Walking about as I do under sentence, I am like a man of my acquaintance, a stodgy, a terrible Philistine, who cherished for years a fancy that he could write Gilbert and Sullivan operas. In all his life he had probably never rhymed anything more subtle than love, above and dove. Since any fool, in his opinion, could supply the music, he aspired only to the Gilbertian librettos. Incessantly and hopelessly out of key he went about humming the Sullivan tunes to the lyrics he alleged to have in his mind.
Similarly, I go about with a sense of mendacious buoyancy,—like a shipwrecked passenger bobbing helplessly in a troubled sea, but still alive; a flickering glimmer of hope, like a desperate man facing a tiger, but still undevoured.
Brazenly I still expect happiness to emerge, somehow, out of hopelessness.
It is easy, of course, to lapse into moods of despondency, into wishing I were dead, since I cannot live in happiness,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh.
But such moments pass. There is a sort of tonic in the rough of life when the smooth is absent, and the wits, my poor dull wits, brace themselves for the shock of action. I feel certain now that in all my years of tranquillity it is the salt of suffering that was lacking. Yet who would seek suffering for its own sake? I know, however, that I feel younger and more energetic to-day than ever I felt five years ago.
Even Pendleton has his uses. He is the thorn in the side, the fox gnawing at my vitals under the cloak, but here he is in my house as its guest.
He goes with me to the city of a morning on his quest for work, "a connection" as he calls it, and often I find him at home before me when I arrive, in my room, smoking, or out in the garden with the children. I wince inwardly, but I hope I do not show it.
I spoke of hating him, but that is untrue. You cannot persistently hate any man, notably a guest in your house. You can only suspect him. Yet, when I see the children still shy of him, why does it give me a throbbing sense of triumph? I do not know, but so it is. Randolph alone seems to approach him nearer as the days go by. They go on walks together and Randolph confides to Alicia that he is fascinated by the tales of his father's experiences in the tropics, of ships and islands and pearl-fishing and native customs. I fancy Pendleton must be selectively on the alert in his narratives with his young son as the listener. His past must contain many things that none of us in this quiet haven will ever hear recounted.
But I am indifferent to his past. I could listen and even tolerate him as my guest, if only the children were not passing to his care. He talks of "relieving" me of the burden.
"Don't hurry, old man," I answer casually, "they are no burden to me."
He gazes at me and lowers his eyes.
"I tell you, Randolph, you're a revelation to me. I never knew a man like you before. They don't make them like that these days."
"Praise from Sir Hubert," occurs to me, but I don't say it. I am in reality at his mercy, I suppose, but I often feel as though he were at mine. The glossing over of his atrocious conduct, the taking him at his word on the subject of his lapsed memory, which we either slur or don't refer to at all, seem to give me a tremendous advantage over him,—the commonplace advantage of simple honesty over mendacity. Not for a moment do I now believe in his lapsed memory story. I cannot deny, however, that his air is one of repentance and, as Dibdin has said, who in this world is so hard but he wouldn't give a fellow man a second chance?
Jim Pendleton, now that he has been to a New York tailor's, appears as impressive and debonair as ever. He must be in the middle forties and he is not ill-looking. It is chiefly his eyes that seem changed to me. Do what I will, I cannot look at them. There is a certain disturbing obliqueness about his gaze that makes me turn mine away in a sort of vicarious shame.
But, again, C'est un mauvais metier que celui de medire. And conscious of that truth, I mean to speak or think no more ill of Jim Pendleton. After all, his large contact with the world has given him something that I lack.
Last evening at dinner he was regaling us with an experience of his of spearing fish in the Marquesas.
"I was in the back of the boat," he was saying, "with a torch in my hand, and my islander, who was an expert at it, held his spear ready for the first fish that leaped. Several of them leaped and fell again into the water round us churning it up, so that we were wet with spray. Suddenly I saw a huge mass glistening in the torchlight, falling, it seemed, right on top of us.
"The native buried his spear upward in the thing as it fell. I tell you that man was quick! But it was too late. The huge fish flopped into the boat with its great head on my knees and the full weight of his body on the man, sending him overboard and splintering the side of the boat. In just about a second we were in total darkness, floundering in the water, with an overturned boat. I was badly bruised and the native had both legs broken.
"In spite of his broken legs, however, he offered to swim ashore, to the nearest projecting rock. But I was sure he couldn't make it and very certain I couldn't. It was a job, I can tell you, righting that boat, helping that man into it and scrambling in myself; and then with a piece of splintered oar rowing ourselves in. The fellow with his broken legs, worked just as hard as I did and never uttered so much as a groan. It did me up for some time. But that fellow was spearing fish again in ten days or so."
Jimmie, who is sometimes allowed to take his supper with us, sat gazing at his father, fascinated by the narrative until the last word. Then seemingly jealous that any one, even this strange father, should exceed me in prowess, his little face clouded and he demanded:
"Uncle Ranny, didn't you ever spear a big fish?"
"No, Jimmie," I laughed, "but maybe you and I will go there one day and spear some together."
"Well, anyway," he retorted stoutly, "you took us on a picnic."
Whereat we all laughed, albeit my own laugh was rueful. The thought flashed through my mind that Pendleton was certain to win them to himself the moment he decided to do so. The very memory of me would become ridiculous to them.
"Uncle Ranny," spoke up Laura, "has been too busy feeding us and buying us clothes to go traveling."
Alicia smiled radiantly at Laura across the table, and Griselda, who had just come in with the dessert, nodded her head with somber emphasis as she placed the bowl before me.
I could have hugged them all three in gratitude, but nevertheless I pressed Pendleton to narrate more of his experiences.
"No," he shook his head, evidently taking the children's comment to heart. "That's yarn enough for one evening."
That seemed to me very decent of Pendleton.
I could not help laughing at Dibdin to-day. I called him up on the telephone and demanded what he meant by coming from devil knows where after more than two years' absence and virtually cutting me.
"Come to lunch at the Salmagundi Club," he growled.
"Does it pain you as much as that to ask me?"
"Don't be a damn fool," he retorted.
"Don't be so wickedly witty," I replied.
"At twelve-thirty," he muttered and hung up the receiver. From which I gathered that he was out of sorts.
In the hall of the Club where he was waiting, I greeted him with,
"'Is it weakness of intellect, birdie,' I cried, 'Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?'"
He stared at me.
"How you can be so light and idiotic in the face of circumstances," he began, "passes my comprehension."
"Circumstances, my dear fellow, are all there is to life."
"Want to wash your paws?"
"No—I am as clean as I shall ever be."
I put my arm through his and allowed him to lead me to a quiet table in the rear of the billiard room, softly illumined by a shaded lamp at midday.
"What a delightful place!" I exclaimed. "Residence of Q.T. tranquillity."
"Tranquillity be blowed," he grunted, as he sat down facing me. "What are you going to do about that Old Man of the Sea of yours?"
"You mean Pendleton?"
"Whom the devil else can I mean?"
"Why, nothing of course, but give him a leg up if we can. What else is there to do? I just received a letter this morning from an insurance company asking for confidential information about him. He's given me as a reference and they're evidently considering him."
"The Danbury and Phoenix?" he asked.
"Yes. How did you know?"
"I got one, too."
"I suppose we are really his only two possible sponsors at present."
"I'd as soon recommend a convict from Sing Sing," he muttered.
"Oh, no!" I protested. "Not as bad as that. Besides, sometimes you have to recommend even a convict."
"I'd much rather recommend a convict. I hate to lie about this man. I've been asked whether I would trust him and I have to say yes. But you know dashed well I wouldn't. Give me a cigarette," he ended savagely.
"I think he'll go straight now," I murmured dully, passing my case to Dibdin and looking away. "The children will no doubt have an influence on him."
"You judge everybody by yourself."
"How d'ye mean—myself?"
"The long and the short of it is," he declared, putting both elbows on the table, "I had no idea what the children would do to you."
"What did they do to me?" I queried, mystified.
"Made you over—that's all."
"Explain," I said, gazing at him stupidly.
"What is there to explain?" growled Dibdin, when the waiter was out of earshot. "You were always a decent sort of idiot—bookworm, muddler, dilettante, whatever it was—afraid of real life, fit only to collect pretty little books or old musty volumes that nobody really cares to read in—a drifter, with about as much knowledge of the problems of existence as a stuffed owl in a glass.
"What happened? Your sister's orphans come to you. You plunge into life, go into business which you detest, lose your money, go to work as a clerk, by George! You of all people!—Keep a roof over them, bring them up and hang me if I don't think you were idiotically happy in it all until I brought this Old Man of the Sea!—What right had I to pick him up and bring him and bungle it all? And why the hell didn't you warn me not to fetch him? I thought I was helping you out. I'd sooner have chucked the brute overboard—I would, by Heaven!"
For a moment I could reply nothing at all to Dibdin. His estimate and account of my actions were natural enough to him who, despite his burly manner, exaggerates everybody's qualities. It seemed the more remarkable that he who so firmly believed in the second chance should now find no word to say in Pendleton's favor. But I could see clearly enough that what troubled him was the pain he instinctively realized the departure of the children from me to Pendleton was certain to bring me.
"Why didn't you cable me, 'Lose the brute?'" he took up his argument.
"Because, my dear fellow," I put my hand on his arm across the table, "it was too late; once you had found him and told him of what had occurred in his absence, it was too late. Would you like to live with the menacing uncertainty of him overhanging in space? Rather have him here and face him. Besides, the children are his"—I knew I must state my view squarely on that head—"If he is fit to take them, then have them he must, regardless."
"Regardless of you, you mean?" He put it darkly.
"Yes—regardless of me, certainly. I don't count."
"By the Lord!" and his fine head shot upwards in a gesture that was in itself invigorating. "D'you know you are twenty times the man you were?" he cried. "I couldn't have believed it. You—you're stupendous!"
I laughed and waved him away with a "Retro, Satanas."
"You're going it blind like that," he ran on, disregarding me,—"Salmon and Byrd," with a laugh—"losing all your money and then—Visconti's—slaving for the kids—meeting it all—by gad, you are living life!—heroic, I call it—I take off my hat to you!"
"Put it on again," I murmured, moved by his vehemence. It was certainly agreeable to hear such words from Dibdin, who never lied. Praise is a savory dish, not a thing that my misspent life has been surfeited with, and it was exquisitely soothing to one's vanity. But it was clear enough that Dibdin was wrong. His usually lucid view was obscured by the tangle of circumstances that weighed upon him. Naturally, I could not leave him in his error.
"If you knew," I managed to stammer, "the malignant fear that is eating my liver white, you—"
"Fear of what?" he broke in.
"Of turning those kids over to him;" I lowered my voice—"just that and—nothing else."
"Just that," he repeated gloomily, nodding his head. "Who would have supposed it? By the Lord! If ever there was a bull in a China shop, I am that bull. Why the devil did I ever pick the brute up? Look here!" he flashed with sudden inspiration, "why not deport him as we imported him, eh? I might manage it—I might!"
"No—no, Dibdin—neither you nor I would do such a thing."
"Why not?" he growled.
"That would make us—worse than he is, or was," I explained sadly. For I must own that for an instant my heart leaped at his suggestion. "Besides," I went on prosily, "it's not so easy to lay a ghost when once you've raised it. We've got to believe him, Dibdin, my boy—if only for the young ones' sake. He will probably get his job, and the thing to do now is not to arouse his suspicion of how we feel about him. Believe everything he says—believe in him. Thousands every year, according to the newspapers, turn up willfully missing! He was tired of the humdrum life and lit out; that is all there was to it. Now he wants to try back. You yourself thought he ought to have another chance."
There was genuine pathos in old Dibdin's voice when he spoke out with a humid somber look:
"By George, that chap's the Nemesis of us all! By his one willful act of destructive irresponsibility he has affected all our lives destructively. It's maddening that one worthless brute should be able to do all that. He killed Laura, damn him; he orphaned these kids; he's upset your life—he makes wretched conspirators of you and me—g-r-r-r! I'd like to pound him to a jelly!"
I laughed joylessly.
"What would that undo?"
"Nothing, I dare say," snapped Dibdin. "Besides, you really have no complaint, boy. You tower, Randolph, my lad; yes, by George! you tower head and shoulders above any one I know! His very villainy has made you over—blown the breath of life into you."
I believe I answered something flippant.
"Look here!" he cried, with a sudden movement upsetting a glass of water and disregarding it. "If those kids go over to him, we can keep an eye on him—just the same—as though we were with them!"
"How d'you mean?" I queried, puzzled.
"That girl—what's her name—Alicia! She'll keep an eye on him—and them. She's sharp, I tell you, with her innocent blue eyes. Give you a daily report like—like—"
"No!" I emphatically interrupted him. "That, never! She is not going from my house—certainly not to him!"
I was the more abashed by my own vehemence when I saw Dibdin staring at me with lifted eyebrows.
"Why—you are not—" he began blankly—but I interrupted him hotly.
"I am nothing!—She is to me just as Jimmie and Laura and Randolph are, but they are unfortunately his. Don't you know the meaning of responsibility for young lives, Dibdin? I want to give her her chance, educate her, make a fine woman of her. They have a father; she has no one but me. I can't turn her out—and I wish," I added lamely, "I had as much right to keep them all."
"Whew!" he whistled in renewed astonishment.
"I can only say I don't know you any more. I used to know you, but I'm proud to make the acquaintance of the new Mr. Randolph Byrd."
"Don't be a damn fool, Dibdin," I mumbled in exasperation. "You know you are talking rot. Why the devil are you so interested in the kids? There is that cheque you sent—!"
"You haven't cashed it," he interposed, moving his shoulders as one shaking off something. "Why the deuce haven't you?"
"I will some day," I grinned at him feebly, "when I need it more. But you haven't answered my question."
I felt I was goading him brutally but for once I seemed to have the dear old tramp upon the hip. For all his gruffness he was as full of emotions as anybody. It seemed to me absurd for a man to hide his implanted instinct, one of the noblest of all the little hidden root-cellars of our instincts, under a false shame or indifference. Women are wiser—they don't hide theirs; and I had become shameless about mine.
"Why," I repeated, "are you so much interested in those kids?"
"Don't be an ass!" he grunted, looking down upon the wet tablecloth, and a spasm as of pain crossed his countenance.
"Ah, you see!" I laughed, attempting to lighten his mood.
"Randolph," he uttered in a strange solemn tone that sent a slight thrill through me. "I told you once there was a woman I had cared about—and only one."
"Yes—but you never married her."
"No," he continued in the etiolated tone of a dead grief. "She was married already when I knew her."
And then my sympathy went out to grizzled old Dibdin.
"I am sorry," I murmured, touching his hand across the table. "Did I know her?"
"Yes," he said quietly, "you knew her. It was Laura."
In a flash of poignantly bitter and vain regret I saw the vista of the dead years—of what might have been! ...