Book: Helen of the Old House

H >> Harold Bell Wright >> Helen of the Old House




She put out her hands with a little gesture of protest. "Please, Jim,
let's not talk about ourselves to-night. I--I can't."

Silently he turned away to take up his hat and coat. Silently she stood
waiting.

But when he was ready, she said, "Jim, there is just one thing more."

"What is it, Helen?"

"Tell me truly: you _could_ stop this strike, couldn't you? I mean if
you would come to some agreement with your factory men, all the others
would go back to work, too, wouldn't they?"

"Yes," he said, "I could."

She hesitated--then falteringly, "Jim, if I--if I promise to be your
wife will you--will you stop the strike? For the sake of the mothers
and children who are cold and hungry and sick, Jim--will you--will you
stop the strike?"

For a long minute, Jim McIver could not answer. He wanted this woman as
a man of his strength wants the woman he has chosen. At the beginning
of their acquaintance his interest in Helen had been largely stimulated
by the business possibilities of a combination of his factory and Adam
Ward's Mill. But as their friendship had grown he had come to love her
sincerely, and the more material consideration of their union had faded
into the background. Men like McIver, who are capable of playing their
games of business with such intensity and passion, are capable of great
and enduring love. They are capable, too, of great sacrifices to
principle. As he considered her words and grasped the full force of her
question his face went white and his nerves were tense with the
emotional strain.

At last he said, gently, "Helen, dear, I love you. I want you for my
wife. I want you more than I ever wanted anything. Nothing in the world
is of any value to me compared with your love. But, dear girl, don't
you see that I can't take you like this? You cannot sell yourself to
me--even for such a price. I cannot buy you." He turned away.

"Forgive me, Jim," she cried. "I did not realize what I was saying.
I--I was thinking of little Maggie--I--I know you would not do what you
are doing if you did not think you were right. Take me home now,
please, Jim."

* * * * *

Silently they went out to his automobile. Tenderly he helped her into
the car and tucked the robe about her. The guards swung open the big
gates, and they swept away into the night. Past the big Mill and the
Flats, through the silent business district and up the hill they glided
swiftly--steadily. And no word passed between them.

They were nearing the gate to the Ward estate when Helen suddenly
grasped her companion's arm with a low exclamation.

At the same moment McIver instinctively checked the speed of his car.

They had both seen the shadowy form of a man walking slowly past the
entrance to Helen's home.

To Helen, there was something strangely familiar in the dim outlines of
the moving figure. As they drove slowly on, passing the man who was now
in the deeper shadows of the trees and bushes which, at this spot grew
close to the fence, she turned her head, keeping her eyes upon him.

Suddenly a flash of light stabbed the darkness. A shot rang out. And
another.

Helen saw the man she was watching fall.

With a cry, she started from her seat; and before McIver, who had
involuntarily stopped the car, could check her, she had leaped from her
place beside him and was running toward the fallen man.

With a shout "Helen!" McIver followed.

As she knelt beside the form on the ground McIver put his hand on her
shoulder. "Helen," he said, sharply, as if to bring her to her senses,
"you must not--here, let me--"

Without moving from her position she turned her face up to him. "Don't
you understand, Jim? It is Captain Charlie."

Two watchmen on the Ward estate, who had heard the shots, came running
up.

McIver tried to insist that Helen go with him in his roadster to the
house for help and a larger car, but she refused.

When he returned with John, the chauffeur and one of the big Ward
machines, after telephoning the police and the doctor, Helen was
kneeling over the wounded man just as he had left her.

She did not raise her head when they stood beside her and seemed
unconscious of their presence. But when John lifted her up and she
heard her brother's voice, she cried out and clung to him like a
frightened child.

The doctor arrived just as they were carrying Captain Charlie into the
room to which Mrs. Ward herself led them. The police came a moment
later.

While the physician, with John's assistance, was caring for his
patient, McIver gave the officers what information he could and went
with them to the scene of the shooting.

He returned to the house after the officers had completed their
examination of the spot and the immediate vicinity just in time to meet
John, who was going out. Helen and her mother were with the doctor at
the bedside of the assassin's victim.

McIver wondered at the anguish in John Ward's face. But Captain
Charlie's comrade only asked, steadily, "Did the police find anything,
Jim?"

"Not a thing," McIver answered. "What does the doctor say, John?"

John turned away as if to hide his emotion and for a moment did not
answer. Then he spoke those words so familiar to the men of Flanders'
fields, "Charlie is going West, Jim. I must bring his father and
sister. Would you mind waiting here until I return? Something might
develop, you know."

"Certainly, I will stay, John--anything that I can do--command me,
won't you?"

"Thank you, Jim--I'll not be long."

* * * * *

While he waited there alone, Jim McIver's mind went back over the
strange incidents of the evening: Helen's visit to the Whaley home and
her coming to him. Swiftly he reviewed their conversation. What was it
that had so awakened Helen's deep concern for the laboring class? He
had before noticed her unusual interest in the strike and in the
general industrial situation--but to-night--he had never dreamed that
she would go so far. Why had she continued to refuse an answer to his
pleading? What was Charlie Martin doing in that neighborhood at that
hour? How had Helen recognized him so quickly and surely in the
darkness? The man, as these and many other unanswerable questions
crowded upon him, felt a strange foreboding. Mighty forces beyond his
understanding seemed stirring about him. As one feels the gathering of
a storm in the night, he felt the mysterious movements of elements
beyond his control.

He was disturbed suddenly by the opening of an outer door behind him.
Turning quickly, he faced Adam Ward.

Before McIver could speak, the Mill owner motioned him to be silent.

Wondering, McIver obeyed and watched with amazement as the master of
that house closed the door with cautious care and stole softly toward
him. To his family Adam Ward's manner would not have appeared so
strange, but McIver had never seen the man under one of his attacks of
nervous excitement.

"I'm glad you are here, Jim," Adam said, in a shaking whisper. "You
understand these things. John is a fool--he don't believe when I tell
him they are after us. But you know what to do. You have the right idea
about handling these unions. Kill the leaders; and if the men won't
work, turn the soldiers loose on them. You said the right thing, 'Drive
them to their jobs with bayonets.' Pete Martin's boy was one of them,
and he got what was coming to him to-night. And John and Helen brought
him right here into my house. They've got him upstairs there now. They
think I'll stand for it, but you'll see--I'll show them! What was he
hanging around my place for in the night like this? I know what he was
after. But he got what he wasn't looking for this time and Pete will
get his too, if he--"

"Father!"

Unnoticed, Helen had come into the room behind them. In pacing the open
door she had seen her father and had realized instantly his condition.
But the little she had heard him say was not at all unusual to her, and
she attached no special importance to his words.

Adam Ward was like a child, abashed in her presence.

She looked at McIver appealingly. "Father is excited and nervous, Jim.
He is not at all well, you know."

McIver spoke with gentle authority, "If you will permit me, I will go
with him to his room for a little quiet talk. And then, perhaps, he can
sleep. What do you say, Mr. Ward?"

"Yes--yes," agreed Adam, hurriedly.

Helen looked her gratitude and McIver led the Mill owner away.

When they were in Adam's own apartment and the door was shut McIver's
manner changed with startling abruptness. With all the masterful power
of his strong-willed nature he faced his trembling host, and his heavy
voice was charged with the force of his dominating personality.

"Listen to me, Adam Ward. You must stop this crazy nonsense. If you act
and talk like this the police will have the handcuffs on you before you
know where you are."

Adam cringed before him. "Jim--I--I--do they think that I--"

"Shut up!" growled McIver. "I don't want to hear another word. I have
heard too much now. Charlie Martin stays right here in this house and
your family will give him every attention. His father and sister will
be here, too, and you'll not open your mouth against them. Do you
understand?"

"Yes--yes," whispered the now thoroughly frightened Adam.

"Don't you dare even to speak to Mrs. Ward or John or Helen as you have
to me. And for God's sake pull yourself together and remember--you
don't know any more than the rest of us about this business--you were
in your room when you heard the shots."

"Yes, of course, Jim--but I--I--"

"Shut up! You are not to talk, I tell you--even to me."

Adam Ward whimpered like a child.

For another moment McIver glared at him; then, "Don't forget that I saw
this affair and that I went over the ground with the police. I'm going
back downstairs now. You go to bed where you belong and stay there."

He turned abruptly and left the room.

But as he went down the stairway McIver drew his handkerchief from his
pocket and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

"What in God's name," he asked himself, "did Adam Ward's excited fears
mean? What terrible thing gave birth to his mad words? What awful
pattern was this that the unseen forces were weaving? And what part was
he, with his love for Helen, destined to fill in it all?" That his life
was being somehow woven into the design he felt certain--but how and to
what end? And again the man in all his strength felt that dread
foreboding.

* * * * *

When Peter Martin and his daughter arrived with John at the big house
on the hill, Mrs. Ward met them at the door.

The old workman betrayed no consciousness of the distance the years of
Adam Ward's material prosperity had placed between these two families
that in the old-house days had lived in such intimacy.

Mary hesitated. It must have been that to the girl, who saw it between
herself and the happy fulfillment of her womanhood, the distance seemed
even greater than it actually was.

But her hesitation was only for an instant. One full look into the
gentle face that was so marked by the years of uncomplaining
disappointment and patient unhappiness and Mary knew that in the heart
of John Ward's mother the separation had brought no change. In the arms
of her own mother's dearest friend the young woman found, even as a
child, the love she needed to sustain her in that hour.

When they entered the room where Captain Charlie lay unconscious, Helen
rose from her watch beside the bed and held out her hands to her
girlhood playmate. And in her gesture there was a full surrender--a
plea for pardon. Humbly she offered--lovingly she invited--while she
held her place beside the man who was slowly passing into that shadow
where all class forms are lost, as if she claimed the right before a
court higher than the petty courts of human customs. No word was
spoken--no word was needed. The daughter of Peter Martin and the
daughter of Adam Ward knew that the bond of their sisterhood was
sealed.

In that wretched home in the Flats, little Maggie Whaley smiled in her
sleep as she dreamed of her princess lady.

The armed guards at their stations around McIver's dark and silent
factory kept their watch.

The Mill, under the cloud of smoke, sang the deep-voiced song of its
industry as the night shift carried on.

In the room back of the pool hall, Jake Vodell whispered with two of
his disciples.

In the window of the Interpreter's hut on the cliff a lamp gleamed
starlike above the darkness below.




CHAPTER XXVI

AT THE CALL OF THE WHISTLE


Everywhere in Millsburgh the shooting of Captain Charlie was the one
topic of conversation. As the patrons of the cigar stand came and went
they talked with the philosopher of nothing else. The dry-goods
pessimist delivered his dark predictions to a group of his fellow
citizens and listened with grave shakes of his head to the counter
opinions of the real-estate agent. The grocer questioned the garage man
and the lawyer discussed the known details of the tragedy with the
postmaster, the hotel keeper and the politician. The barber asked the
banker for his views and reviewed the financier's opinion to the judge
while a farmer and a preacher listened. The milliner told her customers
about it and the stenographer discussed it with the bookkeeper. In the
homes, on the streets, and, later in the day, throughout the country,
the shock of the crime was felt.

Meanwhile, the efforts of the police to find the assassin were
fruitless. The most careful search revealed nothing in the nature of a
clew.

Millsburgh had been very proud of Captain Martin and the honors he had
won in France, as Millsburgh was proud of Adam Ward and his
success--only with a different pride. The people had known Charlie from
his birth, as they had known his father and mother all their years.
There had been nothing in the young workman's life--as every one
remarked--to lead to such an end.

It is doubtful if in the entire community there was a single soul that
did not secretly or openly think of the tragedy as being in some dark
way an outcome of the strike. And, gradually, as the day passed, the
conjectures, opinions and views crystallized into two opposing
theories--each with its natural advocates.

One division of the people held that the deed was committed by some one
of Jake Vodell's followers, because of the workman's known opposition
to a sympathetic strike of the Mill workers' union. Captain Charlie's
leadership of the Mill men was recognized by all, and it was conceded
generally that it was his active influence, guided by the Interpreter's
counsel, that was keeping John Ward's employees at work. Without the
assistance of the Mill men the strike leader could not hope for
victory. With Captain Charlie's personal influence no longer a factor,
it was thought that the agitator might win the majority of the Mill
workers and so force the union into line with the strikers.

This opinion was held by many of the business men and by the more
thoughtful members of the unions, who had watched with grave
apprehension the increasing bitterness of the agitator's hatred of
Captain Charlie, because of the workman's successful opposition to his
schemes.

The opposing theory, which was skillfully advanced by Jake Vodell
himself and fostered by his followers, was that the mysterious assassin
was an agent of McIver's and that the deed was committed for the very
purpose of charging the strikers with the crime and thus turning public
sympathy against them.

This view, so plausible to the minds of the strikers, prepared, as they
were, by hardship and suffering, found many champions among the Mill
men themselves. Not a few of those who had stood with Charlie in his
opposition to the agitator and against their union joining the strike
now spoke openly with bitter feeling against the employer class. The
weeks of agitation--the constant pounding of Vodell's arguments--the
steady fire of his oratory and the continual appeal to their class
loyalty made it easy for them to stand with their fellow workmen, now
that the issue was being so clearly forced.

So the lines of the industrial battle were drawn closer--the opposing
forces were massed in more definite formation--the feeling was more
intense and bitter. In the gloom and hush of the impending desperate
struggle that was forced upon it by the emissary of an alien
organization, this little American city waited the coming of the dark
messenger to Captain Charlie. It was felt by all alike that the
workman's death would precipitate the crisis.

And through it all the question most often asked was this, "Why was the
workman, Charlie Martin, at the gate to Adam Ward's estate at that hour
of the night?"

To this question no one ventured even the suggestion of a satisfactory
answer.

All that long day Helen kept her watch beside the wounded man. Others
were there in the room with her, but she seemed unconscious of their
presence. She made no attempt, now, to hide her love. There was no
pretense--no evasion. Openly, before them all, she silently
acknowledged him--her man--and to his claim upon her surrendered
herself without reserve.

James McIver called but she would not see him.

When they urged her to retire and rest, she answered always with the
same words: "I must be here when he awakens--I must."

And they, loving her, understood.

It was as if the assassin's hand had torn aside the curtain of material
circumstances and revealed suddenly the realities of their inner lives.
They realized now that this man, who had in their old-house days won
the first woman love of his girl playmate, had held that love against
all the outward changes that had taken her from him. John and his
mother knew, now, why Helen had never said "Yes" to Jim McIver. Peter
Martin and Mary knew why, in Captain Charlie's heart, there had seemed
to be no place for any woman save his sister.

At intervals the man on the bed moved uneasily, muttering low words and
disconnected fragments of speech. Army words--some of them were--as if
his spirit lived for the moment again in the fields of France. At other
times the half-formed phrases were of his work--the strike--his home.
Again he spoke his sister's name or murmured, "Father," or "John." But
not once did Helen catch the word she longed to hear him speak. It was
as if, even in his unconscious mental wanderings, the man still guarded
the name that in secret he had held most dear.

Three times during the day he opened his eyes and looked
about--wonderingly at first--then as though he understood. As one
contented and at peace, he smiled and drifted again into the shadows.
But now at times his hand went out toward her with a little movement,
as though he were feeling for her in the dark.

About midnight he seemed to be sleeping so naturally that they
persuaded Helen to rest. At daybreak she was again at her post.

Mrs. Ward and Mary had gone, in their turn, for an hour or two of
sorely needed rest. Peter Martin was within call downstairs. John, who
was watching with his sister, had left the room for the moment and
Helen was at the bedside alone.

Suddenly through the quiet morning air came the deep-toned call of the
Mill whistle.

As a soldier awakens at the sound of the morning bugle, Captain Charlie
opened his eyes.

Instantly she was bending over him. As he looked up into her face she
called his name softly. She saw the light of recognition come into his
eyes. She saw the glory of his love.

"Helen," he said--and again, "Helen."

It was as if the death that claimed him had come also for her.

For the first time in many months the voice of the Mill was not heard
by the Interpreter in his little hut on the cliff. Above the silent
buildings the smoke cloud hung like a pall. From his wheel chair the
old basket maker watched the long procession moving slowly down the
hill.

There were no uniforms in that procession--no military band with
muffled drums led that solemn march--no regimental colors in honor of
the dead. There were no trappings of war--no martial ceremony. And yet,
to the Interpreter, Captain Charlie died in the service of his country
as truly as if he had been killed on the field of battle.

Long after the funeral procession had passed beyond his sight, the
Interpreter sat there at the window, motionless, absorbed in thought.
Twice silent Billy came to stand beside his chair, but he did not heed.
His head was bowed. His great shoulders stooped. His hands were idle.

There was a sound of some one knocking at the door.

The Interpreter did not hear.

The sound was repeated, and this time he raised his head questioningly.

Again it came and the old basket maker called, "Come in."

The door opened. Jim McIver entered.




CHAPTER XXVII

JAKE VODELL'S MISTAKE


Since that night of the tragedy McIver had struggled to grasp the
hidden meaning of the strange series of incidents. But the more he
tried to understand, the more he was confused and troubled. Nor had he
been able, strong-willed as he was, to shake off the feeling that he
was in the midst of unseen forces--that about him mysterious influences
were moving steadily to some fixed and certain end.

In constant touch, through his agents, with the strike situation, he
had watched the swiftly forming sentiment of the public. He knew that
the turning point of the industrial war was near. He did not deceive
himself. He knew Jake Vodell's power. He knew the temper of the
strikers. He saw clearly that if the assassin who killed Captain
Charlie was not speedily discovered the community would suffer under a
reign of terror such as the people had never conceived. And, what was
of more vital importance to McIver, perhaps, if the truth was not soon
revealed, Jake Vodell's charges that the murder was inspired by McIver
himself would become, in the minds of many, an established fact. With
the full realization of all that would result to the community and to
himself if the identity of the murderer was not soon established,
McIver was certain in his own mind that he alone knew the guilty man.

To reveal what he believed to be the truth of the tragedy would be to
save the community and himself--and to lose, for all time, the woman he
loved. McIver did not know that through the tragedy Helen was already
lost to him.

In his extremity the factory owner had come at last to the man who was
said to wield such a powerful influence over the minds of the people.
He had never before seen the interior of that hut on the cliff nor met
the man who for so many years had been confined there. Standing just
outside the door, he looked curiously about the room with the
unconscious insolence of his strength.

The man in the wheel chair did not speak. When Billy looked at him he
signaled his wishes in their silent language, and, watching his
visitor, waited.

For a long moment McIver gazed at the old basket maker as if estimating
his peculiar strength, then he said with an unintentional touch of
contempt in his heavy voice, "So _you_ are the Interpreter."

"And you," returned the man in the wheel chair, gently, "are McIver."

McIver was startled. "How did you know my name?"

"Is McIver's name a secret also?" came the strange reply.

McIver's eyes flashed with a light that those who sat opposite him in
the game of business had often seen. With perfect self-control he said,
coolly, "I have been told often that I should come to see you but--" he
paused and again looked curiously about the room.

The Interpreter, smiling, caught up the unfinished sentence. "But you
do not see how an old, poverty-stricken and crippled maker of baskets
can be of any use to you."

McIver spoke as one measuring his words. "They tell me you help people
who are in trouble."

"Are you then in trouble?" asked the Interpreter, kindly.

The other did not answer, and the man in the wheel chair continued,
still kindly, "What trouble can the great and powerful McIver have? You
have never been hungry--you have never felt the cold--you have no
children to starve--no son to be killed."

"I suppose you hold me personally responsible for the strike and for
all the hardships that the strikers have brought upon themselves and
their families?" said McIver. "You fellows who teach this
brotherhood-of-man rot and never have more than one meal ahead
yourselves always blame men like me for all the suffering in the
world."

The Interpreter replied with a dignity that impressed even McIver. "Who
am I that I should assume to blame any one? Who are you, sir, that
assume the power implied by either your acceptance or your denial of
the responsibility? You are only a part of the whole, as I am a part.
You, in your life place, are no less a creature of circumstances--an
accident--than I, here in my wheel chair--than Jake Vodell. We are
all--you and I, Jake Vodell, Adam Ward, Peter Martin, Sam Whaley--we
are all but parts of the great oneness of life. The want, the misery,
the suffering, the unhappiness of humanity is of that unity no less
than is the prosperity, peace and happiness of the people. Before we
can hope to bring order out of this industrial chaos we must recognize
our mutual dependence upon the whole and acknowledge the equality of
our guilt in the wretched conditions that now exist."

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