The Fortunes of Oliver Horn Part 9

"A note signed by Richard and made payable on a certain date was given to the bank, and the mortgage was deposited as security."

"And if the note is not paid?"

"Then the property covered by the mortgage is sold, and the bank deducts its loan--any balance, of course, is paid over to Richard."

"And when the sale is put off--what is done then?"

"A new note is given," and here the Colonel stopped as if in doubt, "and sometimes a second name is placed on the note increasing the security. But, Sallie, dear, do not let this part of it ever again cross your mind. I will attend to it should it become necessary. It is not often," and the Colonel waved his hand gallantly, "that a Clayton can do a Horn a service."

"Thank you, dear friend, and it is just like you to wish to do it, but this I cannot agree to. I have thought of another way since you have been talking to me. Would it--" and she stopped and looked down on the floor, "would it be of any use if I signed a note myself? This house we live in is my own, as you know, and would be an additional security to the bank if anything should happen."

The offer was so unusual that the Colonel caught his breath. He looked at her in astonishment, but her eyes never wavered. He felt instantly that, however lightly he might view the subject, the matter was intensely serious with her. The Colonel half rose to his feet, and with a bow that in Kennedy Square had earned for him the t.i.tle of "the Chesterfield of his time, sir," placed his hand on his heart.

"My dear Sallie," he said, "not a member of the board could refuse. It would at once remove any obstacle the directors might have."

"Thank you, then we will leave it so, and I will have the papers prepared at once."

"And is this Richard's advice?" the Colonel ventured to ask, slowly regaining his seat. There were some misgivings still lingering in his Chesterfieldian mind as to whether the proudest man he knew, gentle as he was, would not forbid the whole transaction.

"No. He does not know of my purpose, and you will please not tell him.

He only knows that I am opposed to allowing the property to be sold, and he has promised me that he will take no steps in the matter without my consent. All I want you to do now is to tell him that the bank has decided to let the matter stand. This obligation hereafter will be between me and the board, and I will pledge myself to carry it out. And now, one thing more before you go, and I ask this because you have seen him grow up and I know you love him. What shall I do with Oliver?"

The Colonel again caught his breath. Gallant gentleman of the old school, as he was, with a profound respect for the other s.e.x, the question startled him. According to his experience and traditions, the fathers generally looked after the welfare of the sons and found them places in life--not the mothers.

"What do you want to do with him?" he asked, quietly.

"I want him to go to work. I am afraid this life here will ruin him."

"Why, I thought he was studying law with Ellicott." The announcement could not have been very surprising to the Colonel. He doubtless knew how much time Oliver spent at Judge Ellicott's office.

"He no doubt THINKS he's studying, dear friend, but he really spends half his time in old Mr. Crocker's studio, who puts the worst possible notions into his head, and the balance of his time he is with your Sue," and she smiled faintly.

"For which you can hardly blame him, dear lady," and the Colonel bent his head graciously.

"No, for she is as sweet as she can be, and you know I love her dearly, but they are both children, and will be for some years. You don't want to support them, do you? and you know Richard can't," and there flashed out from her eyes one of those quizzical glances which the Colonel remembered so well in her girlhood.

The Colonel nodded his head, but he did not commit himself. He had never for a moment imagined that Oliver's love-affair would go as far as that, and, then again, he knew Sue.

"What do you suggest doing with him? I will help, of course, in any way I can," he said, after a pause, during which Mrs. Horn sat watching every expression that crossed his face.

"I don't know. I have not fully made up my mind. I have been greatly disturbed over Oliver. He seems to be pa.s.sing through one of those dangerous crises which often come to a boy. What do you think of my sending him to New York?"

"THE NORTH, Sallie! Why, you wouldn't send Oliver up North, would you?"

The announcement this time gave the Colonel so genuine a shock that it sent the blood tingling to his cheeks. Really, the idiosyncrasies of the Horn family were beyond his comprehension! Evidently Richard's vagaries had permeated his household.

"I do not like the influence of the North on our young men, my dear Madam." The Colonel spoke now with great seriousness and with some formality, and without any of the Chesterfieldian accompaniments of tone or gesture. "If he were my boy, I should keep him here. He is young and light-hearted, I know, and loves pleasure, but that will all come out of him. Let him stay with Ellicott; he will bring him out all right. There is a brusqueness and a want of refinement among most Northern men that have always grated on me. You can see it any day in Amos Cobb."

As he spoke a slight flush overspread his listener's face. The positiveness of his tone, she thought, carried with it a certain uncomplimentary criticism of her suggestion. The Colonel saw it, and, as if in apology and to prove his case, added, in a gentler tone: "Only this afternoon at the club I heard Cobb speaking in the most outrageous manner about our most treasured inst.i.tutions. It is not his fault perhaps. It is the fault of his breeding, but it is unbearable all the same. Keep Oliver here. He has a most engaging and lovable nature, is as clean and sweet as a girl, and I haven't a doubt but what he will honor both you and his blood. Take my word for it, and keep him at home. He is young yet, barely twenty-two--there is plenty of time for him." And the Colonel rose from the sofa, lifted Mrs. Horn's fingers to his lips and bowed himself out.

The Colonel only told the truth, as he saw it. In his day and generation men of twenty-two were but boys, and only gray-beards ruled the State and counting-house. The Senators were indeed grave and reverend seigniors, and the merchants, in their old-fashioned dress-coats, looked more like distinguished diplomats than buyers and sellers of produce. In those days, too, the young man with a mustache was thought presuming and dangerous, and the bank who would have selected a cashier under forty would have caused a run on its funds in a week after the youth had been appointed to his position.

After the Colonel's departure Mrs. Horn sat in deep thought. The critical tones of his voice still lingered in her memory. But her judgment had not been shaken nor was her mind satisfied. Oliver still troubled her. The Colonel's advice might be right, but she dared not rely upon it.

The next day she sent for Amos Cobb: Malachi took the message this time, not Oliver. Cobb came on the minute. He was greatly surprised at Mrs. Horn's note, for although his wife was an intimate friend of Mrs.

Horn's, and he himself would have been welcome, he was seldom present at any of the functions of the house and could not be considered one of its intimate guests. He did not like music, he said to his wife, when urged to go, and, as he did not play chess or drink Madeira, he preferred to stay at home.

Malachi relieved Amos of his hat, and conducted him into Mrs. Horn's presence with rather a formal bow--quite different from the low salaam with which he had greeted Colonel Clayton. "Dat bobobalish'-nest, Mister Cobb, jes' gone in de parlor," he said to Aunt Hannah when he regained the kitchen. "Looks like he lived on parsimmons, he dat sour."

Mrs. Horn received her visitor cordially, but with a reserve which she had not maintained toward the Colonel, for Cobb had never represented to her anything but a money standard pure and simple. It was only when the Colonel had mentioned his name, and then only because of her urgent need of just such sound practical advice as she knew he could give that she had determined to seek his services--quite as she would have consulted an architect or an attorney.

The Vermonter took his seat on the extreme edge of the sofa, squared his shoulders, pulled up the points of his high collar, touched together the tips of all his fingers, and looked straight at his hostess.

"I am greatly obliged to you for coming," she began, "for I know how busy you are, but I have a question to ask of you which I feel sure you can answer better than anyone I know. It is about my son Oliver. I am going to be perfectly frank with you, and I want you to be equally frank with me." And she summed up Oliver's aims, temptations, and failings with a skill that gained the Vermonter's closest attention.

"With all this," she continued, "he is affectionate, loves me dearly, and has never disobeyed me in his life. It is his love of change that worries me--his instability--one thing one moment, and another the next. It seems to me the only way to break this up is to throw him completely on his own resources so that he may realize for once what life really means. Now tell me--" and she looked searchingly into Cobb's face, as if eager to note the effect of her question--"if he were your only son, would you, in view of all I have told you, send him to New York to make his start in life, or would you keep him here?"

The Vermonter's face had begun to lighten as she progressed, and had entirely cleared when he learned why he had been sent for. He had been afraid, when he received her note, that it had been about the mortgage.

Cobb was chairman of the Loan Committee at the bank, had personally called attention to Richard's note being overdue, and had himself ordered its payment.

"My two boys are at school in Vermont, Madam," he answered, slowly.

"But Oliver must earn his own living," she said, earnestly. "His father will have nothing to give him."

Cobb made no reply. He was not surprised. Most all of these aristocratic Southerners were on their last legs. He was right about the note, he said to himself--it was just as well to have it paid--and he made a mental memorandum to inquire about it as soon as he reached his office, and have it pressed for settlement at once. Business matters must be kept intact.

"What do you want him to do, Madam?" he asked, looking at her keenly from under his bushy eyebrows.

"Anything to earn his bread," she replied, in a decided tone.

Cobb pa.s.sed his hand over his face, pinched his chin with his thumb and forefinger, and looked out of the window. The answer pleased him. It pleased him, too, to be consulted by the Horns on a matter of this kind. It pleased him most of all to realize that when these aristocrats who differed with him politically got into a financial hole they had to send for him to help pull them out.

For a moment the Vermonter remained in deep thought. "Here is a Southern woman," he said to himself, "with some common-sense and with a head on her shoulders. If her husband had half her brains I'd let the mortgage stand." Then he turned and faced her squarely, his eyes boring into hers.

"Send him to New York, by all means, Madam, or anywhere else out of here," he said, firmly, but with a kindly tone in his voice. "When you decide, let me know--I will give him a letter to a business friend of mine who lives on the Hudson, a short distance above the city, who may help him. But let me advise you to send him at once. I saw your son yesterday at the club, and he exactly fits your measure, except in one respect. He's got more grit in him than you give him credit for. I looked him over pretty carefully, and if he gets in a tight place you needn't worry about him. He'll pull out, or my name isn't Cobb. And now one thing more--" and he rose stiffly from the sofa and b.u.t.toned up his coat--"don't give him any pocket-money. Chuck him out neck and heels into the world and let him shift for himself. That's the way I was treated, and that's the way I got on. Good-day."

CHAPTER VII

A SEAT IN UNION SQUARE

Within a day's journey of Kennedy Square lay another wide breathing-s.p.a.ce, its winding paths worn smooth by countless hurrying feet.

Over its flat monotony straggled a line of gnarled willows, marking the wanderings of some guileless brook long since swallowed up and lost in the mazes of the great city like many another young life fresh from green fields and sunny hill-sides. This desert of weeds and sun-dried, yellow gra.s.s, this kraal for scraggly trees and broken benches, breasted the rush of the great city as a stone b.r.e.a.s.t.s a stream, dividing its current--one part swirling around and up Broadway to the hills and the other flowing eastward toward Harlem and the Sound.

Around its four sides, fronting the four streets that hemmed it in, ran a ma.s.sive iron railing, socketed in stone and made man-proof and dog-proof by four great iron gates. These gates were opened at dawn to let the restless in, and closed at night to keep the weary out.

Above these barriers of stone and iron no joyous magnolias lifted their creamy blossoms; no shy climbing roses played hide-and-seek, blushing scarlet when caught. Along its foot-worn paths no drowsy Moses ceased his droning call; no lovers walked forgetful of the world; no staid old gentlemen wandered idly, their noses in their books.