Kennedy Square Part 22

"No, don't sit down, Mr. Poe--not yet. Give us that great story of yours--the one you told at my house that night--we have never forgotten it. Gentlemen, all take your seats--I promise you one of the great treats of your lives."

Poe stood for an instant undecided, the light of the candles illumining his black hair, pallid face, and haggard features; fixed his eyes on Todd and Malachi, as if trying to account for their presence, and stood wavering, his deep, restless eyes gleaming like slumbering coals flashing points of hot light.

Again Mr. Kennedy's voice rang out:

"Any one of your stories, Mr. Poe--we leave it to you."

Everybody was seated now, with eyes fixed on the poet. Harry, overcome and still dazed, pressed close to Richard, who, bending forward, had put his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand. Clayton wheeled up a big chair and placed it back some little distance so that he could get a better view of the man. Seymour, Latrobe, and the others canted their seats to face the speaker squarely. All felt that Kennedy's tact had saved the situation and restored the equilibrium. It was the poet now who stood before them--the man of genius--the man whose name was known the country through. That he was drunk was only part of the performance.

Booth had been drunk when he chased a super from the stage; Webster made his best speeches when he was half-seas-over--was making them at that very moment. It was so with many other men of genius the world over. If they could hear one of Poe's poems--or, better still, one of his short stories, like "The Black Cat" or the "Murders in the Rue Morgue"--it would be like hearing Emerson read one of his Essays or Longfellow recite his "Hyperion." This in itself would atone for everything.

Kennedy was right--it would be one of the rare treats of their lives.

Poe grasped the back of the chair reserved for him, stood swaying for an instant, pa.s.sed one hand nervously across his forehead, brushed back a stray lock that had fallen over his eyebrow, loosened the top b.u.t.ton of his frock coat, revealing a fresh white scarf tied about his neck, closed his eyes, and in a voice deep, sonorous, choked with tears one moment, ringing clear the next--word by word--slowly--with infinite tenderness and infinite dignity and with the solemnity of a condemned man awaiting death--repeated the Lord's Prayer to the end.

Kennedy sat as if paralyzed. Richard Horn, who had lifted up his hands in horror as the opening sentence reached his ears, lowered his head upon his chest as he would in church. There was no blasphemy in this! It was the wail of a lost soul pleading for mercy!

Harry, cowering in his chair, gazed at Poe in amazement. Then a throb of such sympathy as he had never felt before shook him to his depths. Could that transfigured man praying there, the undried tears still on his lids, be the same who had entered on his uncle's arm but a few moments before?

Poe lifted his head, opened his eyes, walked in a tired, hopeless way toward the mantel and sank into an easy-chair. There he sat with bowed head, his face in his hands.

One by one the men rose to their feet and, with a nod or silent pressure of St. George's palm, moved toward the door. When they spoke to each other it was in whispers: to Todd, who brought their hats and canes; to Harry, whom, unconsciously, they subst.i.tuted for host; shaking his hand, muttering some word of sympathy for St. George. No--they would find their way, better not disturb his uncle, etc. They would see him in the morning, etc., and thus the group pa.s.sed out in a body and left the house.

Temple himself was profoundly moved. The utter helplessness of the man; his abject and complete surrender to the demon which possessed him--all this appalled him. He had seen many drunken men in his time--roysterers and brawlers, most of them--but never one like Poe. The poet seemed to have lost his ident.i.ty--nothing of the man of the world was left--in speech, thought, or movement.

When Harry re-entered, his uncle was sitting beside the poet, who had not yet addressed him a word; nor had he again raised his head. Every now and then the sound of an indrawn breath would escape Poe, as if hot tears were choking him.

St. George waved his hand meaningly.

"Tell Todd I'll ring for him when I want him, Harry," he whispered, "and now do you go to sleep." Then, pointing to the crouching man, "He must stay in my bed here to-night; I won't leave him. What a pity! O G.o.d!

what a pity! Poor fellow--how sorry I am for him!"

Harry was even more affected. Terrified and awestruck, he mounted the stairs to his room, locked his chamber door, and threw himself on his bed, his mother's and Kate's pleadings sounding in his ears, his mind filled with the picture of the poet standing erect with closed eyes, the prayer his mother had taught him falling from his lips. This, then, was what his mother and Kate meant--this--the greatest of all calamities--the overthrow of a MAN.

For the hundredth time he turned his wandering search-light into his own heart. The salient features of his own short career pa.s.sed in review: the fluttering of the torn card as it fell to the floor; the sharp crack of Willits's pistol; the cold, harsh tones of his father's voice when he ordered him from the house; Kate's dear eyes streaming with tears and her uplifted hands--their repellent palms turned toward him as she sobbed--"Go away--my heart is broken!" And then the refrain of the poem which of late had haunted him night and day:

"Disaster following fast and following faster, Till his song one burden bore,"

and then the full, rich tones of Poe's voice pleading with his Maker:

"Forgive us our trespa.s.ses as we forgive those who trespa.s.s against us."

Yes:--Disaster had followed fast and faster. But why had it followed him? What had he done to bring all this misery upon himself? How could he have acted differently? Wherein had he broken any law he had been taught to uphold, and if he had broken it why should he not be forgiven?

Why, too, had Kate turned away from him? He had promised her never to drink again; he had kept that promise, and, G.o.d helping him, he would always keep it, as would any other man who had seen what he had just seen to-night. Perhaps he had trespa.s.sed in the duel, and yet he would fight Willits again were the circ.u.mstances the same, and in this view Uncle George upheld him. But suppose he had trespa.s.sed--suppose he had committed a fault--as his father declared--why should not Kate forgive him? She had forgiven Willits, who was drunk, and yet she would not forgive him, who had not allowed a drop to pa.s.s his lips since he had given her his promise. How could she, who could do no wrong, expect to be forgiven herself when she not only shut her door in his face, but left him without a word or a line? How could his father ask forgiveness of his G.o.d when he would not forgive his son? Why were these two different from his mother and his Uncle George, and even old Alec--who had nothing but sympathy for him? Perhaps his education and training had been at fault. Perhaps, as Richard Horn had said, his standards of living were old-fashioned and quixotic.

Only when the gray dawn stole in through the small window of his room did the boy fall asleep.

CHAPTER XVI

Not only Kennedy Square, but Moorlands, rang with accounts of the dinner and its consequences. Most of those who were present and who witnessed the distressing spectacle had only words of sympathy for the unfortunate man--his reverent manner, his contrite tones, and abject humiliation disarming their criticism. They felt that some sudden breaking down of the barriers of his will, either physical or mental, had led to the catastrophe. Richard Horn voiced the sentiments of Poe's sympathizers when, in rehearsing the episode the next afternoon at the club, he had said:

"His pitiable condition, gentlemen, was not the result of debauchery.

Poe neither spoke nor acted like a drunken man; he spoke and acted like a man whom a devil had overcome. It was pathetic, gentlemen, and it was heart-rending--really the most pitiful sight I ever remember witnessing.

His anguish, his struggle, and his surrender I shall never forget; nor will his G.o.d--for the prayer came straight from his heart."

"I don't agree with you, Horn," interrupted Clayton. "Poe was plumb drunk! It is the infernal corn whiskey he drinks that puts the devil in him. It may be he can't get anything else, but it's a d.a.m.nable concoction all the same. Kennedy has about given him up--told me so yesterday, and when Kennedy gives a fellow up that's the last of him."

"Then I'm ashamed of Kennedy," retorted Horn. "Any man who can write as Poe does should be forgiven, no matter what he does--if he be honest.

There's nothing so rare as genius in this world, and even if his flame does burn from a vile-smelling wick it's a flame, remember!--and one that will yet light the ages. If I know anything of the literature of our time Poe will live when these rhymers like Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper, whom everybody is talking about, will be forgotten. Poe's possessed of a devil, I tell you, who gets the better of him once in a while--it did the night of St. George's dinner."

"Very charitable in you, Richard," exclaimed Pancoast, another dissenter--"and perhaps it will be just as well for his family, if he has any, to accept your view--but, devil or no devil, you must confess, Horn, that it was pretty hard on St. George. If the man has any sense of refinement--and he must have from the way he writes--the best way out of it is for him to own up like a man and say that Guy's barkeeper filled him too full of raw whiskey, and that he didn't come to until it was too late--that he was very sorry, and wouldn't do it again. That's what I would have done, and that's what you, Richard, or any other gentleman, would have done."

Others, who got their information second hand, followed the example of St. George's guests censuring or excusing the poet in accordance with their previous likes or dislikes. The "what-did-I-tell-yous"--Bowdoin among them--and there were several--broke into roars of laughter when they learned what had happened in the Temple mansion. So did those who had not been invited, and who still felt some resentment at St. George's oversight.

Another group; and these were also to be found at the club--thought only of St. George--old Murdock, voicing their opinions when he said: "Temple laid himself out, so I hear, on that dinner, and some of us know what that means. And a dinner like that, remember, counts with St. George. In the future it will be just as well to draw the line at poets as well as actors."

The Lord of Moorlands had no patience with any of their views. Whether Poe was a drunkard or not did not concern him in the least. What did trouble him was the fact that St. George's cursed independence had made him so far forget himself and his own birth and breeding as to place a chair at his table for a man in every way beneath him. Hospitality of that kind was understandable in men like Kennedy and Latrobe--one the leading literary light of his State, whose civic duties brought him in contact with all cla.s.ses--the other a distinguished man of letters as well as being a poet, artist, and engineer, who naturally touched the sides of many personalities. So, too, might Richard Horn be excused for stretching the point--he being a scientist whose duty it was to welcome to his home many kinds of people--this man Morse among them, with his farcical telegraph; a man in the public eye who seemed to be more or less talked about in the press, but of whom he himself knew nothing, but why St. George Temple, who in all probability had never read a line of Poe's or anybody else's poetry in his life, should give this sot a dinner, and why such sane gentlemen as Seymour, Clayton, and Pancoast should consider it an honor to touch elbows with him, was as unaccountable as it was incredible.

Furthermore--and this is what rankled deepest in his heart--St. George was subjecting his only son, Harry, to corrupting influences, and at a time, too, when the boy needed the uplifting examples of all that was highest in men and manners.

"And you tell me, Alec," he blazed out on hearing the details, "that the fellow never appeared until the dinner was all over and then came in roaring drunk?"

"Well, sah, I ain't yered nothin' 'bout de roarin', but he suttinly was 'how-come-ye-so'--fer dey couldn't git 'im upstairs 'less dey toted him on dere backs. Ma.r.s.e George Temple gin him his own baid an' sot up mos'

ob de night, an' dar he stayed fur fo' days till he come to. Dat's what Todd done tol' me, an' I reckon Todd knows."

The colonel was in his den when this conversation took place. He was generally to be found there since the duel. Often his wife, or Alec, or some of his neighbors would surprise him buried in his easy-chair, an unopened book in his hand, his eyes staring straight ahead as if trying to grasp some problem which repeatedly eluded him. After the episode at the club he became more absorbed than ever. It was that episode, indeed, which had vexed him most. Not that St. George's tongue-lashing worried him--nor did Harry's blank look of amazement linger in his thoughts. St.

George, he had to confess to himself as he battled with the questions, was the soul of honor and had not meant to insult him. It was Temple's love for Harry which had incited the quixotic onslaught, for, as he knew, St. George dearly loved the boy, and this in itself wiped all resentment from the autocrat's heart. As to Harry's att.i.tude toward himself, this he continued to reason was only a question of time. That young upstart had not learned his lesson yet--a harsh lesson, it was true, and one not understood by the world at large--but then the world was not responsible for his son's bringing up. When the boy had learned it, and was willing to acknowledge the error of his ways, then, perhaps, he might kill the fatted calf--that is, of course, if the prodigal should return on all fours and with no stilted and untenable ideas about his rights--ideas that St. George, of course, was instilling into him every chance he got.

So far, however, he had had to admit to himself that while he had kept steady watch of the line of hills skirting his mental horizon, up to the present moment no young gentleman in a dilapidated suit of clothes, inverted waist measure, and lean legs had shown himself above the sky line. On the contrary, if all reports were true--and Alec omitted no opportunity to keep him advised of Ma.r.s.e Harry's every movement--the young Lord of Moorlands was having the time of his life, even if his sweetheart had renounced him and his father forced him into exile. Not only had he found a home and many comforts at Temple's--being treated as an honored guest alongside of such men as Kennedy and Latrobe, Pancoast, and the others, but now that St. George had publicly declared him to be his heir, these distinctive marks of his approbation were likely to continue. Nor could he interfere, even if he wished to--which, of course, he did not, and never could so long as he lived.... "d.a.m.n him!"

etc., etc. And with this the book would drop from his lap and he begin pacing the floor, his eyes on the carpet, his broad shoulders bent in his anxiety to solve the problem which haunted him night and day:--how to get Harry back under his roof and not yield a jot or t.i.ttle of his pride or will--or, to be more explicit, now that the mountain would not come to Mahomet, how could Mahomet get over to the mountain?

His friend and nearest neighbor, John Gorsuch, who was also his man of business, opened the way. The financier's clerk had brought him a letter, just in by the afternoon coach, and with a glance at its contents the shrewd old fellow had at once ordered his horse and set out for Moorlands, some two miles distant. Nor did he draw rein or break gallop until he threw the lines to a servant beside the lower step of the colonel's porch.

"It's the Patapsco again! It will close its doors before the week is out!" he cried, striding into the library, where the colonel, who had just come in from inspecting a distant field on his estate, sat dusting his riding-boots with his handkerchief.

"Going to stop payment! Failed! What the devil do you mean, John?"

"I mean just what I say! Everything has gone to bally-hack in the city.

Here's a letter I have just received from Harding--he's on the inside, and knows. He thinks there's some crooked business about it; they have been loaning money on all sorts of brick-bats, he says, and the end has come, or will to-morrow. He wanted to post me in time."

The colonel tossed his handkerchief on his writing-table: "Who will be hurt?" he asked hurriedly, ignoring the reference to the dishonesty of the directors.

"Oh!--a lot of people. Temple, I know, keeps his account there. He was short of cash a little while ago, for young Pawson, who has his law office in the bas.e.m.e.nt of his house, offered me a mortgage on his Kennedy Square property, but I hadn't the money at the time and didn't take it. If he got it at last--and he paid heavily for it if he did--the way things have been going--and if he put that money in the Patapsco, it will be a bad blow to him. Harry, I hear, is with him--so I thought you ought to know."