The Lieutenant-Governor Part 11

The regiment was in motion again, skirting the room in column of fours, preparatory to the march-past: but now the Lieutenant-Governor surveyed it from a new, and a dual point-of-view,--as a thousand individuals, that is, each a potential factor for immeasurable good in the coming rehabilitation of the state; and, then, as a vast fighting-machine perfect in every detail, resistless and awe-inspiring in its very integrity. He noted the faces as they pa.s.sed--stern, intelligent faces, young, for the most part, and curiously refined, intent upon correct performance of the present duty, and touched, almost without exception, with an enthusiasm born of the martial music and the rhythmic tramp of advancing feet. He saw the quick, reciprocal glance of the pivot and flank men, as the fours, in perfect alignment, swept round into company-front; the long, easy compression and give of the compact lines, acquiring correct adjustment; the rigid tenure of chests and shoulders; the firm fling of slender gray legs, as regularly intervaled as the teeth of a giant comb. Company by company, the regiment fell into the cadence of full-step. Midway, the standards of the Republic and Alleghenia rippled side by side. And so, with blare of bra.s.s and sharp staccato of snare-drums, with sheen of rifles and accoutrements, with flash of slender swords, raised in salute,--above all and always, with that magnificent unanimity, that mighty pulse of the thunderous advance, the Ninth swept past its Governor and its Colonel in review.

And then, in an instant, as it seemed, the vast square was formed again, a sharp command rang out, the rifles snapped to a present-arms, the standards dipped, and the strains of the "Star-Spangled Banner" mounted triumphantly to the great girders of the lofty roof. The mult.i.tude of spectators rose at the sound, and the Lieutenant-Governor rose with them, his heart aglow with new inspiration, new hope, and new resolve.

The band was almost speaking the words of the anthem on the dust-grayed air:--

"Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?"

To the accompaniment of a myriad clapping hands, the Lieutenant-Governor resumed his seat, shaken by a novel, tremendous emotion. Yes! a thousand times yes! The star-spangled banner, symbol of loftiest ideals and purest purposes, mute memorial and reminder of devotion incalculable and sacrifice without bound, guarantee of liberty and brotherhood, mercy, equality, and justice--yet waved! And, part and indissoluble portion of its inspiring memories and ill.u.s.trious destinies, the star of Alleghenia yet blazed upon its azure field! He had been living in a world of unrealities, in a valley of shadow, grayed by portents of failure and despair. His eyes had been narrowed to see the pitfalls which lined his path, to the stumbling-blocks, the briers, the indescribable sordidness of his personal position and his immediate surroundings. Now, he looked up and horizonward. The thunder-clouds of official depravity and duplicity which darkened the way of his endeavor--were they able, after all, to blot out the memory of the clear, high sky above?

As this thought came to him, it was almost as if, in actuality, a brooding heaven had been rent asunder, revealing the steel-blue of the infinite ether permeated with the supreme radiance of noon; and at the incursion of this illuminating element the host of his discouragements dwindled and disappeared, like noisome little prowlers of the night, scuttling to cover at the abrupt break of a tropical day. For a moment, he strove to realize whence the light had come, and in what consisted this sovereign ally, hitherto uncalculated, of his optimism. As he tracked his thought, it led him undeviatingly back to its direct inspiration, the words of Natalie Rathbawne.

"Before your fears come true"--she had said.

Before his fears came true--well, what? The revelation leaped at him full and fair now, and every nerve sang like a taut wire in answer to its touch. Before his fears came true, this wretched little world of petty chicanery and official corruption which surrounded and sickened him would be wiped out of existence. Abbott--McGrath--their machinations and their misdeeds--their lies and their ambitions--their power and their pride,--they were newts that fouled a pool, gnats in the sunshine, cinders on the snow. Towering above them, ready, at an instant's notice, to crush them out of being, was the rock of ages, the righteous spirit of Alleghenia, integral and indestructible, illumined by the ancient, undimmed, and eternal sense of rect.i.tude inherent in the American people!

Not by his agency, perhaps--perhaps not even in his day,--nevertheless and infallibly, the right was bound to conquer in the end. The clear eyes and the firm mouths of the men of the Ninth spoke it, their rifles, their broad shoulders, and their precision confirmed and guaranteed it, and back of these stood the great, taciturn figure of the People, a smile upon its calm and silent lips. When those lips should speak, as speak they would, their words would be the annihilation of Elijah Abbott and of all his kind!

Meanwhile--the bitterness--the disappointments--the humiliations--ah, in a moment, how they had grown shrunken, and wizened, and old! For out of the radiance of revelation, as Christ of old spoke to His disciples, so now the spirit of Alleghenia spoke to her Lieutenant-Governor.

"_What is that to thee? Follow thou Me!_"

Like a woman, the spirit of her cried unto him, and, like a man, the spirit of John Barclay answered.

X

A QUESTION AND AN ANSWER

Much to Barclay's satisfaction, Cavendish had obtained his appointment as a city reporter on the staff of the "Sentinel." Even the first week of the new life thus entered upon had produced a vast change in his manner and appearance. Though the Lieutenant-Governor had seen him but once, when he came to repay the loan made him--in itself, of all signs of restoration to a normal att.i.tude, the most significant--he found that his complexion had cleared and softened, and his eye perceptibly brightened. He was clean-shaven once more, and his dress, while of strict simplicity, was yet suggestive of the old days when he had been called the most fastidious man in Kenton City. He held himself straighter, too, with his shoulders thrown back and his head up; and Barclay had noted, with quiet gratification, that there was not a tremor about the hands which unfolded and smoothed the bills he had come to return. One evidence alone remained of the desperate ordeal through which he had pa.s.sed. His voice, formerly firm and vibrant with a spirit that was half gayety, half arrogance, was now indescribably modulated, and touched with a melancholy which was not that of servility, still less of shame. Rather, it was an unspeakably appealing regret, a monotonous listlessness, a suggestion of hopeless surrender to something tragic and inevitable. Barclay was puzzled by it. It seemed illogical, and evaded him, like a melody with a dimly familiar _motif_ which he was unable to place or even fully recall. It haunted him singularly, when Cavendish had left, and afterwards, in his leisure moments, came back to him, striving, as he fancied, to make itself understood. Intimately candid as their recent relation had been, here was something unexplained, which he could not come at, and which was yet eloquent of vitality, of the need of comprehension.

Since that time, three weeks before, the two men had not met. For this there were several reasons. Barclay knew from a brief note that Cavendish had taken a small room in a boarding-house, not far from the "Rockingham," and that the pressure of his work for the "Sentinel" set him afoot so early, and sent him home at night so brain and body weary, that he had neither the strength nor the inclination for other things.

Added to this, had been the Lieutenant-Governor's absorption in his own duties, and, in particular, his absence from Kenton City, on his round of inspection of the state militia. But, just before the dinner hour, on the evening following that of the review, Cavendish called, as Barclay was in the act of dressing.

"I had a suspicion I'd catch you just about this time," he said, dragging a chair to the door of the bedroom, where he could watch the Lieutenant-Governor struggling with a refractory white tie. "I'm getting on famously, and I wanted you to know it."

"That's right!" said Barclay, scowling into the mirror. "But then, I knew you would. Your pessimism didn't produce much effect on me. I've heard men talk like that before. And, of course, when a chap gets into the condition you were in, back there, there's no such thing as making him believe he can ever pull out. You talked like an a.s.s, that first night, Spencer."

"And acted like a blackguard! I suppose you will allow me to refer to that now?"

"Now less than ever, my good sir. As I've told you already, all that belongs to the past. You're yourself again. What's the use of dwelling on a time gone by, when you were in reality somebody else--or, rather, n.o.body at all? When are you going to call at the Rathbawnes'? The old man is pretty ill, I'm afraid, but I think the rest would like to see you again. They were speaking of you only the other day--that is, one of them was!"

"Not till this strike trouble is over, at all events; they have all they can attend to at present, without being bothered by reformed drunkards.

And perhaps I sha'n't call at all. I haven't decided yet what would be best."

Then, before Barclay had time to speak, he added:--

"By the way, I'm to take up the strike to-morrow, for the 'Sentinel.'"

"Are you?" exclaimed the Lieutenant-Governor, in a tone of the liveliest interest. "That's good news. It must be about the most important a.s.signment they could give you, just now. Well, I wonder if you are destined to be the only conscientious reporter in Kenton City, or whether you will simply be like all the rest. Are you going to have the courage of your convictions--which I think I can surmise, though you haven't as yet confided them to me--or are you going to wear the slave-chains of your fellows, and distort, and misrepresent, and truckle and kow-tow to the policy of the most venal press in America?"

"_On fait ce qu'on peut_," said Cavendish, with a shrug. "Orders are orders, John. If the orders of the editor don't go, the orders on the cashier don't come. That's about all there is to it. It would be rather futile to attempt the Don Quixote act, if only for the reason that one would never get into print. One can't do more than follow instructions.

The reporter's best policy is his paper's best honesty."

"Honesty?" repeated the Lieutenant-Governor. "Where does the honesty come in? Of course I understand your position. In a way, it is identical with mine--subservience to a principle that you despise, acquiescence in methods that you know to be utterly false and wrong! How sick I am of it all! It's the old experience, all over again, which I used to have as a child with the Tom Smith paper crackers. You are fascinated by the tinsel, and the colored paper, and the gaudy label. You think that when you've dissected one, and pulled it all to pieces, you'll find a bugle and a gold crown inside--because that's what it says on the box. But, the first thing you know, you'll find yourself blowing on a tin whistle and wearing a fool's cap of green paper! Lord! how the press of Kenton City needs a _man_--a man with the courage and the power to show up the scoundrels who are responsible for all this--McGrath and his a.s.sociates, I mean. I'm sick and tired of reporters whose rascality is self-evident, of editors who are bought and sold like chattels, of a state of affairs, in general, so infamous as to surpa.s.s expression! You have my sympathy, Spencer--the sympathy of a fellow-victim. To be a reporter on a newspaper which dictates dishonesty; to be the lieutenant of a Governor who enjoins duplicity--it's all just about one and the same thing!"

"It's curious," commented Cavendish, "that it wasn't until about a week after--after that night, that I knew you were Lieutenant-Governor. Then, your name happened to be mentioned in the office, and somebody asked me if I knew you."

"Whereupon," said Barclay, conquering the tie at last, and turning from the mirror, "you had the inexpressible privilege of saying that you knew me intimately."

"Whereupon," repeated Cavendish, in that so singular tone which had lain heavy upon the other's memory, "I had the inexpressible privilege of saying that I used to know you, but that we had quarreled, and were now--strangers."

"Why?" demanded the Lieutenant-Governor, wheeling abruptly upon him.

"What possessed you to say such a silly thing as that?"

Cavendish leaned forward in his chair, with his elbows on his knees, and his forehead against his interlaced fingers, staring at the floor.

"I'm glad, in a way, to have you ask that question," he said slowly. "We are wary of mock heroics, or even real heroics, men like you and me. And yet there are things which must be explained, things not easy to explain, because they come so close at times to melodrama. I've always had a horror of emotional situations; and, from what I know of you, I'm sure you have, as well. I'd avoid this explanation, if I could--indeed, I've deliberately avoided it, thus far. Yet if I were a Romanist in the presence of my priest, I think I should feel more at liberty to evade confession than I do now. For both our sakes, I'll try to be as brief, as simple, as lucid, as I can. And I'll trust you to understand, as well as may be. Don't think there's any pose, any aim at effect, in what I'm going to say. You've asked me a question, and I'm going to answer it, that's all! I don't think, in my present frame of mind, I could bear to have you entertain the suspicion that the answer was affected or lacking in candor. _Allons!_ Already I'm growing too verbose!"

He looked up with a wan smile.

"Let's get down to facts. You ask me why I told my questioner that we no longer knew each other. Well, then, let's have at it! It was because, John Barclay, there is likely--no, there is sure--to come a time when you won't care to acknowledge me as your friend. Oh, wait!" he added, as the Lieutenant-Governor held up his hand in protest. "Hear me out. You say I talked like an a.s.s, that first night. Perhaps. But the fact remains that I've been a drunkard--and that I'm bound to be one again!

I've been fighting against temptation for several weeks. It hasn't been very strong, for some reason, and so I've managed to ground it so far.

But you remember the chap with whom old Hercules wrestled? Every time he touched earth his strength was multiplied. Well, that's the way with drink. I can throw the temptation for a while, but every time I do so it rises, stronger many-fold. Sooner or later, I'm forced to give in. I know it, as I know I'm sitting here. I'm doing my best now, because, in the future, when the wrong that for a time you've righted goes wrong again, I want you to remember that I made the effort--for you--and for her--for the Fairy Princess. The end is as plain as day! It was born in me, this. I think I've never told you that my father died of it, but that's the truth. And the next time I drop, it will be for good and all.

I shall never make another effort to conquer the inevitable. If I can't do it now, with the hope of redemption thus made plain, with a new start, and a fresh chance, and--thanks to you, John--the past wiped off the slate and a new sum set to solve, with the incentive of your friendship and confidence, and the interest, so undeserved, of the Fairy Princess, into the bargain,--if I can't do it now, I say, why surely I can never do it. John, you can't know what I've been through. You, who've never had the temptation, can't conceive of what it means. It's a living actuality, this l.u.s.t for drink. When your nerves go wrong, even at the end of a day, or a week, or a year, during which you've kept straight, when you're tired, discouraged, and, above all, _alone_!--then it comes at you like a live thing,--speaks--grips your arm--drags you wherever it wills! I've laughed at it, scoffed at it, in its absence, tried to make myself believe it a fragment of an otherwise forgotten dream, many and many and many a time. _But it always came back!_ Oh, John Barclay, you others will never understand! A man has to have been through it, in order to know, and that not once, but, as I have, a hundred times."

"I can well believe it to be a tremendous temptation," said the Lieutenant-Governor gravely.

"Temptation? It's more than that! A temptation gives you _some_ chance, doesn't it? You may yield to it, but, at least, you've had your fighting-chance. Well, in that sense, this is no temptation, though I've been using the word myself to describe it. Why, John, it's madness, sheer insanity. You probably remember that I never used to touch alcohol at all. I promised my poor mother to let it alone until I reached my majority. Of course, I didn't realize about the dear old man; he died when I was too young for that. But her one great fear, and naturally, was that the curse had descended to me--just as it had! Well, I stuck to my promise till I was twenty-one, and kept along in the same way for some time afterwards, just because there didn't seem to be any particularly good reason for taking up something which I had managed to get along very well without, all my life. Then came that time, you know--three years ago--and out of mere recklessness, bravado, G.o.d knows what, I began to drink. John, I was a doomed man from the first swallow!

That demon had been hiding inside me, without sound or movement or other hint of his presence, for twenty-eight years--just waiting his chance!

You know the rest. The fight has been going on ever since, and the thing has beaten every time. I've resisted. I've struggled. I've even prayed.

It's all useless."

He pointed significantly to the curtain which hung where the door of the wine-closet had been.

"As I did that night," he continued, "I shall do again, and still again, until the end. It's insanity, nothing more or less. It lurks at the back of my brain--always--always--and then, suddenly, when I am least expecting it, it comes forward with a rush, and I might as well try to check the north wind or the incoming tide. I feel it tingling in my fingers, scorching my throat, tearing at my reason. I swear I won't give in, and, in the very act of so swearing, I get up and go out to meet it.

I could break down iron doors to get at the drink when it calls to me.

And, though I seem to be going straight enough now, the moment is coming when it _will_ call and when I shall obey! Then you won't want to think you've ever known me, John Barclay, still less to remember that the name of the Fairy Princess has pa.s.sed between us. And, in the midst of my d.a.m.nation, it will be a drop of cold water on my tongue to know that I've left you a loophole through which to escape the acknowledgment of these last few weeks. So far, no one but the 'Rockingham' people, and Payson, and--and the Fairy Princess--know that we've been together recently. The 'Rockingham' people don't even know my name. Payson won't speak. And _she_ certainly won't. So far, so good. Further, I've come to say good-by. Hereafter, we mustn't see each other"--

"Stop--stop!" broke in the Lieutenant-Governor. "What is all this rot you're talking? Chuck it, will you? Look here! If you go back on me--which is bad--and on your Fairy Princess--which is worse--and on yourself--which is the worst of all"--

"Yes, yes," answered Cavendish, "that's all true. But I'm not talking about _if_ I go back, I'm talking about _when_ I go back! As I said when I began, there's no use trying to explain this thing to a man who doesn't understand it, and no man _can_ understand it except through his own experience. In this respect, if in no other, you and I talk different languages, belong on different planets. Could I expect you to comprehend with me that first give of self-control which lets the demon loose, and the meaning of the sight or smell of drink at that exact moment when the will is weakest--the first gla.s.s, hastily swallowed, as a brute, long thirsty, gulps down the water it has craved--the second and third, taken more slowly--and then, that slackening of every nerve, that jettisoning of all the moral cargo, that sudden love and appreciation of the sensuous side of life? Don't you see? It's another world, that, which you simply can't understand, unless you travel to it by the road by which I have come--which G.o.d forbid!"

"In all this," said Barclay, "I can see no reason why our present friendship should not continue, and should not be known."

"Simply this," answered Cavendish: "I'm--nothing! You're the Lieutenant-Governor,--who is spoken of, if you care to know it, in the office of the 'Sentinel' as the only honest official in the state of Alleghenia. You mustn't tie up to me, nor I to you. I've told you what my end is going to be. You don't believe it, perhaps, but it's none the less true. And yours--do you know that the law-abiding element looks up to you as a kind of Messiah? Do you know that you are the dawn of honor and integrity which lies behind the present black cloud of lawlessness?

I tell you, John, the promise of your future is such as might nerve a beaten Napoleon to renewed endeavor. In your hands lies the salvation of the state."