Book: The Fighting Chance

R >> Robert W. Chambers >> The Fighting Chance




She did not reply.

“Do you wonder?” he repeated sharply.

“No,” she said.

“Then--” He straightened up, and the silent significance of his waiting
attitude was plain enough to her.

But she shook her head impatiently, saying: “I don’t know whose dance it
is, and I don’t care. Please go on. It is--is pleasant. I like Mr.
Siward; I like to hear men speak of him as you do. I like you for doing
it. If you should ever come to care for my friendship that is the best
passport to it--your loyalty to Mr. Siward.”

“No man can truthfully speak otherwise than I have spoken,” he said
gravely.

“No, not of these things. But--you know w-what is--is usually said when
his name comes up among men.”

“Do you mean about his habits?” he asked simply.

“Yes. Is it not an outrage to drag in that sort of thing? It angers me
intensely, Mr. Plank. Why do they do it? Is there a single one among
them qualified to criticise Mr. Siward? And besides, it is not true any
more! … is it?--what was once said of him with--with some truth? Is it?”

The dull red blood mantled Plank’s heavy visage. The silence grew grim
as he did his slow, laborious thinking, the while his eyes,
expressionless and almost opaque in the dim light, never left her’s,
until, under the unchanging, merciless inspection, the mask dropped for
an instant from her anxious face, and he saw what he saw.

He was no fool. What he had come to believe she at last had only
confirmed; and now the question became simple: was she worth
enlightening? And by what title did she demand his confidence?

“You ask me if it is true any more. You mean about his habits. If I
answer you it is because I cannot be indifferent to what concerns him.
But before I answer I ask you this: Would your interest in his fortunes
matter to him?”

She waited, head bent; then:

“I don’t know, Mr. Plank,” very low.

“Did your interest in his fortunes ever concern him?”

“Yes, once.”

He looked at her sternly, his jaw squaring until his heavy under lip
projected. “Within my definition of friendship, is he your friend?”

“You mean he--”

“No, I mean you! I can answer for him. How is it with you? Do you return
what he gives--if there is really friendship between you? Or do you take
what he offers, offering nothing in return?”

She had turned rather white under the direct impact of the questions.
The jarring repetition of his voice itself was like the dull echo of
distant blows. Yet it never occurred to her to resent it, nor his
attitude, nor his self-assumed privilege. She did not care; she no
longer cared what he said to her or thought about her; nor did she care
that her mask had fallen at last. It was not what he was saying, but
what her own heart repeated so heavily that drove the colour from her
face. Not he, but she herself had become the pitiless attorney for the
prosecution; not his voice, but the clamouring conscience within her
demanded by what right she used the name of friendship to characterise
the late relations between her and the man to whom she had denied
herself.

Then a bitter impatience swept her, and a dawning fear, too; for she had
set her foot on the fallen mask, and the impulse rendered her reckless.

“Why don’t you speak?” she said. “Yes, I have a right to know. I care
for him as much as you do. Why don’t you answer me? I tell you I care
for him!”

“Do you?” he said in a dull voice. “Then help me out, if you can, for I
don’t know what to do; and if I did, I haven’t the authority of
friendship as my warrant. He is in New York. He did go to the country;
and, at his home, the servants suppose he is still away. But he isn’t;
he is here, alone, and sick--sick of his old sickness. I saw him,
and”--Plank rested his head on his hand, dropping his eyes--“and he didn’t
know me. I--I do not think he will remember that he met me, or that I
spoke. And--I could do nothing, absolutely nothing. And I don’t know
where he is. He will go home after a while. I call--every day--to see--see
what can be done. But if he were there I would not know what to do. When
he does go home I won’t know what to say--what to try to do. … And that
is an answer to your question, Miss Landis. I give it, because you say
you care for him as I do. Will you advise me what to do?--you, who are
more entitled than I am to know the truth, because he has given you the
friendship which he has as yet not accorded to me.”

But Sylvia, dry-eyed, dry-lipped, could find no voice to answer; and
after a little while they rose and moved through the fragrant gloom
toward the sparkling lights beyond.

Her voice came back as they entered the brilliant rooms: “I should like
to find Grace Ferrall,” she said very distinctly. “Please keep the
others off, Mr. Plank.”

Her small hand on his arm lay with a weight out of all proportion to its
size. Fair head averted, she no longer guided him with that impalpable
control; it was he who had become the pilot now, and he steered his own
way through the billowy ocean of silk and lace, master of the course he
had set, heavily bland to the interrupter and the importunate from whom
she turned a deaf ear and dumb lips, and lowered eyes that saw nothing.

Fleetwood had missed his dance with her, but she scarcely heard his
eager complaints. Quarrier, coldly inquiring, confronted them; was
passed almost without recognition, and left behind, motionless, looking
after them out of his narrowing, black-fringed eyes of a woman.

Then Ferrall came, and hearing his voice, she raised her colourless
face.

“Will you take me home with you, Kemp, when you take Grace?” she asked.

“Of course. I don’t know where Grace is. Are you in a hurry to go? It’s
only four o’clock.”

They were at the entrance to the supper-room. Plank drew up a chair for
her, and she sank down, dropping her elbows on the small table, and
resting her face between her fingers.

“Pegged out, Sylvia?” exclaimed Ferrall incredulously. “You? What’s the
younger set coming to?” and he motioned a servant to fill her glass. But
she pushed it aside with a shiver, and gave Plank a strange look which
he scarcely understood at the moment.

“More caprices; all sorts of ’em on the programme,” muttered Ferrall,
looking down at her from where he stood beside Plank. “O tempora! O
Sylvia! … Plank, would you mind hunting up my wife? I’ll stay and see
that this infant doesn’t fall asleep.”

But Sylvia shook her head, saying: “Please go, Kemp. I’m a little tired,
that’s all. When Grace is ready, I’ll leave with her.” And at her
gesture Plank seated himself, while Ferrall, shrugging his square
shoulders, sauntered off in quest of his wife, stopping a moment at a
neighbouring table to speak to Agatha Caithness, who sat there with
Captain Voucher, the gemmed collar on her slender throat a pale blaze of
splendour.

Plank was hungry, and he said so in his direct fashion. Sylvia nodded,
and exchanged a smile with Agatha, who turned at the sound of Plank’s
voice. For a while, as he ate and drank largely, she made the effort to
keep up a desultory conversation, particularly when anybody to whom she
owed an explanation hove darkly in sight on the horizon. But Plank’s
appetite was in proportion to the generous lines on which nature had
fashioned him, and she paid less and less attention to convention and a
trifle more to the beauty of Agatha’s jewels, until the silence at the
small table in the corner remained unbroken except by the faint tinkle
of silver and crystal and the bubbling hiss of a glass refilled.

Major Belwether, his white, fluffy, chop-whiskers brushed rabbit
fashion, peeped in at the door, started to tiptoe out again, caught
sight of them, and came trotting back, beaming rosy effusion. He leaned
roguishly over the table, his moist eyes a-twinkle with suppressed
mirth; then, bestowing a sprightly glance on Plank, which said very
plainly, “I’m up to one of my irrepressible jokes again!” he held up a
smooth, white, and over-manicured forefinger:

“I was in Tiffany’s yesterday,” be said, “and I saw a young man in there
who didn’t see me, and I peeped over his shoulder, and what do you think
he was doing?”

She lifted her eyes a little wearily:

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I do,” he chuckled. “He was choosing a collar of blue diamonds and aqua
marines!--Te-he!--probably to wear himself!--Te-he! Or perhaps he was going
to be married!--He-he-he!--next winter--ahem!--next November--Ha-ha!
I don’t know, I’m sure, what he meant to do with that collar. I only--”

Something in Sylvia’s eyes stopped him, and, following their direction,
he turned around to find Quarrier standing at his elbow, icy and
expressionless.

“Oh,” said the aged jester, a little disconcerted, “I’m caught talking
out in church, I see! It was only a harmless little fun, Howard.”

“Do you mean you saw me?” asked Quarrier, pale as a sheet. “You are in
error. I have not been in Tiffany’s in months.”

Belwether, crestfallen under the white menace of Quarrier’s face,
nodded, and essayed a chuckle without success.

Sylvia, at first listless and uninterested, looked inquiringly from the
major to Quarrier, surprised at the suppressed feeling exhibited over so
trivial a gaucherie. If Quarrier had chosen a collar like Agatha’s for
her, what of it? But as he had not, on his own statement, what did it
matter? Why should he look that way at the foolish major, to whose
garrulous gossip he was accustomed, and whose inability to refrain from
prying was notorious enough.

Turning disdainfully, she caught a glimpse of Plank’s shocked and
altered face. It relapsed instantly into the usual inert expression; and
a queer, uncomfortable perplexity began to invade her. What had happened
to stir up these three men? Of what importance was an indiscretion of an
old gentleman whose fatuous vanity and consequent blunders everybody was
familiar with? And, after all, Howard had not bought anything at
Tiffany’s; he said so himself. … But it was evident that Agatha had
chanced on the collar that Belwether thought he saw somebody else
examining.

She turned, and looked at the dead-white neck of the girl. The collar
was wonderful--a miracle of pale fire. And Sylvia, musing, let her
thoughts run on, dreamy eyes brooding. She was glad that Agatha’s means
permitted her now to have such things. It had been understood, for some
years, that the Caithness fortune was in rather an alarming condition.
Howard had been able recently to do a favour or two for old Peter
Caithness. She had heard the major bragging about it. Evidently Mr.
Caithness must have improved the chance, if he was able to present such
gems to his daughter. And now somebody would marry her; perhaps Captain
Voucher; perhaps even Alderdene; perhaps, as rumour had it now and then,
Plank might venture into the arena. … Poor Plank! More of a man than
people understood. She understood. She--

And her thoughts swung back like the returning tide to Siward, and her
heart began heavily again, and the slightly faint sensation returned.
She passed her ungloved, unsteady fingers across her eyelids and
forehead, looking up and around. The major and Howard had disappeared;
Plank, beside her, sat staring stupidly into his empty wine-glass.

“Isn’t Mrs. Ferrall coming?” she said wearily.

Plank gathered his cumbersome bulk and stood up, trying to see through
the entrance into the ball-room. After a moment he said: “They’re in
there, talking to Marion. It’s a good chance to make our adieux.”

As they passed out of the supper-room Sylvia paused behind Agatha’s
chair and bent over her. “The collar is beautiful,” she said, “and so
are you, Agatha”; and with a little impulsive caress for the jewels she
passed on, unconscious of the delicate flush that spread from Agatha’s
shoulders to her hair. And Agatha, turning, encountered only the stupid
gaze of Plank, moving ponderously past on Sylvia’s heels.

“If you’ll find Leila, I’m ready at any time,” she said carelessly, and
resumed her tête-à-tête with Voucher, who had plainly been annoyed at
the interruption.

Plank went on, a new trouble dawning on his thickening mental horizon.
He had completely forgotten Leila. Even with all the demands made upon
him; even with all the time he had given to those whose use of him he
understood, how could he have forgotten Leila and the recent scene
between them, and the new attitude and new relations with her that he
must so carefully consider and ponder over before he presented himself
at the house of Mortimer again!

Ferrall and his wife and Sylvia were making their adieux to Marion and
her mother when he came up; and he, too, took that opportunity.

Later, on his quest for Leila, Sylvia, passing through the great hall,
shrouded in silk and ermine, turned to offer him her hand, saying in a
low voice: “I am at home to you; do you understand? Always,” she added
nervously.

He looked after her with an unconscious sigh, unaware that anything in
himself had claimed her respect. And after a moment he swung on his
broad heels to continue his search for Mrs. Mortimer.



CHAPTER X THE SEAMY SIDE

About four o’clock on the following afternoon Mrs. Mortimer’s maid, who
had almost finished drying and dressing her mistress’ hair, was called
to the door by a persistent knocking, which at first she had been bidden
to disregard.

It was Mortimer’s man, desiring to know whether Mrs. Mortimer could
receive Mr. Mortimer at once on matters of importance.

“No,” said Leila petulantly. “Tell Mullins to say that I can not see
anybody,” and catching a glimpse of the shadowy Mullins dodging about
the dusky corridor: “What is the matter? Is Mr. Mortimer ill?”

But Mullins could not say what the matter might be, and he went away,
only to return in a few moments bearing a scratchy note from his master,
badly blotted and still wet; and Leila, with a shrug of resignation,
took the blotched scrawl daintily between thumb and forefinger and
unfolded it. Behind her, the maid, twisting up the masses of dark,
fragrant hair, read the note very easily over her mistress’ shoulder. It
ran, without preliminaries:

“I’m going to talk to you, whether you like it or not. Do you understand
that? If you want to know what’s the matter with me you’ll find out fast
enough. Fire that French girl out before I arrive.”

She closed the note thoughtfully, folding and double-folding it into a
thick wad. The ink had come off, discolouring her finger-tips; she
dropped the soiled paper on the floor, and held out her hands, plump
fingers spread. And when the maid had finished removing the stains and
had repolished the pretty hands, her mistress sipped her chocolate
thoughtfully, nibbled a bit of dry toast, then motioned the maid to take
the tray and her departure, leaving her the cup.

A few minutes later Mortimer came in, stood a moment blinking around the
room, then dropped into a seat, sullen, inert, the folds of his chin
crowded out on his collar, his heavy abdomen cradled on his short, thick
legs. He had been freshly shaved; linen and clothing were spotless, yet
the man looked unclean.

Save for the network of purple veins in his face, there was no colour
there, none in his lips; even his flabby hands were the hue of clay.

“Are you ill?” asked his wife coolly.

“No, not very. I’ve got the jumps. What’s that? Tea? Ugh! it’s
chocolate. Push it out of sight, will you? I can smell it.”

Leila set the delicate cup on a table behind her.

“What time did you return this morning?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“I don’t know; about five or six. How the devil should I know what time
I came in?”

Sitting there before the mirror of her dresser she stole a second glance
at his marred features in the glass. The loose mouth, the smeared eyes,
the palsy-like tremors that twitched the hands where they tightened on
the arms of his chair, became repulsive to the verge of fascination. She
tried to look away, but could not.

“You had better see Dr. Grisby,” she managed to say.

“I’d better see you; that’s what I’d better do,” he retorted thickly.
“You’ll do all the doctoring I want. And I want it, all right.”

“Very well. What is it?”

He passed his swollen hand across his forehead.

“What is it?” he repeated. “It’s the limit, this time, if you want to
know. I’m all in.”

“Roulette?” raising her eyebrows without interest

“Yes, roulette, too. Everything! They got me upstairs at Burbank’s. The
game’s crooked! Every box, every case, every wheel, every pack is
crooked! crooked! crooked, by God!” he burst out in a fever, struggling
to sit upright, his hands always tightening on the arms of the chair.
“It’s nothing but a creeping joint, run by a bunch of hand-shakers!
I--I’ll--”

Stuttering, choking, stammering imprecations, his hoarse clamour died
away after a while. She sat there, head bent, silent, impassive,
acquiescent under the physical and mental strain to which she had never
become thoroughly hardened. How many such scenes had she witnessed! She
could not count them. They differed very little in detail, and not at
all in their ultimate object, which was to get what money she had. This
was his method of reimbursing himself for his losses.

He made an end to his outburst after a while. Only his dreadful fat
breathing now filled the silence; and supposing he had finished, she
found her voice with an effort:

“I am sorry. It comes at a bad time, as you know--”

“A bad time!” he broke out violently. “How can it come at any other sort
of time? With us, all times are bad. If this is worse than the average
it can’t be helped. We are in it for keeps this time!”

“We?”

“Yes, we!” he repeated; but his face had grown ghastly, and his
uncertain eyes were fastened on her’s in the mirror.

“What do you mean--exactly?” she asked, turning from the dresser to
confront him.

He made no effort to answer; an expression of dull fright was growing on
his visage, as though for the first time he had begun to realise what
had happened.

She saw it, and her heart quickened, but she spoke disdainfully: “Well,
I am ready to listen--as usual. How much do you want?”

He made no sign; his lower lip hung loose; his eyes blinked at her.

“What is it?” she repeated. “What have you been doing? How much have you
lost? You can’t have lost very much; we hadn’t much to lose. If you have
given your note to any of those gamblers, it is a shame--a shame! Leroy,
look at me! You promised me, on your honour, never to do that again.
Have you lied, after all the times I have helped you out, stripped
myself, denied myself, put off tradesmen, faced down creditors? After
all I have done, do you dare come here and ask for more--ask for what I
have not got--with not one bill settled, not one servant paid since
December--”

“Leila, I--I’ve got--to tell you--”

“What?” she demanded, appalled by the change in his face. If he was
overdoing it, he was overdoing it realistically enough.

“I--I’ve used Plank’s cheque!” he mumbled, and moistened his lips with
his tongue.

She stared back at him, striving to comprehend. “Plank’s!” she repeated
slowly, “Plank’s cheque? What cheque? What do you mean?”

“The one he gave you last night. I’ve used that. Now you know!”

“The one he--But you couldn’t! How could you? It was not filled in.”

“I filled it.”

Her dawning horror was reacting on him, as it always did, like a fierce
tonic; and his own courage came back in a sort of sullen desperation.

“You … You are trying to frighten me, Leroy,” she stammered. “You are
trying to make me do something--give you what you want--force me to give
you what you want! You can’t frighten me. The cheque was made out to
me--to my order. How could you have used it, if I had not indorsed it?”

“I indorsed it. Do you understand that!” he said savagely.

“No, I don’t; because, if you did, it’s forgery.”

“I don’t give a damn what you think it is!” he broke in fiercely. “All
I’m worried over is what Plank will think. I didn’t mean to do it; I
didn’t dream of doing it; but when Burbank cleaned me up I fished about,
and that cursed cheque came tumbling out!”

In the rising excitement of self-defence the colour was coming back into
his battered face; he sat up straighter in his chair, and, grasping the
upholstered arms, leaned forward, speaking more distinctly and with
increasing vigour and anger:

“When I saw that cheque in my hands I thought I’d use it
temporarily--merely as moral collateral to flash at Burbank--something to
back my I. O. U.’s. So I filled it in.”

“For how much?” she asked, not daring to believe him; but he ignored the
question and went on: “I filled it and indorsed it, and--”

“How could you indorse it?” she interrupted coolly, now unconvinced
again and suspicious.

“I’ll tell you if you’ll stop that fool tongue a moment. The cheque was
made to ‘L. Mortimer,’ wasn’t it? So I wrote ‘L. Mortimer’ on the back.
Now do you know? If you are L. Mortimer, so am I. Leila begins with L;
so does Leroy, doesn’t it? I didn’t imitate your two-words-to-a-page
autograph. I put my own fist to a cheque made out to one L. Mortimer;
and I don’t care what you think about it as long as Plank can stand it.
Now put up your nose and howl, if you like.”

But under her sudden pallor he was taking fright again, and he began to
bolster up his courage with bluster and noise, as usual:

“Howl all you like!” he jeered. “It won’t alter matters or square
accounts with Plank. What are you staring at? Do you suppose I’m not
sorry? Do you fancy I don’t know what a fool I’ve been? What are you
turning white for? What in hell--”

“How much have you--” She choked, then, resolutely: “How much have
you--taken?”

“Taken!” he broke out, with an oath. “What do you mean? I’ve borrowed
about twenty thousand dollars. Now yelp! Eh? What?--no yelps? Probably
some weeps, then. Turn ’em on and run dry; I’ll wait.” And he managed to
cross one bulky leg over the other and lean back, affecting resignation,
while Leila, bolt upright in her low chair, every curved outline rigid
under the flowing, silken wrap, stared at him as though stunned.

“Well, we’re good for it, aren’t we?” he said threateningly. “If he’s
going to turn ugly about it, here’s the house.”

“My--house?”

“Yes, your house! I suppose you’d rather raise something on the house
than have the thing come out in the papers.”

“Do you think so?” she asked, staring into his bloodshot eyes.

“Yes, I do. I’m damn sure of it!”

“You are wrong.”

“You mean that you are not inclined to stand by me?” he demanded.

“Yes, I mean that.”

“You don’t intend to help me out?”

“I do not intend to--not this time.”

He began to show his big teeth, and that nervous snickering “tick”
twitched his upper lip.

“How about the courts?” he sneered. “Do you want to figure in them with
Plank?”

“I don’t want to,” she said steadily, “but you can not frighten me any
more by that threat.”

“Oh! Can’t frighten you! Perhaps you think you’ll marry Plank when I get
a decree? Do you? Well, you won’t for several reasons; first, because
I’ll name other corespondents and that will make Plank sick; second,
because Plank wants to marry somebody else and I’m able to assist him.
So where do you come out in the shuffle?”

“I don’t know,” she said, under her breath, and rested her head against
the back of the chair, as though suddenly tired.

“Well, I know. You’ll come out smirched, and you know it,” said
Mortimer, gazing intently at her. “Look here, Leila: I didn’t come here
to threaten you. I’m no black-mailer; I’m no criminal. I’m simply a
decent sort of a man, who is pretty badly scared over what he’s done in
a moment of temptation. You know I had no thought of anything except to
borrow enough on my I. O. U.’s to make a killing at Burbank’s. I had to
show them something big, so I filled in that cheque, not meaning to use
it; and before I knew it I’d indorsed it, and was plunging against it.
Then they stacked everything on me--by God, they did! and if I had not
been in the condition I was in I’d have stopped payment. But it was too
late when I realised what I was against. Leila, you know I’m not a bad
man at heart. Can’t you help a fellow?”

His manner, completely changed, had become the resentful and fretful
appeal of the victim of plot and circumstance. All the savage brutality
had been eliminated; the sneer, the truculent attempts to browbeat, the
pitiful swagger, the cynical justification, all were gone. It was really
the man himself now, normally scared and repentant; the frightened,
overfed pensioner on his wife’s bounty; not the human beast maddened by
fear and dissipation, half stunned, half panic-stricken, driven by sheer
terror into a rôle which even he shrank from--had shrunk from all these
years. For, leech and parasite that he was, Mortimer, however much the
dirty acquisition of money might tempt him in theory, had not yet
brought himself to the point of attempting the practice, even when in
sorest straits and bitterest need. He didn’t want to do it; he wished to
get along without it, partly because of native inertia and an aversion
to the mental nimbleness that he would be required to show as a law-
breaker, partly because the word “black-mail” stood for what he did not
dare suggest that he had come to, even to himself. His distaste was
genuine; there were certain things which he didn’t want to commit, and
extortion was one of them. He could, at a pinch, lie to his wife, or try
to scare her into giving him money; he could, when necessary, “borrow”
from such men as Plank; but he had never cheated at cards, and he had
never attempted to black-mail anybody except his wife--which, of course,
was purely a family matter, and concerned nobody else.

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