Kennedy Square

CHAPTER XVI

Not only Kennedy Square, but Moorlands, rang with accounts of the dinner and its consequences. Most of those who were present and who witnessed the distressing spectacle had only words of sympathy for the unfortunate man—his reverent manner, his contrite tones, and abject humiliation disarming their criticism. They felt that some sudden breaking down of the barriers of his will, either physical or mental, had led to the catastrophe. Richard Horn voiced the sentiments of Poe's sympathizers when, in rehearsing the episode the next afternoon at the club, he had said:

“His pitiable condition, gentlemen, was not the result of debauchery. Poe neither spoke nor acted like a drunken man; he spoke and acted like a man whom a devil had overcome. It was pathetic, gentlemen, and it was heart-rending—really the most pitiful sight I ever remember witnessing. His anguish, his struggle, and his surrender I shall never forget; nor will his God—for the prayer came straight from his heart.”

“I don't agree with you, Horn,” interrupted Clayton. “Poe was plumb drunk! It is the infernal corn whiskey he drinks that puts the devil in him. It may be he can't get anything else, but it's a damnable concoction all the same. Kennedy has about given him up—told me so yesterday, and when Kennedy gives a fellow up that's the last of him.”

“Then I'm ashamed of Kennedy,” retorted Horn. “Any man who can write as Poe does should be forgiven, no matter what he does—if he be honest. There's nothing so rare as genius in this world, and even if his flame does burn from a vile-smelling wick it's a flame, remember!—and one that will yet light the ages. If I know anything of the literature of our time Poe will live when these rhymers like Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper, whom everybody is talking about, will be forgotten. Poe's possessed of a devil, I tell you, who gets the better of him once in a while—it did the night of St. George's dinner.”

“Very charitable in you, Richard,” exclaimed Pancoast, another dissenter—“and perhaps it will be just as well for his family, if he has any, to accept your view—but, devil or no devil, you must confess, Horn, that it was pretty hard on St. George. If the man has any sense of refinement—and he must have from the way he writes—the best way out of it is for him to own up like a man and say that Guy's barkeeper filled him too full of raw whiskey, and that he didn't come to until it was too late—that he was very sorry, and wouldn't do it again. That's what I would have done, and that's what you, Richard, or any other gentleman, would have done.”

Others, who got their information second hand, followed the example of St. George's guests censuring or excusing the poet in accordance with their previous likes or dislikes. The “what-did-I-tell-yous”—Bowdoin among them—and there were several—broke into roars of laughter when they learned what had happened in the Temple mansion. So did those who had not been invited, and who still felt some resentment at St. George's oversight.

Another group; and these were also to be found at the club—thought only of St. George—old Murdock, voicing their opinions when he said: “Temple laid himself out, so I hear, on that dinner, and some of us know what that means. And a dinner like that, remember, counts with St. George. In the future it will be just as well to draw the line at poets as well as actors.”

The Lord of Moorlands had no patience with any of their views. Whether Poe was a drunkard or not did not concern him in the least. What did trouble him was the fact that St. George's cursed independence had made him so far forget himself and his own birth and breeding as to place a chair at his table for a man in every way beneath him. Hospitality of that kind was understandable in men like Kennedy and Latrobe—one the leading literary light of his State, whose civic duties brought him in contact with all classes—the other a distinguished man of letters as well as being a poet, artist, and engineer, who naturally touched the sides of many personalities. So, too, might Richard Horn be excused for stretching the point—he being a scientist whose duty it was to welcome to his home many kinds of people—this man Morse among them, with his farcical telegraph; a man in the public eye who seemed to be more or less talked about in the press, but of whom he himself knew nothing, but why St. George Temple, who in all probability had never read a line of Poe's or anybody else's poetry in his life, should give this sot a dinner, and why such sane gentlemen as Seymour, Clayton, and Pancoast should consider it an honor to touch elbows with him, was as unaccountable as it was incredible.

Furthermore—and this is what rankled deepest in his heart—St. George was subjecting his only son, Harry, to corrupting influences, and at a time, too, when the boy needed the uplifting examples of all that was highest in men and manners.

“And you tell me, Alec,” he blazed out on hearing the details, “that the fellow never appeared until the dinner was all over and then came in roaring drunk?”

“Well, sah, I ain't yered nothin' 'bout de roarin', but he suttinly was 'how-come-ye-so'—fer dey couldn't git 'im upstairs 'less dey toted him on dere backs. Marse George Temple gin him his own baid an' sot up mos' ob de night, an' dar he stayed fur fo' days till he come to. Dat's what Todd done tol' me, an' I reckon Todd knows.”

The colonel was in his den when this conversation took place. He was generally to be found there since the duel. Often his wife, or Alec, or some of his neighbors would surprise him buried in his easy-chair, an unopened book in his hand, his eyes staring straight ahead as if trying to grasp some problem which repeatedly eluded him. After the episode at the club he became more absorbed than ever. It was that episode, indeed, which had vexed him most. Not that St. George's tongue-lashing worried him—nor did Harry's blank look of amazement linger in his thoughts. St. George, he had to confess to himself as he battled with the questions, was the soul of honor and had not meant to insult him. It was Temple's love for Harry which had incited the quixotic onslaught, for, as he knew, St. George dearly loved the boy, and this in itself wiped all resentment from the autocrat's heart. As to Harry's attitude toward himself, this he continued to reason was only a question of time. That young upstart had not learned his lesson yet—a harsh lesson, it was true, and one not understood by the world at large—but then the world was not responsible for his son's bringing up. When the boy had learned it, and was willing to acknowledge the error of his ways, then, perhaps, he might kill the fatted calf—that is, of course, if the prodigal should return on all fours and with no stilted and untenable ideas about his rights—ideas that St. George, of course, was instilling into him every chance he got.

So far, however, he had had to admit to himself that while he had kept steady watch of the line of hills skirting his mental horizon, up to the present moment no young gentleman in a dilapidated suit of clothes, inverted waist measure, and lean legs had shown himself above the sky line. On the contrary, if all reports were true—and Alec omitted no opportunity to keep him advised of Marse Harry's every movement—the young Lord of Moorlands was having the time of his life, even if his sweetheart had renounced him and his father forced him into exile. Not only had he found a home and many comforts at Temple's—being treated as an honored guest alongside of such men as Kennedy and Latrobe, Pancoast, and the others, but now that St. George had publicly declared him to be his heir, these distinctive marks of his approbation were likely to continue. Nor could he interfere, even if he wished to—which, of course, he did not, and never could so long as he lived.... “Damn him!” etc., etc. And with this the book would drop from his lap and he begin pacing the floor, his eyes on the carpet, his broad shoulders bent in his anxiety to solve the problem which haunted him night and day:—how to get Harry back under his roof and not yield a jot or tittle of his pride or will—or, to be more explicit, now that the mountain would not come to Mahomet, how could Mahomet get over to the mountain?

His friend and nearest neighbor, John Gorsuch, who was also his man of business, opened the way. The financier's clerk had brought him a letter, just in by the afternoon coach, and with a glance at its contents the shrewd old fellow had at once ordered his horse and set out for Moorlands, some two miles distant. Nor did he draw rein or break gallop until he threw the lines to a servant beside the lower step of the colonel's porch.

“It's the Patapsco again! It will close its doors before the week is out!” he cried, striding into the library, where the colonel, who had just come in from inspecting a distant field on his estate, sat dusting his riding-boots with his handkerchief.

“Going to stop payment! Failed! What the devil do you mean, John?”

“I mean just what I say! Everything has gone to bally-hack in the city. Here's a letter I have just received from Harding—he's on the inside, and knows. He thinks there's some crooked business about it; they have been loaning money on all sorts of brick-bats, he says, and the end has come, or will to-morrow. He wanted to post me in time.”

The colonel tossed his handkerchief on his writing-table: “Who will be hurt?” he asked hurriedly, ignoring the reference to the dishonesty of the directors.

“Oh!—a lot of people. Temple, I know, keeps his account there. He was short of cash a little while ago, for young Pawson, who has his law office in the basement of his house, offered me a mortgage on his Kennedy Square property, but I hadn't the money at the time and didn't take it. If he got it at last—and he paid heavily for it if he did—the way things have been going—and if he put that money in the Patapsco, it will be a bad blow to him. Harry, I hear, is with him—so I thought you ought to know.”

Rutter had given a slight start at the mention of Temple's name among the crippled, and a strange glitter still lingered in his eyes.

“Then I presume my son is dependent on a beggar,” he exclaimed, rising from his seat, stripping off his brown velveteen riding-jacket and hanging it in a closet behind his chair.

“Yes, it looks that way.”

Gorsuch was watching the colonel closely. He had another purpose in making his breakneck ride. He didn't have a dollar in the Patapsco, and he knew the colonel had not; he, like himself, was too shrewd a man to be bitten twice by the same dog; but he had a large interest in Harry and would leave no stone unturned to bring father and son together.

The colonel again threw himself into his chair, stretched out his slender, well-turned legs, crooked one of his russet-leather riding-boots to be sure the spurs were still in place, and said slowly—rather absently, as if the subject did not greatly interest him:

“Patapsco failed and St. George a beggar, eh?—Too bad!—too bad!” Then some disturbing suspicions must have entered his head, for he roused himself, looked at Gorsuch keenly, and asked in a searching tone: “And you came over full tilt, John, to tell me this?”

“I thought you might help. St. George needs all the friends he's got if this is true—and it looks to me as if it was,” answered Gorsuch in a casual way.

Rutter relaxed his gaze and resumed his position. Had his suspicions been correct that Gorsuch's interest in Harry was greater than his interest in the bank's failure, he would have resented it even from John Gorsuch.

Disarmed by the cool, unflinching gaze of his man of business, his mind again took up in review all the incidents connected with St. George and his son, and what part each had played in them.

That Temple—good friend as he had always been—had thwarted him in every attempt to bring about a reconciliation between himself and Harry, had been apparent from the very beginning of the difficulty. Even the affair at the club showed it. This would have ended quite differently—and he had fully intended it should—had not St. George, with his cursed officiousness, interfered with his plans. For what he had really proposed to himself to do, on that spring morning when he had rolled up to the club in his coach, was to mount the steps, ignore his son at first, if he should run up against him—(and he had selected the very hour when he hoped he would run up against him)—and then, when the boy broke down, as he surely must, to forgive him like a gentleman and a Rutter, and this, too, before everybody. Seymour would see it—Kate would hear of it, and the honor of the Rutters remain unblemished. Moreover, this would silence once and for all those gabblers who had undertaken to criticise him for what they called his inhumanity in banishing this only son when he was only trying to bring up that child in the way he should go. Matters seemed to be coming his way. The failure of the Patapsco might be his opportunity. St. George would be at his wits' end; Harry would be forced to choose between the sidewalk and Moorlands, and the old life would go on as before.

All these thoughts coursed through his mind as he leaned back in his chair, his lips tight set, the jaw firm and determined—only the lids quivering as he mastered the tears that crept to their edges. Now and then, in his mental absorption, he would absently cross his legs only to straighten them out again, his state of mind an open book to Gorsuch, who had followed the same line of reasoning and who had brought the news himself that he might the better watch its effect.

“I'm surprised that Temple should select the Patapsco. It has never got over its last smash of four years ago,” Gorsuch at last remarked. He did not intend to let the topic drift away from Harry if he could help it.

“I am not surprised, John. St. George is the best fellow in the world, but he never lets anything work but his heart. When you get at the bottom of it you will find that he's backed up the bank because some poor devil of a teller or clerk, or may be some director, is his friend. That's enough for St. George, and further than that he never goes. He's thrown away two fortunes now—his grandmother's, which was small but sound—and his father's, which if he had attended to it would have kept him comfortable all his life.”

“You had some words at the club, I heard,” interjected Gorsuch.

“No, he had some words, I had a julep,” and the colonel smiled grimly.

“But you are still on good terms, are you not?”

“I am, but he isn't. But that is of no consequence. No man in his senses would ever get angry with St. George, no matter what he might say or do. He hasn't a friend in the world who could be so ill bred. And as to calling him out—you would as soon think of challenging your wife. St. George talks from his heart, never his head. I have loved him for thirty years and know exactly what I am talking about—and yet let me tell you, Gorsuch, that with all his qualities—and he is the finest-bred gentleman I know—he can come closer to being a natural born fool than any man of his years and position in Kennedy Square. This treatment of my son—whom I am trying to bring up a gentleman—is one proof of it, and this putting all his eggs into one basket—and that a rotten basket—is another.”

“Well, then—if that is your feeling about it, colonel, why not go and see him? As I have said, he needs all the friends he's got at a time like this.” If he could bring the two men together the boy might come home. Not to be able to wave back to Harry as he dashed past on Spitfire, had been a privation which the whole settlement had felt. “That is, of course,” he continued, “if St. George Temple would be willing to receive you. He would be—wouldn't he?”

“I don't know, John—and I don't care. If I should make up my mind to go—remember, I said 'IF'—I'd go whether he liked it or not.”

He HAD made up his mind—had made it up at the precise moment the announcement of the bank's failure and St. George's probable ruin had dropped from Gorsuch's lips—but none of this must Gorsuch suspect. He would still be the doge and Virginius; he alone must be the judge of when and how and where he would show leniency. Generations of Rutters were behind him—this boy was in the direct line—connecting the past with the present—and on Colonel Talbot Rutter of Moorlands, and on no other, rested the responsibility of keeping the glorious name unsmirched.

Todd, with one of the dogs at his heels, opened the door for him, smothering a “Gor-a-Mighty!—sumpin's up fo' sho'!” when his hand turned the knob. He had heard the clatter of two horses and their sudden pull-up outside, and looking out, had read the situation at a glance. Old Matthew was holding the reins of both mounts at the moment, for the colonel always rode in state. No tying to hitching-posts or tree-boxes, or picking up of a loose negro to watch his restless steed when he had a stable full of thoroughbreds and quarters packed with grooms.

“Yes, Marse Colonel—yes, sah—Marse George is inside—yes, sah—but Marse Harry's out.” He had not asked for Harry, but Todd wanted him to get all the facts in case there was to be another such scene as black John described had taken place at the club on the occasion of the colonel's last visit to the Chesapeake.

“Then I'll go in unannounced, and you need not wait, Todd.”

St. George was in his arm-chair by the mantel looking over one of his heavy ducking-guns when the Lord of Moorlands entered. He was the last man in the world he expected to see, but he did not lose his self-control or show in any way his surprise. He was host, and Rutter was his guest; nothing else counted now.

St. George rose to his feet, laid the gun carefully on the table, and with a cold smile on his face—one of extreme courtesy—advanced to greet him.

“Ah, Talbot—it has been some time since I had this pleasure. Let me draw up a chair for you—I'll ring for Todd and—”

“No, St. George. I prefer to talk to you alone.”

“Todd is never an interruption.”

“He may be to-day. I have something to say to you—and I don't want either to be interrupted or misunderstood. You and I have known each other too many years to keep up this quarrel; I am getting rather sick of it myself.”

St. George shrugged his shoulders, placed the gun carefully in the rack by the door, and maintained an attentive attitude. He would either fight or make peace, but he must first learn the conditions. In the meantime he would hold his peace.

Rutter strode past him to the fireplace, opened his riding-jacket, laid his whip on the mantel, and with his hands deep in his breeches pockets faced the room and his host, who had again taken his place by the table.

“The fact is, St. George, I have been greatly disturbed of late by reports which have reached me about my son. He is with you, I presume?”

St. George nodded.

Rutter waited for a verbal reply, and receiving none, forged on: “Very greatly disturbed; so much so that I have made an especial trip from Moorlands to call upon you and ascertain their truth.”

Again St. George nodded, the smile—one of extreme civility now—still on his face. Then he added, flicking some stray grains of tobacco from his sleeve with his fingers: “That was very good of you, Talbot—but go on—I'm listening.”

The colonel's eyes kindled. Temple's perfect repose—something he had not expected—was beginning to get on his nerves, He cleared his throat impressively and continued, his voice rising in intensity:

“Instead of leading the life of a young man brought up as a gentleman, I hear he is consorting with the lowest class of people here in your house—people who—”

“—Are my guests,” interrupted St. George calmly—loosening the buttons of his coat in search of his handkerchief—there being more tobacco on his clothes than he had supposed.

“Yes, you have hit it exactly—your guests—and that is another thing I have come to tell you, for neither I nor your friends can understand how a man of your breeding should want to surround himself with——Is it necessary that you should understand, Talbot?”—same low, incisive but extremely civil voice, almost monotonous in its cadences. The cambric was in full play now.

“Of course it is necessary when it affects my own flesh and blood. You know as well as I do that this sot, Poe, is not a fit companion for a boy raised as my Harry has been—a man picked out of the gutter—his family a lot of play-actors—even worse, I hear. A fellow who staggers into your house dead drunk and doesn't sober up for a week! It's scandalous!”

Again St. George shrugged his shoulders, but one hand was tight shut this time, the steel claws protruding, the handkerchief alone saving their points from pressing into the palms.

“And is that what you came from Moorlands to tell me, Talbot?” remarked St. George casually, adjusting the lapels of his coat.

“Yes!” retorted Rutter—he was fast losing what was left of his self-control—“that and some other things! But we will attend to Harry first. You gave that boy shelter when—”

“Please state it correctly, Talbot. We can get on better if you stick to the facts.” The words came slowly, but the enunciation was as perfect as if each syllable had been parted with a knife. “I didn't give him shelter—I gave him a home—one you denied him. But go on—I prefer to hear you out.”

The colonel's eyes blazed. He had never seen St. George like this: it was Temple's hot outbursts that had made him so easy an adversary in their recent disputes.

“And you will please do the same, St. George,” he demanded in his most top-lofty tone, ignoring his opponent's denial. “You know perfectly well I turned him out of Moorlands because he had disgraced his blood, and yet you—my life-long friend—have had the bad taste to interfere and drag him down still lower, so that now, instead of coming to his senses and asking my pardon, he parades himself at the club and at your dinners, putting on the airs of an injured man.”

St. George drew himself up to his full height.

“Let us change the subject, Talbot, or we will both forget ourselves. If you have anything to say to me that will benefit Harry and settle the difficulty between him and you, I will meet you more than half-way, but I give you fair warning that the apology must come from you. You have—if you will permit me to say it in my own house—behaved more like a brute than a father. I told you so the night you turned him out in the rain for me to take care of, and I told you so again at the club when you tried to make a laughing-stock of him before your friends—and now I tell you so once more! Come!—let us drop the subject—what may I offer you to drink?—you must be rather chilled with your ride in.”

Rutter was about to flare out a denial when his better judgment got the best of him; some other tactics than the ones he had used must be brought into play. So far he had made but little headway against Temple's astounding coolness.

“And I am to understand, then, that you are going to keep him here?” he demanded, ignoring both his host's criticisms and his proffered hospitality.

“I certainly am”—he was abreast of him now, his eyes boring into his—“just as long as he wishes to stay, which I hope will be all his life, or until you have learned to be decent to him. And by decency, I mean companionship, and love, and tenderness—three things which your damned, high-toned notions have always deprived him of!” His voice was still under control, although the emphasis was unmistakable.

Rutter made a step forward, his eyes flashing, his teeth set:

“You have the impertinence, sir, to charge me with——”

“—Yes!—and it's true and you know it's true!”—the glance, steady as a rifle, had not wavered. “No, you needn't work yourself up into a passion—and as for your lordly, dictatorial airs, I am past the age when they affect me—keep them for your servants. By God!—what a farce it all is! Let us talk of something else—I am tired of it!”

The words cut like a whip, but the Lord of Moorlands had come to get his son, not to fight St. George. Their sting, however, had completely changed his plans. Only the club which Gorsuch had put into his hands would count now.

“Yes—a damnable farce!” he thundered, “and one played by a man with beggary staring him straight in the face, and yet to hear you talk one would think you were a Croesus! You mortgaged this house to get ready money, did you not?” He was not sure, but this was no time in which to split words.

St. George turned quickly: “Who told you that?”

“Is it true?”

“Yes! Do you suppose I would let Harry sneak around corners to avoid his creditors?”

The colonel gave an involuntary start, the blood mounting to the roots of his hair, and as suddenly paled:

“You tell me that—you dared to—pay Harry's debts?” he stammered in amazement.

“Dared!” retorted St. George, lifting his chin contemptuously. “Really, Talbot, you amuse me. When you set that dirty hound Gadgem on his trail, what did you expect me to do?—invite the dog to dinner?—or have him sleep in the house until I sold furniture enough to get rid of him?”

The colonel leaned back against the mantel's edge as if for support. All the fight was out of him. Not only was the situation greatly complicated, but he himself was his host's debtor. The seriousness of the whole affair confronted him. For a brief instant he gazed at the floor, his eyes on the hearthrug, “Have you any money left, St. George?” he asked. His voice was subdued enough now. Had he been his solicitor he could not have been more concerned.

“Yes, a few thousand,” returned St. George. He saw that some unexpected shot had hit the colonel, but he did not know he had fired it.

“Left over from the mortgage, I suppose?—less what you paid out for Harry?”

“Yes, left over from the mortgage, less what I paid Gadgem,” he bridled. “If you have brought any more of Harry's bills hand them out. Why the devil you ask, Talbot, is beyond my ken, but I have no objection to your knowing.”

Rutter waved his hand impatiently, with a deprecating gesture; such trifles were no longer important.

“You bank with the Patapsco, do you not?” he asked calmly. “Answer me, please, and don't think I'm trying to pry into your affairs. The matter is much more serious than you seem to think.” The tone was so sympathetic that St. George looked closer into his antagonist's face, trying to read the cause.

“Always with the Patapsco. I have kept my account there for years,” he rejoined simply. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because it has closed its doors—or will in a few hours. It is bankrupt!”

There was no malice in his tone, nor any note of triumph. That St. George had beggared himself to pay his son's debts had wiped that clear. He was simply announcing a fact that caused him the deepest concern.

St. George's face paled, and for a moment a peculiar choking movement started in his throat.

“Bankrupt!—the Patapsco! How do you know?” He had heard some ugly rumors at the club a few days before, but had dismissed them as part of Harding's croakings.

“John Gorsuch received a letter last night from one of the directors; there is no doubt of its truth. I have suspected its condition for some time, so has Gorsuch. This brought me here. You see now how impossible it is for my son to be any longer a burden on you.”

St. George walked slowly across the room and drawing out a chair settled himself to collect his thoughts the better;—he had remained standing as the better way to terminate the interview should he be compelled to exercise that right. The two announcements had come like successive blows in the face. If the news of the bank's failure was true he was badly, if not hopelessly, crippled—this, however, would wait, as nothing he might do could prevent the catastrophe. The other—Harry's being a burden to him—must be met at once.

He looked up and caught the colonel's eye scrutinizing his face.

“As to Harry's being a burden,” St. George said slowly, his lip curling slightly—“that is my affair. As to his remaining here, all I have to say is that if a boy is old enough to be compelled to pay his debts he is old enough to decide where he will live. You have yourself established that rule and it will be carried out to the letter.”

Rutter's face hardened: “But you haven't got a dollar in the world to spare!”

“That may be, but it doesn't altar the situation; it rather strengthens it.” He rose from his chair: “I think we are about through now, Talbot, and if you will excuse me I'll go down to the bank and see what is the matter. I will ring for Todd to bring your hat and coat.” He did not intend to continue the talk. There had just been uncovered to him a side of Talbot Rutter's nature which had shocked him as much as had the threatened loss of his money. To use his poverty as a club to force him into a position which would be dishonorable was inconceivable in a man as well born as his antagonist, but it was true: he could hardly refrain from telling him so. He had missed, it may be said, seeing another side—his visitor's sympathy for him in his misfortune. That, unfortunately, he did not see: fate often plays such tricks with us all.

The colonel stepped in front of him: his eyes had an ugly look in them—the note of sympathy was gone.

“One moment, St. George! How long you are going to keep up this fool game, I don't know; but my son stays here on one condition, and on one condition only, and you might as well understand it now. From this time on I pay his board. Do you for one instant suppose I am going to let you support him, and you a beggar?”

St. George made a lunge toward the speaker as if to strike him. Had Rutter fired point-blank at him he could not have been more astounded. For an instant he stood looking into his face, then whirled suddenly and swung wide the door.

“May I ask you, Talbot, to leave the room, or shall I? You certainly cannot be in your senses to make me a proposition like that. This thing has got to come to an end, and NOW! I wish you good-morning.”

The colonel lifted his hands in a deprecatory way.

“As you will, St. George.”

And without another word the baffled autocrat strode from the room.