendent, back from a fortnight's leave to get married in.... That's understood." … And, stepping nearer: "There's hell to pay in town. Have you seen the papers?"

"Not to-day's—"

"They're down-stairs. Wormly, Hunter & Blake have failed—liabilities over three million. There's probably going to be a run on the Shoshone Securities Company; Andreas Hogg and Gumble Brothers have laid down on their own brokers and the Exchange has—"

"What!"

"A nice outlook, isn't it? Be careful what you say before Mrs. Malcourt; she doesn't realise that Cardross, Carrick & Co. may be involved."

Portlaw said with that simple self-centred dignity which characterised him in really solemn moments: "Thank God, I'm in an old-line institution and own nothing that can ever pass a dividend!"

"Even your hens pay their daily dole," nodded Malcourt, eyeing him.

"Certainly. If they don't, it's a fricassee for theirs!" chuckled Portlaw, in excellent humour over his own financial security in time of stress.

So they descended to the living-room together where Constance and Wayward stood whispering by the fire. Malcourt greeted them; they exchanged a few words in faultless taste, then he picked an umbrella from the rack and went across the lawn to his house where his bride of a fortnight awaited him. Portlaw rubbed his pudgy hands together contentedly.

"Now that Louis is back," he said to Wayward, "this place will be run properly again."

"Is it likely," asked Wayward, "that a man who has just married several millions will do duty as your superintendent in the backwoods?"

"Well," said Portlaw, with his head on one side, "do you know, it is extremely likely. And I have a vague idea that he will draw his salary with great regularity and promptness."

"What are you talking about?" said Wayward bluntly.

"I'll tell you. But young Mrs. Malcourt does not know—and she is not to be told as long as it can be avoided: Cardross, Carrick & Co. are in a bad way."

"How bad?"

"The worst—unless the Clearing House does something—"

"What!"

"—And it won't! Mark my words. Wayward, the Clearing House won't lift a penny's weight from the load on their shoulders. I know. There's a string of banks due to blow up; the fuse has been lighted, and it's up to us to stand clear—"

"Oh, hush!" whispered Constance in a frightened voice; the door swung open; a gust of chilly air sent the ashes in the fireplace whirling upward among the leaping flames.

Young Mrs. Malcourt entered the room.

Her gown, which was dark—and may have been black—set off her dead-white face and hands in a contrast almost startling. Confused for a moment by the brilliancy of the lamplight she stood looking around her; then, as Portlaw waddled forward, she greeted him very quietly; recognised and greeted Wayward, and then slowly turned toward Constance.

There was a pause; the girl took a hesitating step forward; but Miss Palliser met her more than half-way, took both her hands, and, holding them, looked her through and through.

Malcourt's voice broke in gravely:

"It is most unfortunate that my return to duty should happen under such circumstances. I do not think there is any man in the world for whom I have the respect—and affection—that I have for Hamil."

Wayward was staring at him almost insolently; Portlaw, comfortably affected, shook his head in profound sympathy, glancing sideways at the door where his butler always announced dinner. Constance had heard, but she looked only at young Mrs. Malcourt. Shiela alone had been unconscious of the voice of her lord and master.

She looked bravely back into the golden-brown eyes of Miss Palliser; and, suddenly realising that, somehow, this woman knew the truth, flinched pitifully.

But Constance crushed the slender, colourless hands in her own, speaking tremulously low:

"Perhaps he'll have a chance now. I am so thankful that you've come."

"Yes." Her ashy lips formed the word, but there was no utterance.

Dinner was announced with a decorous modulation befitting the circumstances.

Malcourt bore himself faultlessly during the trying function; Wayward was moody; his cynical glance through his gold-rimmed glasses resting now on Malcourt, now on Shiela. The latter ate nothing, which grieved Portlaw beyond measure, for the salad was ambrosial and the capon was truly Louis XI.

Later the men played Preference, having nothing else to do after the ladies left, Constance insisting on taking Shiela back to her own house, and Malcourt acquiescing in the best of taste.

The stars were out; a warm, sweet, dry wind had set in from the south-west.

"It was what we've prayed for," breathed Constance, pausing on the lawn. "It was what the doctors wanted for him. How deliciously warm it is! Oh, I hope it will help him!"

"Is that his cottage?" whispered Shiela.

"Yes.... His room is there where the windows are open.... They keep them open, you know.... Do you want to go in?"

"Oh, may I see him!"

"No, dear.... Only I often sit in the corridor outside.... But perhaps you could not endure it—"

"Endure what?"

"To hear—to listen—to his—breathing—"

"Let me go with you!" she whispered, clasping her hands, "let me go with you, Miss Palliser. I will be very quiet, I will do whatever you tell me—only let me go with you!"

Miss Clay, just released from duty, met them at the door.

"There is nothing to say," she said; "of course every hour he holds out is an hour gained. The weather is more favourable. Miss Race will show you the chart."

As Shiela entered the house the ominous sounds from above struck her like a blow; she caught her breath and stood perfectly still, one hand pressing her breast.

"That is not as bad as it has been," whispered Constance, and noiselessly mounted the stairs.

Shiela crept after her and halted as though paralysed when the elder woman pointed at a door which hung just ajar. Inside the door stood a screen and a shaded electric jet. A woman's shadow moved across the wall within.

Without the slightest noise Constance sank down on the hallway sofa; Shiela crept up close beside her, closer, when the dreadful sounds broke out again, trembling in every limb, pressing her head convulsively against the elder woman's arm.

Young Dr. Lansdale came up-stairs an hour later, nodded to Constance, looked sharply at Shiela, then turned to the nurse who had forestalled him at the door. A glance akin to telepathy flashed between physician and nurse, and the doctor turned to Miss Palliser:

"Would you mind asking Miss Clay to come back?" he said quietly. "Oh!—has she gone to bed?"

Shiela was on her feet: "I—I have brought a trained nurse," she said; "the very best—from Johns Hopkins—"

"I should be very glad to have her for a few moments," said the doctor, looking at the chart by the light of the hall lamp.

Shiela sped down the stairs like a ghost; the nurse re-entered the room; the doctor turned to follow, and halted short as a hand touched his arm.

"Dr. Lansdale?"

He nodded pleasantly.

"Does it do any good—when one is very, very ill—to see—"

The doctor made a motion with his head. "Who is that young girl?" he asked coolly.

"Mrs. Malcourt—"

"Oh! I thought it might have been this Shiela he is always talking about in his delirium—"

"It is," whispered Constance.

For a moment they looked one another in the eyes; then a delicate colour stole over the woman's face.

"I'm afraid—I'm afraid that my boy is not making the fight he could make," she whispered.

"Why not?"

She was speechless.

"Why not!" … And in a lower voice: "This corridor is a confessional. Miss Palliser—if that helps you any."

She said: "They were in love."

"Oh! Are they yet?"

"Yes."

"Oh! She married the other man?"

"Yes."

"Oh!"

Young Lansdale wheeled abruptly and entered the sick-room. Shiela returned in a few minutes with her nurse, a quick-stepping, cool-eyed young woman in spotless uniform. A few minutes afterward the sounds indicated that oxygen was being used.

An hour later Miss Race came into the hallway and looked at Shiela.

"Mr. Hamil is conscious," she said. "Would you care to see him for a second?"

A dreadful fear smote her as she crouched there speechless.

"The danger of infection is slight," said the nurse—and knew at the same instant that she had misunderstood. "Did you think I meant he is dying?" she added gently as Shiela straightened up to her slender height.

"Is he better?" whispered Constance.

"He is conscious," said the nurse patiently. "He knows"—turning to Shiela—"that you are here. You must not speak to him; you may let him see you for a moment. Come!"

In the shadowy half-light of the room Shiela halted at a sign from the nurse; the doctor glanced up, nodding almost imperceptibly as the girl's eyes fell upon the bed.

How she did it—what instinct moved her, what unsuspected reserve of courage prompted her, she never understood; but looking into the dreadful eyes of death itself there in the sombre shadows of the bed, she smiled with a little gesture of gay recognition, then, turning, passed from the room.

"Did he know you?" motioned Constance.

"I don't know—I don't know.... I think he was—dying—before he saw me—"

She was shuddering so violently that Constance could scarcely hold her, scarcely guide her down the stairs, across the lawn toward her own house. The doctor overtook and passed them on his way to his own quarters, but he only bowed very pleasantly, and would have gone on except for the soft appeal of Constance.

"Miss Palliser," he said, "I don't know—if you want the truth. You know all that I do; he is conscious—or was. I expect he will be, at intervals, now. This young lady behaved admirably—admirably! The thing to do is to wait."

He glanced at Shiela, hesitated, then:

"Would it be any comfort to learn that he knew you?"

"Yes.... Thank you."

The doctor nodded and said in a hearty voice: "Oh, we've got to pull him through somehow. That's what I'm here for." And he went away briskly across the lawn.

"What are you going to do?" asked Constance in a low voice.

"I don't know; write to my father, I think."

"You ought not to sit up after such a journey."

"Do you suppose I could sleep to-night?"

Constance drew her into her arms; the girl clung to her, head hidden on her breast.

"Shiela, Shiela," she murmured, "you can always come to me. Always, always!—for Garry's sake.... Listen, child: I do not understand your tragedy—his and yours—I only know you loved each other.... Love—and a boy's strange ways in love have always been to me a mystery—a sad one, Shiela.... For once upon a time—there was a boy—and never in all my life another. Dear, we women are all born mothers to men—and from birth to death our heritage is motherhood—grief for those of us who bear—sadness for us who shall never bear—mothers to sorrow everyone.... Do you love him?"

"Yes."

"That is forbidden you, now."

"It was forbidden me from the first; yet, when I saw him I loved him. What was I to do?"

Constance waited, but the girl had fallen silent.

"Is there more you wish to tell me?"

"No more."

She bent and kissed the cold cheek on her shoulder.

"Don't sit up, child. If there is any reason for waking you I will come myself."

"Thank you."

So they parted, Constance to seek her room and lie down partly dressed; Shiela to the new quarters still strange and abhorrent to her.

Her maid, half dead with fatigue, slept in a chair, and young Mrs. Malcourt aroused her and sent her off to bed. Then she roamed through the rooms, striving to occupy her mind with the negative details of the furnishing; but it was all drearily harmless, unaccented anywhere by personal taste, merely the unmeaning harmony executed by a famous New York decorator, at Portlaw's request—a faultless monotony from garret to basement.

There was a desk in one room; ink in the well, notepaper bearing the name of Portlaw's camp. She looked at it and passed on to her bedroom.

But after she had unlaced and, hair unbound, stood staring vacantly about her, she remembered the desk; and drawing on her silken chamber-robe, went into the writing-room.

At intervals, during her writing, she would rise and gaze from the window across the darkness where in the sick-room a faint, steady glow remained; and she could see the white curtains in his room stirring like ghosts in the soft night wind and the shadow of the nurse on wall and ceiling.

"Dear, dear dad and mother," she wrote; "Mr. Portlaw was so anxious for Louis to begin his duties that we decided to come at once, particularly as we both were somewhat worried over the serious illness of Mr. Hamil.

"He is very, very ill, poor fellow. The sudden change from the South brought on pneumonia. I know that you both and Gray and Cecile and Jessie will feel as sorry as I do. His aunt, Miss Palliser, is here. To-night I was permitted to see him. Only his eyes were visible and they were wide open. It is very dreadful, very painful, and has cast a gloom over our gaiety.

"To-night Dr. Lansdale said that he would pull him through. I am afraid he said it to encourage Miss Palliser.

"This is a beautiful place—" She dropped her pen with a shudder, closed her eyes, groped for it again, and forced herself to continue—"Mr. Portlaw is very kind. The superintendent's house is large and comfortable. Louis begins his duties to-morrow. Everything promises to be most interesting and enjoyable—" She laid her head in her arms, remaining so, motionless until somewhere on the floor below a clock struck midnight."

At last she managed to go on:

"Dad, dear; what you said to Louis about my part of your estate was very sweet and generous of you; but I do not want it. Louis and I have talked it over in the last fortnight and we came to the conclusion that you must make no provision for me at present. We wish to begin very simply and make our own way. Besides I know from something I heard Acton say that even very wealthy people are hard pressed for ready money; and so Phil Gatewood acted as our attorney and Mr. Cuyp's firm as our brokers and now the Union Pacific and Government bonds have been transferred to Colonel Vetchen's bank subject to your order—is that the term?—and the two blocks on Lexington Avenue now stand in your name, and Cuyp, Van Dine, and Siclen sold all those queer things for me—the Industrials, I think you call them—and I endorsed a sheaf of certified checks, making them all payable to your order.

"Dad, dear—I cannot take anything of that kind from you.... I am very, very tired of the things that money buys. All I shall ever care for is the quiet of unsettled places, the silence of the hills, where I can study and read and live out the life I am fitted for. The rest is too complex, too tiresome to keep up with or even to watch from my windows.

"Dear dad and dear mother, I am a little anxious about what Acton said to Gray—about money troubles that threaten wealthy people. And so it makes me very happy to know that the rather overwhelming fortune which you so long ago set aside for me to accumulate until my marriage is at last at your disposal again. Because Gray told me that Acton was forced to borrow such frightful sums at such ruinous rates. And now you need borrow no more, need you?

"You have been so good to me—both of you. I am afraid you won't believe how dearly I love you. I don't very well see how you can believe it. But it is true.

"The light in Mr. Hamil's sick-room seems to be out. I am going to ask what it means.

"Good-night, my darling two—I will write you every day.

"SHIELA."

She was standing, looking out across the night at the darkened windows of the sick-room, her sealed letter in her hand, when she heard the lower door open and shut, steps on the stairs—and turned to face her husband.

"W-what is it?" she faltered.

"What is what?" he asked coolly.

"The reason there is no light in Mr. Hamil's windows?"

"He's asleep," said Malcourt in a dull voice.

"Louis! Are you telling me the truth?"

"Yes.... I'd tell you if he were dead. He isn't. Lansdale thinks there is a slight change for the better. So I came to tell you."

Every tense nerve and muscle in her body seemed to give way at the same instant as she dropped to the lounge. For a moment her mind was only a confused void, then the routine instinct of self-control asserted itself; she made the effort required of her, groping for composure and self-command.

"He is better, you say?"

"Lansdale said there was a change which might be slightly favourable.... I wish I could say more than that, Shiela."

"But—he is better, then?"—pitifully persistent.

Malcourt looked at her a moment. "Yes, he is better. I believe it."

For a few moments they sat there in silence.

"That is a pretty gown," he said pleasantly.

"What! Oh!" Young Mrs. Malcourt bent her head, gazing fixedly at the sealed letter in her hand. The faint red of annoyance touched her pallor—perhaps because her chamber-robe suggested an informality between them that was impossible.

"I have written to my father and mother," she said, "about the securities."

"Have you?" he said grimly.

"Yes. And, Louis, I forgot to tell you that Mr. Cuyp telephoned me yesterday assuring me that everything had been transferred and recorded and that my father could use everything in an emergency—if it comes as you thought possible.... And I—I wish to say"—she went on in a curiously constrained voice—"that I appreciate what you have done—what you so willingly gave up—"

An odd smile hovered on Malcourt's lips:

"Nonsense," he said. "One couldn't give up what one never had and never wanted.... And you say that it was all available yesterday?"

"Available!"

"At the order of Cardross, Carrick & Co.?"

"Mr. Cuyp said so."

"You made over all those checks to them?"

"Yes. Mr. Cuyp took them away."

"And that Lexington Avenue stuff?"

"Deeded and recorded."

"The bonds?"

"Everything is father's again."

"Was it yesterday?"

"Yes. Why?"

"You are absolutely certain?"

"Mr. Cuyp said so."

Malcourt slowly rolled a cigarette and held it, unlighted, in his nervous fingers. Young Mrs. Malcourt watched him, but her mind was on other things.

Presently he rose, and she looked up as though startled painfully from her abstraction.

"You ought to turn in," he said quietly. "Good night."

"Good night."

He went out and started to descend the stairs; but somebody was banging at the lower door, entering clumsily, and in haste.

"Louis!" panted Portlaw, "they say Hamil is dying—"

"Damn you," whispered Malcourt fiercely, "will you shut your cursed mouth!"

Then slowly he turned, leaden-footed, head hanging, and ascended the stairs once more to the room where his wife had been. She was standing there, pale as a corpse, struggling into a heavy coat.

"Did you—hear?"

"Yes."

He aided her with her coat.

"Do you think you had better go over?"

"Yes, I must go."

She was trembling so that he could scarcely get her into the coat.

"Probably," he said, "Portlaw doesn't know what he's talking about.... Shiela, do you want me to go with you—"

"No—no! Oh, hurry—"

She was crying now; he saw that she was breaking down.

"Wait till I find your shoes. You can't go that way. Wait a moment—"

"No—no!"

He followed her to the stairs, but:

"No—no!" she sobbed, pushing him back; "I want him to myself. Can't they let me have him even when he is dying?"

"You can't go!" he said.

She turned on him quivering, beside herself.

"Not in this condition—for your own sake," he repeated steadily. And again he said: "For the sake of your name in the years to come, Shiela, you cannot go to him like this. Control yourself."

She strove to pass him; all her strength was leaving her.

"You coward!" she gasped.

"I thought you would mistake me," he said quietly. "People usually do.... Sit down."

For a while she lay sobbing in her arm-chair, white hands clinched, biting at her lips to choke back the terror and grief.

"As soon as your self-command returns my commands are void," he said coolly. "Nobody here shall see you as you are. If you can't protect yourself it's my duty to do it for you.... Do you want Portlaw to see you?—Wayward?—these doctors and nurses and servants? How long would it take for gossip to reach your family!… And what you've done for their sakes would be a crime instead of a sacrifice!"

She looked up; he continued his pacing to and fro but said no more.

After a while she rose; an immense lassitude weighted her limbs and body.

"I think I am fit to go now," she said in a low voice.

"Use a sponge and cold water and fix your hair and put on your shoes," he said. "By the time you are ready I'll be back with the truth."

She was blindly involved with her tangled hair when she heard him on the stairs again—a quick, active step that she mistook for haste; and hair and arms fell as she turned to confront him.

"It was a sinking crisis; they got him through—both doctors. I tell you, Shiela, things look better," he said cheerily.