The Voice of the People Part 52

"Am I? I have never thought about it."

He did not think about life, he lived it; this was the beginning and the end of his success.

The face of Eugenia faded slowly into the firelight, and he rose and shook himself like a man who awakes from a nightmare. There was work for him at his desk, and he settled to it with sudden determination.

A week later the papers were still in his desk. He told himself at first that he would send them to Kingsborough to Judge Ba.s.sett and abide by his decision; but the course struck him as cowardly and he put it from him. The work was his and he would do it. Then for a week longer he went on his way and did not think of them. His days were filled with work and it was easy to leave disturbing thoughts alone; what was not easy was to consider them judicially.

At last Galt spoke of the matter, and he could not refuse to listen.

"By the way, I am hearing a good deal about that Battle pardon," Galt said. "You are looking into the matter, I suppose?"

The other shook his head.

"I have not done so as yet," he answered. "I am waiting."

"Don't wait too long or the poor devil may apply higher. He's ill, I believe, and if he insists on returning to the State, as they say he will, the law can't help but arrest him. It's a sad case. So far as I can see he was a catspaw for the real criminal and didn't have sense enough to hold on to a share of the money after he sold himself. His sister has been to see you, hasn't she? She's a superb woman, and it was a good day for Dudley Webb when he married her."

He looked up inquiringly.

"Ah, what were you saying?" asked the governor.

That night he locked himself in with the papers and plunged into the case. He read and reread each written word until he was in possession of the minutest detail. In another instance he knew that the reasons for granting the pardon would have seemed sufficient, and he would probably have had it made out at once. As it was, he admitted the force of the appeal, but something stronger than himself held him back. Above the name before him he saw the girlish face of the man he hated--saw it accusing, defying, beseeching--and beyond it he saw the gray road and the solitary star above the sunset. In the silence his own voice echoed, "As for him--may G.o.d, in His mercy, d.a.m.n him."

He locked the papers away again. "I cannot do it," he said.

Several days later he sent for a member of the legislature from the town where the crime was committed. He questioned him closely, but without result--the people up there were tired of it, the man said--at first they had been wrought up, but six years is a long time, and they didn't care much about it now. As the governor closed the interview he realised that he had hoped a bitter hope that his revenge might be justified.

When the door had shut, he went back to the case again, and again he left it. "It ought to be done, but, G.o.d help me, I cannot do it," he said.

The next morning, while he was at work in his office in the Capitol, his secretary came in to tell him that Miss Christina Battle was in the anteroom. He rose hurriedly. "I will see her at once," he said, and he opened the door as Miss Chris came in, panting softly from her ascent in the elevator.

She had changed so little that he took her hand in sudden timidity, recalling the days when he had sold her chickens before her hen-house door. But when he had settled her in one of the cane rocking-chairs beside the stove, his confidence returned and he responded heartily to her beneficent beam. Her florid face, shining large and luminous above the stiff black strings of her bonnet, reminded him of ill.u.s.trations he had seen in which the sun is endowed with human features and an enveloping smile.

"This is the greatest honour my office has brought me," he said with sincerity.

She laughed softly, smoothing her black kid glove above her plump wrist.

"I don't know what they mean by saying you aren't a lady's man, Governor Burr," she returned. "I am sure old Judge Blitherstone himself never turned a prettier compliment, and he lived to be upwards of ninety and did them better every day of his life. They used to say that when Mrs.

Peachy Tucker dropped in to see him as he was breathing his last, and told him to look forward to the joys of heaven and the communion of saints, he replied, 'Madam, if you remain with me I shall merely pa.s.s from one heaven to another,' and they were his last words."

The governor smiled into her beautiful, girlish eyes. "Men have spoken worse ones," he said, her kindliness warming him like a cordial.

"It was good of you to come," he added.

"Not a bit of it," protested Miss Chris with emphasis. "It's all about that poor, foolish boy--he's still a boy to me, and so are you for that matter. You know how wicked he has been and how miserable he has made us all, for you can't stop loving people just because they are bad. Now you are a good man, Governor Burr, and that's why I came to you. You'll do right if it kills you, and whatever you do in this matter is going to be the right thing. You can't help being good any more than he can help being bad, and I hope the Lord understands this as well as I do--I don't know, I'm sure--sometimes it looks as if He didn't; but we'd just as well trust Him, because there's nothing else for us to do.

"Now the foolish boy wronged you more than he wronged us; but you'll forgive him as we forgave him, when you know what he's suffered. It's better to be sinned against than to sin, G.o.d knows."

Her eyes were moist and her lips trembled. The governor crossed to where she sat and took her hand.

"Dear Miss Chris," he said, "women like you make men heroes." And he added quickly, "The pardon is being made out. When it is ready I will sign it."

She looked at him an instant in silence; then she rose heavily to her feet, leaning upon his arm. "You're a great man, Nick Burr," she said softly.

An hour later Nicholas Burr looked calmly down upon his signature that meant freedom for Bernard Battle. He had won the victory of his life, and he was feeling with a glow of self-appreciation that he had done a generous thing.

VIII

Miss Chris, in her hired carriage, rolled leisurely into Franklin Street, where pretty women in visiting gowns were going in and out of doorways. She leaned out and bowed smilingly several times, but she was not thinking of the gracefully dressed callers or of the houses into which they went. When Emma Carr threw her a kiss from Galt's porch, she responded amiably; but she was as blind to the affectionate gesture as to the striking beauty of the girl in her winter furs.

Up the quiet street the leafless trees made a gray vista that melted into transparent mist. The sunshine stretched in pale gold bars from sidewalk to sidewalk, and overhead the sky was of a rare Italian blue.

But for the frost in the air and the naked boughs, it might have been a day in April.

Presently the carriage turned into Main Street, halting abruptly while a trolley car shot past. "Please be very careful," called Miss Chris nervously, gathering herself together as they stopped before a big gray house that faced a gray church on the opposite corner. A flight of stone steps ran from the doorway to a short tesselated entrance leading to the street, where two scraggy poplars still held aloft the withered skeletons of last year's tulips. The Webbs had taken the house because the box bushes in the yard reminded Eugenia of Battle Hall, while Dudley declared it to be the best breathing s.p.a.ce he could get for the money.

"We done git back, Mistis," announced the negro driver, descending from his perch, and at the same instant the door of the house flew open and Eugenia ran out, bareheaded, followed by Dudley.

"I saw you from the window, Aunt Chris," she cried, "and now I want to know the meaning of this mystery. Dudley suspects you of having a lover, but I am positive that you've stolen a march on me and have been to market. What a pity I confessed to you that I couldn't tell brains from sweetbreads."

"Let me get there, Eugie," said Dudley, as Miss Chris emerged with the a.s.sistance of the driver. "Take my arm, Aunt Chris, and I'll hoist you into the house before you know it."

"Well, I declare," remarked Miss Chris, carefully stepping forth. "I don't know when I've had such a turn. These street car drivers have lost all their manners. If we hadn't pulled up in time, I believe he would have gone right into us. And to think that a few years ago we never got ready to go to market until the car was at the door. Betty Taylor used to call to the driver every morning to wait till she put on her bonnet--and time and again I've seen him stop because she had forgotten her list of groceries. Now, if you weren't standing right on the corner, I actually believe they'd go by without you."

"That's progress, Aunt Chris," responded Dudley cheerfully.

Here the driver insisted upon lending a hand, and between them they established Miss Chris before the fire in the sitting-room. "I wish you'd make Giles go out and pick up that loose paper that's scattered on the pavement," she said to Eugenia. "It looks so untidy. If I wasn't rheumatic I'd do it myself."

Dudley and Eugenia seated themselves across from her. "Now where have you been, Aunt Chris?" they demanded.

Miss Chris laughed softly as she took off her bonnet and gloves and gave them to Eugenia; then she unfastened her cape and pa.s.sed it over.

"You'll never find out that, my dears," she returned. "I'm not too old to keep a secret. Why, I've gone and lost my bag. Didn't I carry that bag with me, Eugenia?"

"Of course you did," said Eugenia. "Never mind, I'll make you another."

She went out to put away Miss Chris's wraps, and came back presently, laughing.

"Have you found out her secret, Dudley?" she asked. "If she doesn't tell you, it will die with her."

"I know better than to ask," returned Dudley good-humouredly. "That's the reason I'm her favourite. I don't ask impertinent questions, do I, Aunt Chris?"

"Bless you, no," responded Miss Chris serenely, as she stretched out her feet in their cloth shoes.

"You're her favourite because you happen to be a man," protested Eugenia. "She comes of a generation of man spoilers. I believe she thinks I ought to bring you your slippers in the evening--now don't you, Aunt Chris?"

"My dear mother always brought them to my father," replied Miss Chris placidly. "It was her pleasure to wait on him."