The Fighting Chance Part 40

As he stepped into the corridor he heard, below, a sound at the great door, and the stirring of the night watchman on post. At his own door he turned, listening to the movement and whispering. Ferrall, in dressing-gown and slippers, stepped into the corridor; below, the chains were rattling as the wicket swung open. There was a brief parley at the door, sounds of retreating steps on the gravel outside, sounds of approaching steps on the stairway.

"What's that? A telegram?" said Ferrall sharply. "Here, give it to me.

Wait! It isn't for me. It's for Mr Siward!"

Siward, standing at his open door, swayed slightly. A thrill of pure fear struck him through and through. He laid one hand on the door to steady himself, and stepped forward as Ferrall came up.

"Oh! You're awake, Stephen. Here's a telegram." He extended his hand.

Siward took the yellow envelope, fumbled it, tore it open.

"Good G.o.d!" whispered Ferrall; "is it bad?"

And Siward's glazed eyes stared and stared at the scrawled and inky message:

"YOUR MOTHER IS VERY ILL. COME AT ONCE."

The signature was the name of their family physician, Grisby.

CHAPTER VIII CONFIDENCES

By January the complex social mechanism of the metropolis was whirling smoothly again; the last ultra-fashionable December lingerer had returned from the country; those of the same caste outward bound for a Southern or exotic winter had departed; and the glittering machine, every part a.s.sembled, refurbished, repolished, and connected, having been given preliminary speed-tests at the horse show, and a tuning up at the opera, was now running under full velocity; and its steady, subdued whir quickened the clattering pulse of the city, keying it to a sublimely syncopated ragtime.

The commercial reaction from the chaos of the holidays had become a carnival of recovery; shop windows grew brighter and gayer than ever, bursting into gaudy winter florescence; the main arteries of the town roared prosperity; cross streets were packed; Fifth Avenue, almost impa.s.sible in the morning, choked up after three o'clock; and all the afternoon through, and late into the night, mounted police of the traffic squad, adrift in the tide of carriages, stemmed the flashing currents pouring north and south from the white marble arch to the gilded bronze battle-horse and its rider on guard at the portals of the richest quarter of the wealthiest city in the world.

So far, that winter, snow had fallen only twice, lasting but a day or two each time; street and avenue remained bone dry where the white-uniformed cleaning squads worked amid clouds of dust; and all day long the flinty asphalt echoed the rattling slap of horses' feet; all day long the big, shining motor-cars sped up town and down town, droning their distant warnings. It was an open winter in New York, and, financially, a prosperous one; and that meant a brilliant social season.

Like a set piece of fireworks, with its interdependent parts taking fire in turn, function after function, spectacle after spectacle, glittered, fizzed, and was extinguished, only to give place to newer and more splendid spectacles; separate circles, sets, and groups belonging to the social solar system whizzed, revolved, rotated, with edifying effects on everybody concerned, unconcerned, and not at all concerned; and at intervals, when for a moment or two something hung fire, the twinkle of similar spectacles sputtering away in distant cities beyond the horizon was faintly reflected in the social sky above the incandescent metropolis. For the whole nation was footing it, heel and toe, to the echoes of strains borne on the winds from the social capital of the republic; and the social arbiter at Bird Centre was more of a facsimile of his New York confrere than that confrere could ever dream of even in the most realistic of nightmares.

Three phenomena particularly characterised that metropolitan winter: the reckless rage for private gambling through the mediums of bridge and roulette; the incorporation of a company known as The Inter-County Electric Company, capitalised at a figure calculated to disturb n.o.body, and, so far, without any avowed specific policy other than that which served to decorate a portion of its charter which otherwise might have remained ornately and comparatively blank; the third phenomenon was the retirement from active affairs of Stanley S. Quarrier, the father of Howard Quarrier, and the election of the son to the presidency of the great Algonquin Loan and Trust Company, with its network system of dependent, subsidiary, and allied corporations.

The day that the newspapers gave this interesting information to the Western world, Leroy Mortimer, on being bluntly notified that he had overdrawn his account with the Algonquin Loan and Trust, began telephoning in every direction until he located Beverly Plank at the Saddle Club--an organisation of wealthy men, and sufficiently exclusive not to compromise Plank's possible chances for something better; in fact, the Saddle Club, into which Leroy Mortimer had already managed to pilot him, was one riser and tread upward on the stair he was climbing, though it was more of a lobby for other clubs than a club in itself. To be seen there was, perhaps, rather to a man's advantage, if he did not loaf there in the evenings or use it too frequently. As Plank carefully avoided doing either, Mortimer was fortunate in finding him there; and he crawled out of his hansom, saying that the desk clerk would pay, and entered the reading-room, where Plank sat writing a letter.

Beverly Plank had grown stouter since he had returned to town from Black Fells; but the increase of weight was evenly distributed over his six feet odd, which made him only a trifle more ponderous and not abdominally fat. But Mortimer had become enormous; rolls of flesh crowded his mottled ear-lobes outward and bulged above his collar; cushions of it padded the backs of his hands and fingers; shaving left his heavy, distended face congested and unpleasantly shiny. But he was as minutely groomed as ever, and he wore that satiated air of prosperity which had always been one of his most important a.s.sets.

The social campaign inaugurated by Leila Mortimer in behalf of Beverly Plank had, so far, received no serious reverses. His box at the horse show, of course, produced merely negative results; his box at the opera might mean something some day. His name was up at the Lenox and the Patroons; he had endowed a ward in the new pavilion of St. Berold's Hospital; he had presented a fine Gainsborough--The Countess of Wythe--to the Metropolitan Museum; and it was rumoured that he had consulted several bishops concerning a new chapel for that huge bastion of the citadel of Faith looming above the metropolitan wilderness in the north.

So far, so good. If, as yet, he had not been permitted to go where he wanted to go, he at least had been instructed where not to go and what not to do; and he was as docile as he was dogged, understanding how much longer it takes to shuffle in by way of the mews and the back door than to sit on the front steps and wait politely for somebody to unchain the front door.

Meanwhile he was doggedly docile; his huge house, facing the wintry park midway between the squat palaces of the wealthy pioneers and the outer hundreds, remained magnificently empty save for certain afternoon conferences of very solemn men, fellow directors and a.s.sociates in business and financial matters--save for the periodical presence of the Mortimers: a mansion immense and shadowy, haunted by relays of yawning, livened servants, half stupefied under the vast silence of the twilit splendour. He was patient, not only because he was told to be, but also because he had nothing better to do. Society stared at him as blankly as the Mountain confronted Mahomet. But the stubborn patience of the man was itself a strain on the Mountain; he was aware of that, and he waited for it to come to him. As yet, however, he could detect no symptoms of mobility in the Mountain.

"Things are moving all the same," said Mortimer, as he entered the reading room of the Saddle Club. "Quarrier and Belwether have listened a d.a.m.ned sight more respectfully to me since they read that column about you and the bishops and that chapel business."

Plank turned his heavy head with a disturbed glance around the room; for he always dreaded Mortimer's indiscretions of speech--was afraid of his cynical frankness in the presence of others; even shrank from the brutal bonhomie of the man when alone with him.

"Can't you be careful?" he said; "there was a man here a moment ago."

He picked up his unfinished letter, folded and pocketed it, touched an electric bell, and when a servant came, "Take Mr. Mortimer's order,"

he said, supporting his ma.s.sive head on his huge hands and resting his elbow on the writing-desk.

"I've got to cut out this morning bracer," said Mortimer, eyeing the servant with indecision; but he gave his order nevertheless, and later accepted a cigar; and when the servant had returned and again retired, he half emptied his tall gla.s.s, refilled it with mineral water, and, settling back in the padded arm-chair, said: "If I manage this thing as it ought to be managed, you'll go through by April. What do you think of that?"

Plank's phlegmatic features flushed. "I'm more obliged to you than I can say," he began, but Mortimer silenced him with a gesture: "Don't interrupt. I'm going to put you through The Patroons Club by April.

That's thirty yards through the centre; d'ye see, you dunderheaded Dutchman? It's solid gain, and it's our ball. The Lenox will take longer; they're a 'holier-than-thou' bunch of nincomp.o.o.ps, and it always horrifies them to have any man elected, no matter who he is. They'd rather die of dry rot than elect anybody; it shocks them to think that any man could have the presumption to be presented. They require the spectacle of fasting and prayer--a view of a candidate seated in sackcloth and ashes in outer darkness. You've got to wait for the Lenox, Plank."

"I am waiting," said Plank, squaring his ma.s.sive jaws.

"You've got to," growled Mortimer, emptying his gla.s.s aggressively.

Plank looked out of the window, his shrewd blue eyes closing in retrospection.

"Another thing," continued Mortimer thickly; "the Kemp Ferralls are disposed to be decent. I don't mean in asking you to meet some intellectual second-raters, but in doing it handsomely. I don't know whether it's time yet," he added, with a sidelong glance at Plank's stolid face; "I don't want to push the mourners too hard Well, I'll see about it And if it's the thing to do, and the time to do it"--he turned on Plank with his boisterous and misleading laugh and clapped him on the shoulder--"it will be done, as sure as sn.o.bs are sn.o.bs; and that's the surest thing you ever bet on. Here's to them!" and he emptied his gla.s.s and fell back into his chair, wheezing and sucking at his unlighted cigar.

"I want to say," began Plank, speaking the more slowly because he was deeply in earnest, "that all this you are doing for me is very handsome of you, Mortimer. I'd like to say--to convey to you something of how I feel about the way you and Mrs. Mortimer--"

"Oh, Leila has done it all."

"Mrs. Mortimer is very kind, and you have been so, too. I--I wish there was something--some way to--to--"

"To what?" asked Mortimer so bluntly that Plank flushed up and stammered:

"To be--to do a--to show my grat.i.tude."

"How? You're scarcely in a position to do anything for us," said Mortimer, brutally staring him out of countenance.

"I know it," said Plank, the painful flush deepening.

Mortimer, fussing and growling over his cigar, was nevertheless stealthily intent on the game which had so long absorbed him. His wits, clogged, dulled by excesses, were now aroused to a sort of gross activity through the menace of necessity. At last Plank had given him an opening. He recognised his chance.

"There's one thing," he said deliberately, "that I won't stand for, and that's any vulgar misconception on your part of my friendship for you.

Do you follow me?"

"I don't misunderstand it," protested Plank, angry and astonished; "I don't--"

"--As though," continued Mortimer menacingly, "I were one of those needy social tipsters, one of those shabby, pandering touts who--"

"For Heaven's sake, Mortimer, don't talk like that! I had no intention--"

"--One of those contemptible, parasitic leeches," persisted Mortimer, getting redder and hoa.r.s.er, "who live on men like you. Confound you, Plank, what the devil do you mean by it?"

"Mortimer, are you crazy, to talk to me like that?"

"No, I'm not, but you must be! I've a mind to drop the whole cursed business! I've every inclination to drop it! If you haven't horse-sense enough--if you haven't innate delicacy sufficient to keep you from making such a break--"

"I didn't! It wasn't a break, Mortimer. I wouldn't have hurt you--"

"You did hurt me! How can I feel the same again? I never imagined you thought I was that sort of a social mercenary. Why, so little did I dream that you looked on our friendship in that light that I was--on my word of honour!--I was just now on the point of asking you for three or four thousand, to carry me to the month's end and square my bridge balance."

"Mortimer, you must take it! You are a fool to think I meant anything by saying I wanted to show my grat.i.tude. Look here; be decent and fair with me. I wouldn't offer you an affront--would I?--even if I were a cad. I wouldn't do it now, just when you're getting things into shape for me.