The Empty Sack Part 20

"As I told you yesterday after she went away, she's just what you'd expect from such a girl, certainly no better and possibly a little worse. She's a mousey little thing, with a veneer of modesty; but 'mercenary' isn't the word. It's just a question of money, Bradley; and if you'll leave it to me to deal with-"

"Leave it to you to deal with-to the tune of twenty-five thousand dollars," he said, morosely, pulling his coat into shape round his shoulders as he looked into the long gla.s.s.

"Well, that's only half what it might have been. I thought at one time that we might have to make it fifty thousand-"

He was not sure, but he thought she finished with the word "again." If so it was uttered too softly for him to be obliged to take note of it, so that he merely picked up a hairbrush and put another touch to his hair.

She was now at work on the great string of pearls which, to keep them alive, she wore even in domestic privacy. Her object was to get the famous Roehampton pearl, from the late Lady Roehampton's collection, which had been the seal of her reconciliation with Bradley fifteen years earlier-to get this jewel right in the center of her person, to make the string symmetric.

"My point in bringing it up now," she said, speaking into her chin as her eyes inspected the long oval of the necklet, "is to remind you that you don't know anything. You haven't seen Bob for nearly a week, and after Monday you won't see him for two or three months at least. Don't let him suspect that you've anything on your mind. As a matter of fact, you haven't, except what I tell you-and I may not tell you everything."

"And that may be what I complain of."

"You can't complain of it when I give you the results-now can you? You don't complain of Mr. Bickley, or ask him for all the reasons he has for saying this or that. You leave him a free hand, and are ruled by him-you've often said it-even when your own preference would be to do something else, as it was in the case of this man Follett. Now I only claim to be the Mr. Bickley of the family."

That he had rights as father Collingham was aware, though he was shy of putting them forward. Having left them so much in abeyance, it would have been as ridiculous to emphasize them now as to dispute Bickley as efficiency expert at the bank. Moreover, the uneasiness which seizes on a man when his chickens come home to roost inclined him still further to pa.s.sivity. If Bob was "knocking about town," as he seemed to be, he might know about his father what Junia did not-or presumably did not-that the woman who received the fifty thousand dollars had had her successors, and that even now the line was not extinct. While he knew of amusing incidents of fathers and sons meeting on this ground, any such _contretemps_ in his own case would have shocked him profoundly. Junia might go beyond her powers in prescribing his course, and yet, for a mult.i.tude of reasons too subtle for him to phrase, it seemed wise to follow what Junia prescribed.

So the family dined and spent the evening together as tourists walk across the Solfatara crater. The ground was hot beneath their tread, and here and there a whiff of sulphuric vapor poured through a fissure in the crust; but only Max and Dauphin sensed the volcanic fire.

Later in the evening, Junia knelt at her _prie-dieu_ with the armorial books of devotion.

"And, O heavenly Father," she added, to her usual prayer, "have mercy upon that poor erring girl and help her to repent. Grant that my son may extricate himself from the toils in which he is entangled. Enable my daughter to see that her duty lies in the station of life to which thou hast been pleased to call her. Give my husband the wisdom to seek advice and to follow it. Lead me with thy counsel so that I may do what is best for all my dear ones, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Amen."

Having thus poured out her heart, she rose feeling stronger and more comforted.

CHAPTER XI

It should be said for Jennie Follett that, in the matter of her course toward Bob Collingham, she had few of those convictions of sin and righteousness which restrain a proportion of mankind. As with the other members of her family, her conduct followed certain lines "because she couldn't help it." That is as far as her a.n.a.lysis would have carried her, though a.n.a.lysis didn't give her much concern. Having so much to do to get food and clothes, the higher laws were outside her sphere of interest. Her chief law was Necessity, and it covered so much ground that there was little place for any other law.

It may be well to state here that the Folletts belonged to that vast American contingent who have practically no religion. They had had a religion in Canada, where they had attended the church of a local G.o.d who seemed to hold no sway over the United States. They never found that church in the suburbs of New York, or, if they found it nominally, it didn't, in their opinion, "seem the same." There were no local suasions and compulsions to bring them to its doors, and so, after a few spasmodic efforts to re-establish the connection, they gave up the attempt.

Perhaps this failure was due to the fact that, in the depths of her strong, proud heart, Lizzie didn't believe in G.o.d. Josiah did-or, at least, he had believed in him up to the time of being thrown upon the sc.r.a.p heap. But Lizzie's faith in G.o.d had died with the dying of her faith in man. She had never said so, because she kept her deeper thoughts to herself; but along these lines her influence on her children had been negative.

So Jennie had missed those counsels to do right which sometimes form a part of domestic education. With so little lat.i.tude for doing anything, there was not-apart from the grosser vices-much lat.i.tude in the Follett family even for doing wrong. They did what they "couldn't help" doing, and there was an end of it. A kind of inborn rect.i.tude kept them from offenses of which the public would have taken note, but behind it there was little in the way of principle.

Jennie went to her farewell meeting with Bob untroubled by qualms of conscience. Even if scruples had worried her, they would have been allayed by the knowledge, imparted by Bob's own mother, that he had done her a great injury. He made the same kind of love to every girl he had known for an hour, and forgot her the next day. "One of these days," the mother had said, "some girl would catch him, and then he would be sorry." A girl hadn't caught him in this case, but he had caught a girl, and didn't know what to do with her. Having compelled her to go through a form of marriage-it was no more than a form-he was sailing off to the ends of the world, leaving her not so much as the protection of his name. She owed him nothing; and only the goodness of his angel mother was making up for what he owed to her.

And, on his side, Bob was so carried away by his romance as to have no conception of Jennie's att.i.tude toward him. Seeing himself as a knight riding to the relief of a damsel in distress, it did not occur to him that the damsel could have a preference as to her deliverer. It was a matter of course that, from the window of the tower in which she was a prisoner, she would drop into his arms.

In other words, Bob had his own view of the advantages of being a Collingham. They were great advantages, since they gave him the opportunity of being generous. He was in love with Jennie largely because she was an exquisite object on which to spend himself. She was a gem, not in the rough, and yet in need of polishing, and though his own refinement was not so very great, he could throw refinement in her way.

That is to say, love for Bob was very much a matter of giving himself out. Girls who could have brought him everything-and they were not scarce at Marillo Park-didn't interest him. They left no place for the selflessness which was the basis of his character. He couldn't precisely be called kind, since kindness implies some deliberation of the will. As the impulse of a fountain is to pour itself out, so Bob's impulse was to give, while Jennie was a crystal chalice wide open to receive.

"I want you to have everything in the world, Jennie darling," he declared, bending above her as lovingly as a bench in the park would permit. "I can't give it to you right off the bat, worse luck, but sooner or later I'll be able to dope you out every little wish. Good Lord! How I'll enjoy it."

"What do you mean by sooner or later?" Jennie asked, with eyes downcast.

"When I get the family broken to the bit. I can't tell you in dates or time. They'll be hard in the mouth at first; and mother pulls like the devil."

At this false witness, Jennie was revolted. No one knew better than herself the bigness of that maternal heart which, as early as next week, would give liberal proof of its sincerity, when Bob's promises would still be in the air.

Bob had the afternoon at his disposal. The park offered itself as a delicious trysting place, because it was the month of May. In a nook where lilac and syringa overshadowed them and water glinted between lawns and glades, they sat discreetly side by side, and she permitted him to hold her hand.

He went on to sketch his plans for the immediate future. His most trying lack was that of ready cash. The parental system had always been generous as to things, but penurious in money. In the matter of things, he would be as extravagant as he reasonably liked, so long as the bills were sent to dad. Before he went to work at the bank, his allowance in money wouldn't have kept him in cigarettes. Even now, he was only on the weekly pay roll for thirty-eight dollars and sixty-six cents per, handed him in a pay envelope. Food, lodging, clothes, saddle horses, motor cars-all these were thrown in extra; but in actual coin he didn't handle more than his two thousand dollars a year, like any other clerk.

Jennie could see, therefore, that, to begin with, their position would be difficult, though only to begin with. He could send her a little money while he was away, but it wouldn't be very much.

"I don't want you to send me any," she said, hastily.

"You forget that I'm your husband, dear. If I didn't, you could bring an action for divorce on the ground of nonsupport."

This idea being new to Jennie, she had it explained to her, rejecting it as a resource because it was unromantic.

"And so, to be on the safe side against that," he laughed, "I've got this for you now."

Slipping an envelope from his pocket, he forced it into the hand he was holding.

"It's only a hundred dollars-" he was beginning to explain.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away as if she had been stung.

"Oh, Bob, I can't!"

That situation amused him. It was one more proof of the nave honesty of the little girl. He knew how hard up she was, how hard up all the family must be, and yet money didn't tempt her.

"You're a funny little kid," he laughed, drawing her as near to him as the park laws would permit. "You'd think I didn't have a right to take care of you."

But Jennie was feeling that if she took this money she would be bound to him by principles more acute than the promises she had made before the parson.

"No, Bob, I can't. Please don't make me-_please_!"

But in the end he forced it on her, and she stowed it away in her little bag. By that time, too, she had reviewed the family situation. With a hundred dollars in her possession they could less easily be sold out of house and home at the end of the following week. That calamity, at least, could be dodged, whatever other misfortune might overtake herself. She might decide that to be sold out of house and home would be easier than to bind herself further to Bob by using his money; but, still, she would have the choice. As to the twenty-five thousand, there was always the possibility that it might not come in time. She had not yet seen Hubert; she couldn't see him till Bob had sailed. When she did, the other woman might be in her place and her heart would have to break in spite of everything. Better it should break with a hundred dollars in her pocket than that she should be helpless to stay the family disaster.

But when Bob sailed on the Monday she was free to make the great test.

Notwithstanding his definite farewells on the Sat.u.r.day, he had tried to see her again on the Sunday, but the necessity for secrecy made it possible for her to put him off. For one thing, she couldn't go through a second time such a good-by as that of Sat.u.r.day. Bob had been too much overcome. As unexpectedly to himself as to her, he had broken down.

Braving all publicity, he had suddenly seized her hand, pressed it to his lips, and as he bent over it she could feel his tears against her fingers. He hadn't exactly cried; he had only breathed hard, with two great sobs.

"My G.o.d! how I love you, Jennie!" she had heard him muttering. "How I love you! How I love you! How can I do without you all the time till I come back?" When he raised his head he laughed sheepishly, though the tears were still on his cheeks. "Forget it, little girl," he begged, unsteadily, wiping his cheeks and blowing his nose. "I just worship you, and that's all there is about it. It breaks me all up to go away and leave you; but the time will pa.s.s, and, if I can help it, I shall never go away from you again."

Defying the park laws once more, he had kissed her and kissed her. She had let him do it because she was so unnerved. Besides, she was sorry for him, and would have been sorrier still if she hadn't known that by to-morrow he would have forgotten her. That was always the way with fellows who took things so hard. The true love was too stern and strong to show emotion.

Nevertheless, she had had an unhappy Sunday thinking of those two sobs.

It was not until after ten o'clock on Monday morning that she was able to turn again to the compulsion of the man she loved. At ten, Bob sailed, and that episode in Jennie's life was probably behind her. By the time he came back, he would be in love with a girl of his own cla.s.s and eager to seize the freedom she, Jennie, would be in a position to deliver him. At last the way was clear. She had only to go to her lover and tell him she was there.

She went that afternoon. Her plan was simple. She would say that if he had not yet found a model for the girl in the Byzantine chair, she was ready to do the work. The rest would come as a matter of course.