Kennedy Square Part 23

Rutter had given a slight start at the mention of Temple's name among the crippled, and a strange glitter still lingered in his eyes.

"Then I presume my son is dependent on a beggar," he exclaimed, rising from his seat, stripping off his brown velveteen riding-jacket and hanging it in a closet behind his chair.

"Yes, it looks that way."

Gorsuch was watching the colonel closely. He had another purpose in making his breakneck ride. He didn't have a dollar in the Patapsco, and he knew the colonel had not; he, like himself, was too shrewd a man to be bitten twice by the same dog; but he had a large interest in Harry and would leave no stone unturned to bring father and son together.

The colonel again threw himself into his chair, stretched out his slender, well-turned legs, crooked one of his russet-leather riding-boots to be sure the spurs were still in place, and said slowly--rather absently, as if the subject did not greatly interest him:

"Patapsco failed and St. George a beggar, eh?--Too bad!--too bad!" Then some disturbing suspicions must have entered his head, for he roused himself, looked at Gorsuch keenly, and asked in a searching tone: "And you came over full tilt, John, to tell me this?"

"I thought you might help. St. George needs all the friends he's got if this is true--and it looks to me as if it was," answered Gorsuch in a casual way.

Rutter relaxed his gaze and resumed his position. Had his suspicions been correct that Gorsuch's interest in Harry was greater than his interest in the bank's failure, he would have resented it even from John Gorsuch.

Disarmed by the cool, unflinching gaze of his man of business, his mind again took up in review all the incidents connected with St. George and his son, and what part each had played in them.

That Temple--good friend as he had always been--had thwarted him in every attempt to bring about a reconciliation between himself and Harry, had been apparent from the very beginning of the difficulty. Even the affair at the club showed it. This would have ended quite differently--and he had fully intended it should--had not St. George, with his cursed officiousness, interfered with his plans. For what he had really proposed to himself to do, on that spring morning when he had rolled up to the club in his coach, was to mount the steps, ignore his son at first, if he should run up against him--(and he had selected the very hour when he hoped he would run up against him)--and then, when the boy broke down, as he surely must, to forgive him like a gentleman and a Rutter, and this, too, before everybody. Seymour would see it--Kate would hear of it, and the honor of the Rutters remain unblemished.

Moreover, this would silence once and for all those gabblers who had undertaken to criticise him for what they called his inhumanity in banishing this only son when he was only trying to bring up that child in the way he should go. Matters seemed to be coming his way. The failure of the Patapsco might be his opportunity. St. George would be at his wits' end; Harry would be forced to choose between the sidewalk and Moorlands, and the old life would go on as before.

All these thoughts coursed through his mind as he leaned back in his chair, his lips tight set, the jaw firm and determined--only the lids quivering as he mastered the tears that crept to their edges. Now and then, in his mental absorption, he would absently cross his legs only to straighten them out again, his state of mind an open book to Gorsuch, who had followed the same line of reasoning and who had brought the news himself that he might the better watch its effect.

"I'm surprised that Temple should select the Patapsco. It has never got over its last smash of four years ago," Gorsuch at last remarked. He did not intend to let the topic drift away from Harry if he could help it.

"I am not surprised, John. St. George is the best fellow in the world, but he never lets anything work but his heart. When you get at the bottom of it you will find that he's backed up the bank because some poor devil of a teller or clerk, or may be some director, is his friend.

That's enough for St. George, and further than that he never goes. He's thrown away two fortunes now--his grandmother's, which was small but sound--and his father's, which if he had attended to it would have kept him comfortable all his life."

"You had some words at the club, I heard," interjected Gorsuch.

"No, he had some words, I had a julep," and the colonel smiled grimly.

"But you are still on good terms, are you not?"

"I am, but he isn't. But that is of no consequence. No man in his senses would ever get angry with St. George, no matter what he might say or do. He hasn't a friend in the world who could be so ill bred. And as to calling him out--you would as soon think of challenging your wife. St.

George talks from his heart, never his head. I have loved him for thirty years and know exactly what I am talking about--and yet let me tell you, Gorsuch, that with all his qualities--and he is the finest-bred gentleman I know--he can come closer to being a natural born fool than any man of his years and position in Kennedy Square. This treatment of my son--whom I am trying to bring up a gentleman--is one proof of it, and this putting all his eggs into one basket--and that a rotten basket--is another."

"Well, then--if that is your feeling about it, colonel, why not go and see him? As I have said, he needs all the friends he's got at a time like this." If he could bring the two men together the boy might come home. Not to be able to wave back to Harry as he dashed past on Spitfire, had been a privation which the whole settlement had felt.

"That is, of course," he continued, "if St. George Temple would be willing to receive you. He would be--wouldn't he?"

"I don't know, John--and I don't care. If I should make up my mind to go--remember, I said 'IF'--I'd go whether he liked it or not."

He HAD made up his mind--had made it up at the precise moment the announcement of the bank's failure and St. George's probable ruin had dropped from Gorsuch's lips--but none of this must Gorsuch suspect. He would still be the doge and Virginius; he alone must be the judge of when and how and where he would show leniency. Generations of Rutters were behind him--this boy was in the direct line--connecting the past with the present--and on Colonel Talbot Rutter of Moorlands, and on no other, rested the responsibility of keeping the glorious name unsmirched.

Todd, with one of the dogs at his heels, opened the door for him, smothering a "Gor-a-Mighty!--sumpin's up fo' sho'!" when his hand turned the k.n.o.b. He had heard the clatter of two horses and their sudden pull-up outside, and looking out, had read the situation at a glance.

Old Matthew was holding the reins of both mounts at the moment, for the colonel always rode in state. No tying to hitching-posts or tree-boxes, or picking up of a loose negro to watch his restless steed when he had a stable full of thoroughbreds and quarters packed with grooms.

"Yes, Ma.r.s.e Colonel--yes, sah--Ma.r.s.e George is inside--yes, sah--but Ma.r.s.e Harry's out." He had not asked for Harry, but Todd wanted him to get all the facts in case there was to be another such scene as black John described had taken place at the club on the occasion of the colonel's last visit to the Chesapeake.

"Then I'll go in unannounced, and you need not wait, Todd."

St. George was in his arm-chair by the mantel looking over one of his heavy ducking-guns when the Lord of Moorlands entered. He was the last man in the world he expected to see, but he did not lose his self-control or show in any way his surprise. He was host, and Rutter was his guest; nothing else counted now.

St. George rose to his feet, laid the gun carefully on the table, and with a cold smile on his face--one of extreme courtesy--advanced to greet him.

"Ah, Talbot--it has been some time since I had this pleasure. Let me draw up a chair for you--I'll ring for Todd and--"

"No, St. George. I prefer to talk to you alone."

"Todd is never an interruption."

"He may be to-day. I have something to say to you--and I don't want either to be interrupted or misunderstood. You and I have known each other too many years to keep up this quarrel; I am getting rather sick of it myself."

St. George shrugged his shoulders, placed the gun carefully in the rack by the door, and maintained an attentive att.i.tude. He would either fight or make peace, but he must first learn the conditions. In the meantime he would hold his peace.

Rutter strode past him to the fireplace, opened his riding-jacket, laid his whip on the mantel, and with his hands deep in his breeches pockets faced the room and his host, who had again taken his place by the table.

"The fact is, St. George, I have been greatly disturbed of late by reports which have reached me about my son. He is with you, I presume?"

St. George nodded.

Rutter waited for a verbal reply, and receiving none, forged on: "Very greatly disturbed; so much so that I have made an especial trip from Moorlands to call upon you and ascertain their truth."

Again St. George nodded, the smile--one of extreme civility now--still on his face. Then he added, flicking some stray grains of tobacco from his sleeve with his fingers: "That was very good of you, Talbot--but go on--I'm listening."

The colonel's eyes kindled. Temple's perfect repose--something he had not expected--was beginning to get on his nerves, He cleared his throat impressively and continued, his voice rising in intensity:

"Instead of leading the life of a young man brought up as a gentleman, I hear he is consorting with the lowest cla.s.s of people here in your house--people who--"

"--Are my guests," interrupted St. George calmly--loosening the b.u.t.tons of his coat in search of his handkerchief--there being more tobacco on his clothes than he had supposed.

"Yes, you have hit it exactly--your guests--and that is another thing I have come to tell you, for neither I nor your friends can understand how a man of your breeding should want to surround himself with----Is it necessary that you should understand, Talbot?"--same low, incisive but extremely civil voice, almost monotonous in its cadences. The cambric was in full play now.

"Of course it is necessary when it affects my own flesh and blood. You know as well as I do that this sot, Poe, is not a fit companion for a boy raised as my Harry has been--a man picked out of the gutter--his family a lot of play-actors--even worse, I hear. A fellow who staggers into your house dead drunk and doesn't sober up for a week! It's scandalous!"

Again St. George shrugged his shoulders, but one hand was tight shut this time, the steel claws protruding, the handkerchief alone saving their points from pressing into the palms.

"And is that what you came from Moorlands to tell me, Talbot?" remarked St. George casually, adjusting the lapels of his coat.

"Yes!" retorted Rutter--he was fast losing what was left of his self-control--"that and some other things! But we will attend to Harry first. You gave that boy shelter when--"

"Please state it correctly, Talbot. We can get on better if you stick to the facts." The words came slowly, but the enunciation was as perfect as if each syllable had been parted with a knife. "I didn't give him shelter--I gave him a home--one you denied him. But go on--I prefer to hear you out."

The colonel's eyes blazed. He had never seen St. George like this: it was Temple's hot outbursts that had made him so easy an adversary in their recent disputes.

"And you will please do the same, St. George," he demanded in his most top-lofty tone, ignoring his opponent's denial. "You know perfectly well I turned him out of Moorlands because he had disgraced his blood, and yet you--my life-long friend--have had the bad taste to interfere and drag him down still lower, so that now, instead of coming to his senses and asking my pardon, he parades himself at the club and at your dinners, putting on the airs of an injured man."

St. George drew himself up to his full height.