The Paliser case Part 53

On the morrow, Jeroloman waited on his client, who received him in the library, an agreeable room in which there was nothing literary, but which succeeded at once in becoming extremely unpleasant.

M. P. was in tweeds. When his late lamented departed this life, he wore crepe on his hat for ninety days. It was a tribute that he paid, not to the lady's virtues, which were notoriously absent; nor to any love of her, for he had disliked her exceedingly; nor yet because it was conventional, he hated conventionality; but, by Gad, sir, because it bucks the women up! All that was long ago. Since then he had become less fastidious. At his son's funeral he appeared in black.

Now, on this day, dressed in tweeds, he greeted Jeroloman with his usual cordiality.

"I hope to G.o.d you are not going to bother me about anything?"

The wicked old man, who had faced wicked facts before, faced a few of them then. The stench of the main fact had been pa.s.sing from him, deodorised by the fumigating belief that his son had been killed by a lunatic. Now here it was again, more mephitic than ever, and for the whiffs of it with which Jeroloman was spraying him, he hated the man.

"Whom has she?"

"Dunwoodie."

He reviewed the bar. There was Bancroft, whose name was always in the papers and to whom clients flocked. There was Gwathmay, whom the papers ignored and whom only lawyers consulted. He might have either or both, the rest of the crew as well, and in spite of them all, unless he permitted himself to be done, the publicity would be just as resounding.

In the old nights, when social New York was a small and early, threats had amused him. "I have my hours for being blackmailed, this is not one of them," he had lightly remarked at a delightful gang. "Do your d.a.m.nedest."

They took him at his word and so completely that the small and early saw him no more. What was that to him? There were other pastures, less scrumptious perhaps, but also far less fatiguing. He had not cared, not a rap. Behind him the yard of bra.s.s yodled in a manner quite as lordly as before. His high-steppers lost none of their sheen; his yacht retained all its effulgence; so, too, did the glare of his coin. No, he had not cared. But that was long ago, so long that it might have happened in an anterior existence. He had not cared then. Age is instructive. He had learned to since. Moreover, in testimony of his change of heart, a miracle had been vouchsafed. The affair at the Opera, attributed to a lunatic, had been buried safely, like his son, the scandal tossed in for shroud. How freely he had breathed since then! The little green bottle of menthe he had barely touched. He might live to see everything forgiven or, what is quite as satisfactory, forgotten.

And now! Columns and columns, endlessly, day in, day out; the Paliser Case dragged from one court to another, the stench of it exceeded only by that of the Huns! But, by comparison, blackmail, however bitter, was sweet. When one may choose between honey and gall, decision is swift.

"What'll she take?"

Jeroloman, who had left his hat on the malachite bench in the hall, smoothed his gloves. He was about to reply. Before he could, his client shook a fist at him.

"The s.l.u.t hasn't a cent. Came to the Place with a bundle, d.a.m.n her. A suit like this costs something. Where's she going to get it? What'll she take?"

Jeroloman looked up from his gloves. "I don't know."

"Then find out."

"I offered Dunwoodie a ponderable amount."

"Well?"

"He refused it."

"Double it, then, triple it."

"Mr. Paliser, I'm sorry, but it won't do."

"d.a.m.nation, why not?"

"It is all or nothing with him and maybe nothing in the end. I told him so. I told him that the courts view with no favour a woman who, having lived illicitly with a man, claims, on his demise, to be his widow. Such a claim is but the declaration of a woman entered after the death of her alleged husband and, as such, is inadmissible under Section 829 of the Code. I have posted myself very thoroughly in the matter, though I find it has been held----"

"d.a.m.n what has been held. It's all or nothing, is it?"

Jeroloman pulled at his long chin.

All, the wicked old man reflected. All! All would be ten million and ten million was less than a tenth of his wealth--ten million for which he had no earthly need, which it would fatigue him to spend, burden him to h.o.a.rd, disgrace him to fight for, and which, normally, would go to a brat whom he had never seen and whom, as next in line, he hated.

Already he had decided. Though, it may be that on planes of which he knew nothing, long since it had been decided for him.

None the less it hurt. It hurt horribly. From a pocket, he drew a little bottle.

"Settle it then."

"On what basis?"

"All and be d.a.m.ned to her."

But now the menthe that he had raised to his lips was trickling from the bottle, staining his tweeds. He hiccoughed, gasped, motioned.

"And good-day to you."

Below, on the malachite bench, a silk hat was waiting. When that hat again appeared in Dunwoodie's office, the Paliser Case was over. It had ended before it began.

x.x.xVII

Ca.s.sy sat in the kitchen. Before her were a cheque and a letter. The letter was from the theatre-man. The cheque was Dunwoodie's. The cheque begged to be cashed, the letter begged her to call.

During the night she had gone looking along an avenue where there were houses with candid windows from which faces peered and smiled. But it was not for these that she was looking and she awoke in a tempest of farewells.

Now, across the court, in the kitchen opposite, were two inoffensive beings. On that evening when her father had made her cry, they had seemed unreal. On this forenoon their baseless appearance persisted. But their unreality was not confined to them. Their kitchen, the court, the building shared it. They were all unreal, everything was, except one thing only, which perhaps was more unreal than all things else.

She looked at the letter and from it at the cheque. The day before, on returning from the shower of millions that had caught and drenched her in Broad Street, she was not entirely dry. The glisten of the golden rain hung all about her. None the less on reaching the walk-up she forgot it. There were other matters, more important, that she had in mind. But only a philosopher could be drenched as she had been and remain unaffected. The bath is too voluptuous for the normal heart. On its waters float argosies crimson-hulled, purple-rigged, freighted with dreams come true. You have but a gesture to make. Those dreams are spaniels crouching at your feet. At a bath not dissimilar but financially far shallower, Monte Cristo cried: "The world is mine!" It was very amusing of him. But though, since then, values have varied, a bagatelle of ten millions is deep enough for any girl, sufficiently deep at least for its depths to hold strange things.

At those things, strange indeed and yet not unfamiliar, Ca.s.sy beckoned.

In their embrace she saw herself, as Jones had pictured her, going about, giving money away, strewing it full-handed, changing sobs into smiles. The picture lacked novelty. Often she had dreamed it. Only recently, on the afternoon just before the clock struck twelve, just before the gardener lit his pipe and the mask had fallen, only then, and, relatively, that was but yesterday, she had promenaded in it. It was a dream she had dreamed when a child, that had haunted her girlhood, that had abided since then. It was the dream of a dream she had dreamed without daring to believe in its truth. Now, from the core of the web that is spun by the spiderous fates, out it had sprung. There, before her eyes, within her grasp was that miracle, a rainbow solidified, vapour made tangible, a dream no longer a dream but a palette and a palette that you could toss in the air, put in the bank, secrete or squander, a palette with which you could paint the hours and make them twist to jewelled harps. No more walk-up! Good-bye, kitchy! Harlem, addio! The gentleman with the fabulous nose could whistle. Vaudeville, indeed! She could buy the shop, buy a dozen of them, tear them down, build them up, throw them into one and sing there, sing what she liked, when she liked, as she liked. Yes, but for whom? G.o.d of G.o.ds, for whom?

A local newspaper bears--or bore--a sage device: La nuit porte conseil.

That night, on her white bed, in her black room, Ca.s.sy sought it. But the counsel that night brings is not delivered while you toss about.

Night waits until you sleep. Then, to the subjective self that never sleeps, the message is delivered. It may be fallible, often it is and, in our scheme of things, what is there that is not? Yet in any dilemma bad advice may be better than none. Then, without transition, the black room changed into an avenue where faces peered and smiled. It was not though for these that she was looking, but for her way. It must have been very narrow. Though she looked and looked she could not find it.

Yet it was near, perhaps just around the corner. But in some manner, she could not reach it. Sleep sank her deeper. When she awoke, there it was.

Now as she sat in the kitchen, before which, in the kitchen opposite, bundles of baseless appearances came and went, she began counting her wealth on her fingers. Youth! Up went her thumb. Health! The forefinger.

Lungs! The second finger. Not being a fright! The fourth. How rich she was! But was there not something else? Oh, yes! Sadly she smiled. A clear conscience! She had forgotten that and that came first. Youth, health, lungs, looks, these were gamblers' tokens in the great roulette of life. In the hazards of chance at any moment she might lose one or all, as eventually she must lose them and remain no poorer than before.

But her first a.s.set which she had counted last, that was her fortune, the estate she held by virtue of a trust so guardedly created that if she lost one mite, the whole treasure was withdrawn.

On the washtub--covered admirably with linoleum--at which she sat, were the cheque for a thousand dollars and the bid from the vaudeville man.

The bid, she knew, meant money. But the cheque would beggar her.

She drew breath and sat back. From above a filter of sunlight fell and told her it was noon. Across the court the bundles of baseless appearances transformed themselves into a real woman, an actual child.

The kitchen in which they moved, the house in which they dwelled were no longer the perceptions of a perceiver. They also were real. So, too, was life.