If it had been only himself and Diana, how simple it all would have been. He could perhaps have enough to pay off his debts. There were not many. He had been careful until lately. And then Diana would have had enough and to spare for them both.
But feeling as she did about Helen, and as Helen was growing to feel about Diana, he couldn’t, of course, let Diana do anything for them. And what was going to become of—everybody?
He put his head down on his desk and groaned aloud.
Ten minutes later his secretary coming in roused him to actualities, and he realized that there was much to be done and necessity of haste in the doing. He must not let everything slip from lax hands without making some attempt to rescue part, at least, of what was his own. He sent for his lawyer, and they spent the morning together going over everything. He dictated sharp, crisp sentences to his secretary and concentrated on his business as he had not done for two months. His lawyer looked at him with eyes of admiration. He was rallying splendidly to the situation. If anything could pull the old Disston firm through this crisis, this attitude on the part of its head would. He roused himself to keep up a state of good cheer and started so many little side lines of battlements to fight the coming disaster that Stephen Disston was cheered and given heart of hope. Of course, time would tell whether all their work was in vain or not, but in the meantime it was good to feel a little hope, since they must go on and do these things whether they succeeded or not. And so with his lips in a firm line of determination and his eyes stern, Stephen Disston faced the facts and took the reins in his hands. He must drive through or all was lost, and that he would not consider—not yet, at any rate.
And for all the rest of that day it is safe to say he did not once think of the unscrupulous sprite of a woman he had married, not even while he was eating a hurried lunch he had sent up to his office while he worked.
It was a strenuous day. Drastic measures had to be taken, daring methods adopted, innumerable telephone calls made, telegrams sent, sheafs of letters written. The lawyer stuck by him like the friend he had always been, and they worked until the world outside the office grew dark. Then the lawyer rose.
“There, Steve,” he said, rubbing a large capable hand over a weary, kindly face, “I guess that’s about all we can do today. Now we’ve just got to wait and see the result of this. We ought to be hearing from these things about day after tomorrow. And, in the meantime, let’s go home to dinner.”
Then Stephen Disston suddenly remembered that he had no home but a hotel tonight, and nobody he dared confide in when he got there. He must adjust a smile and keep it on for the evening. He thought with a stab of pain of the daughter who had left him. Where, oh, where was Diana? Diana who always knew when her father was troubled. She never bothered with questions but crept near and slipped a quiet hand in his and smiled her comfort. Oh, how had he allowed himself to do anything to alienate Diana?
But when he got to the hotel, weary and sick at heart, he found a note from Helen. She had gone to Max Copley’s apartment to help him plan for his house party, and she demanded that he follow her as soon as he arrived. Helen in that man’s apartment, planning follies for a party! He frowned and sighed and sat down with his head in his hands. How were the troubles multiplying around him! He seemed to himself like one caught in a net from which it was hopeless to try to escape. Helen in that disgusting man’s apartment, and he had no power to keep her away! Of course, she couldn’t realize what he was, but why wouldn’t she listen to him, her husband? Why wouldn’t she take his word for it that the man wasn’t a fit associate?
And now she was demanding that he come also. Three times this had happened already and twice he had yielded and gone, only to find that his presence was scarcely noticed by the crowd, least of all by Helen, who was wholly taken up with the others and expected him to find his own amusement. He had gone to protect her by his presence, but he had found that his presence did not protect her from the things to which he objected. He told himself that, of course, she was innocent and did not in the least realize what kind of people these were with whom she was finding her amusement. He had planned to give her other and better amusements and wean her from these people, but he found to his dismay that she did not enjoy the things he planned for her and was only eager to get back to her crowd again.
And Diana was gone, dear Diana, and there seemed no way at all to get in touch with her. What should he do? His life was going into a slump—financially, socially, domestically—and there was no way out.
So he put his head down and groaned.
He would not go after Helen this time. Let her stay until she realized what she had done. He would wait here for her return. It did no good to go.
He felt old and tired. He was hungry, too, though he did not realize that. It was long after dinnertime, but he did now know it. He was trying to think back over his past life and see just where it was that he had gotten off the beaten track, just where he had diverged from the path that he had trod so successfully all the years until now. Money gone, daughter gone, wife gone, home gone—was there anything more missing? Yes, his religion seemed gone, too.
He recalled how he always used to have family worship in the old days when Marilla was living. How they went to church together and tried to order their lives in a Christian manner. He was a Christian man, respected, for a long time a deacon in his church—where, how, had he gotten away?
Suddenly he slipped down upon his knees and prayed aloud: “Oh, God! I’m a sinner! Set me right. Show me what to do.”
A long time he knelt, and then he rose and dropped into the big chair again. Helen found him sitting there with his face bowed into his hands and a look of utter dejection upon him.
She stood poised in the doorway for a moment surveying him with narrowed eyes, and then she closed the door behind her and swept to the other end of the room, assuming her battle array.
“I love the way you leave me to run around alone!” she said sweetly, tapping her hand on the arm of the chair. “And you needn’t think you can sit and mope and get away with it, either. We might as well have this out now as any time. When I leave a note for you to meet me somewhere I expect you to do it, see? I don’t like being deserted that way, and it certainly is too early in our married life for you to act like an old grouch.”
Stephen Disston lifted his haggard face.
“Helen,” he said in a weary, husky voice, “you’ll have to understand that I cannot have anything to do with that man, and I do not want you to be seen with him, much less go to his apartment. I am grieved to the heart that you should persist in this. I have explained to you that the man is not fit for you to wipe your shoes on. If it is necessary for me to go into details, I can do it, but I wish you would take my word for it. You are young and innocent and have no idea what kind of a man this Copley is—!”
He was interrupted by an impish chuckle. “Oh, I like that! I don’t know what Max is, don’t I? Ask Max that one. Ask him if I don’t know all about him, and see what he says. So, I’m innocent, am I? Well that’s a good one.”
She laughed immoderately and then suddenly sobered and put on a haughty dignity. “My dear, you certainly are rare! You think I am a babe in arms like your little Diana. But remember that I was left alone at a tender age and had to rub elbows with the world. I am beginning to suspect that I really am wiser in the wisdom of the world than even you, who seem to think you know all there is to know of evil. However, you might as well understand right now that I know my crowd from A to Z, and I like them just as they are, and I intend to stick to them. And what’s more, if you want to keep me you’ll have to like them, too, and like them a lot! For we are going to run around with them from now on.”
“Never!” said Disston sternly, rising and pacing up and down the room. “Never!”
“We’re going to Max Copley’s house party at the end of this week,” went on his wife calmly, just as if he had not spoken, “and then early next week we’re going on a yachting pa
rty with Max’s friend Count De Briscka. He invited us informally today, and he’s sending a written invitation tonight lest you would stand on ceremony. The yacht is one of the finest on the water; it cost a mint of money and is perfectly spiffy. Its name is Lotus Blossom. Isn’t that precious? Everybody I know is crazy for an invitation. If it hadn’t been that we are Max’s most intimate friends we wouldn’t have been invited, but he’s just crazy about Max. And do you know, Max says if you get close to the Count he’ll put you on to some good investments that will pull your fortunes back into line and make you rich in no time, richer than you’ve ever been before. Max says—”
“Helen! Have you been talking my affairs over with that viper?”
“Why, of course I have,” pouted Helen. “Why not? Max has made some awfully good plays on the market lately, and I knew he would give me some pretty good hints. I was awfully down, you know, because of what you told me this morning, and so I suppose he saw I was blue, and he naturally asked me what was the matter, so of course I had to tell him. And his answer was to call up Count De Briscka, and a half hour later he came in and we had such a jolly time, and he gave the invitation before we had been talking five minutes. Max says that’s what he does when he wants to show the crowd a good time, just invites them over and calls up the Count, and the Count always takes the hint and invites them on a yachting trip. He says the Count likes it. So you see, darling, it’s quite up to you to change your ideas and get to liking my crowd. For that’s who I’m hanging around with the rest of the summer.”
“Never!” said Disston severely. “Never! Helen, I don’t know how to express myself in suitable words to show you my disgust and dislike of these people. Never would I consent to dining with them again or attending their parties or going on any trips whatsoever with them. Most certainly I will not accept any invitations from any of them, and you will not do so, either, not with my consent.”
“Oh, dear me, darling,” laughed Helen amusedly, “that’s just too bad! Because, you see, I’ve already accepted, and I intend to go! If you won’t go with me, why then, tra-la, Max always has plenty of interesting friends for me to pair off with.”
She looked at him archly with a significant smile, but she met a grave, sad expression that had almost disillusionment in it. He looked at her steadily for a moment and then said, “You cannot do a thing like that, Helen, and remain on a friendly footing with me. You cannot go to a party like either of those you are proposing without bringing disgrace on my family. Those men who have invited you are notorious drinkers and gamblers. In a fashionable way, I admit, but nevertheless a disgraceful way, and I cannot allow you to get your good name and mine besmirched by having anything more to do with them. I shall have to ask you to refrain from further friendliness with them.”
Helen looked at him with angry eyes for an instant, and then her eyes began to dance with impishness.
“Oh, isn’t that too bad!” she said with a giddy little laugh, and then she turned and flounced off into the bedroom and locked the door.
All night Stephen Disston sat bowed in that big armchair in the sitting room of his hotel suite, his face in his hands, his soul borne down by heaviness; while a few miles away in the suburb that had been his home for years policemen and firemen and friends and neighbors were keeping the telephone lines hot with calls, trying to locate him, to tell him that his house was on fire. They even found his old friend the lawyer, with whom he had spent the day, but he could give them no clue to his whereabouts.
Chapter 20
That afternoon Gordon MacCarroll had reached home in the early twilight and found his mother out in the driveway sniffing the air and looking up toward the great house.
“What in the world are you doing, Mother?” he called out, stopping his car by the garage and jumping out.
“Why, Gordon, I’ve been smelling smoke all the afternoon. At first I thought it was someone’s bonfire, but I couldn’t locate it, and the last half hour it has been growing stronger. It seemed to come from the back of the house, so I looked up toward the big house, and I thought I saw a thin wisp of smoke against the sky coming from that far corner. It worried me a little because the caretaker hasn’t been around today at all. I thought maybe some tramps had been tampering with the wood pile back of the house.”
“Maybe the family have come home and built a fire in the fireplace to get rid of the dampness,” suggested Gordon.
“No, the family didn’t come home,” said his mother positively. “I’ve been sitting right by the window almost all day sewing. I wanted to finish my dress. Even when I ate lunch I brought a plate to my little sewing table and ate while I sewed. The new Mrs. Disston came about half-past twelve for a while, but she didn’t stay. She arrived on the bus and walked up the drive, and in about three quarters of an hour she came back again and stood out there on the street waiting for the next bus. There hasn’t been anybody else here all day.”
“Are you sure you would have noticed?”
“Yes, I’m positive. I was watching. You see, when she arrived first she had a blue leather bag over her arm, with some bulky packages in it, as if she had been shopping, and I thought perhaps they were coming back to stay and she had been to market. But when she came out again and went away she hadn’t anything in her hand but her purse. I suppose I noticed the bag because it was exactly like that one that Cousin Lucy brought back from her Mediterranean trip. Do you remember that? You admired it so much. It was soft blue kid tooled in gold. I know you said it would make a wonderful cover for a Bible. And when I saw her go in I couldn’t help noticing it because it was exactly like Lucy’s.
“So, of course, I kept looking up that way to see if there were any signs of her, and pretty soon she came out with just her purse. I was hoping she had come to stay, and maybe all of them would come. You know, I always feel sort of responsible for that house when they are all away. It’s so far back from the street none of the other neighbors can see it very well. I though she might only have gone to market. But she didn’t come back. And about an hour ago I smelled the smoke getting stronger, and just now I thought I saw a sort of a glow in those windows over on the left, as if there were a fire in the room. She surely wouldn’t go off and leave an open fire in the house, would she?”
Gordon’s eyes went quickly to the windows his mother indicated.
“I’d better take a look,” he said. “It’s probably only a bonfire at the back. Maybe the caretaker came a back way or something, but I’ll feel better if I just run up and see. You stay out here where you can see the end of the house. If it’s anything serious, I’ll come out and wave, and you can telephone for the fire company, but I don’t think it’s anything.”
Gordon walked rapidly up the drive and disappeared around the end of the house. But only an instant later he appeared again waving his arms wildly. His mother waved back and turned running into the house to call the fire engine.
Gordon hurried back to see what he could do before the firemen arrived. He found a door into the tool house ajar and, looking in, discovered the garden hose.
The smoke was pouring out of an open cellar window, and flames were beginning to lick up like hungry tongues out of two of the windows at the back. The whole back corner of the house seemed to be involved, all the way to the roof, for wisps and feathers of smoke and flames were darting out of an upper window, tentatively, as if they were searching out the best place to really take hold and devastate. He hadn’t arrived an instant too soon.
It looked to MacCarroll as if it had been a slow fire, perhaps started by a match or cigarette, smoldering through rags or rubbish in the cellar until it gained a footing. Then, creeping upward, it must have made a passage for itself and had only now begun to leap upward.
But there was no time for thought. Gordon dashed out of the tool house dragging the garden hose then searched blindly through the smoke, which was becoming dense now, for the outlet. Finally he succeeded in locating it, screwed on the hose, and turned on the wa
ter.
But it was such an inadequate little stream that poured out after he had done all he could. He turned it to its utmost and played it upon the house, but even in the minute it had taken to get the water started, the fire seemed to have gained the ascendancy. It had crept underneath and roared up the wall of a small annex, perhaps a laundry or out-kitchen, and now the flames were feathering upward from the roof, cutting it in half, and roaring in triumph. It would not take long to reduce the annex to ashes if this could not be stopped. And meantime, the main house was in grave danger. The flames were shooting out now through one corner of the roof. Would the fire company never get here?
There was another water outlet the other side of the back porch. Gordon wished there were two of him. There was a large bucket standing under it. He could draw water and throw it on where it would prevent the spread of the fire, if he could only fix up something to hold this hose so that it could work while he was working elsewhere.
But even while he was casting about in his mind what to do his mother appeared and took the hose from him.
“I’ll hold this, Gordon. Do you see what else is to be done? The fire company is on the way, and I’ve telephoned the neighbors. Here’s the ax, too, I though you might need it.”
So the two worked valiantly, breathlessly, on the fire that had now leaped up into a mighty conflagration, threatening to devastate the whole house.
Neighbors came running across the fields now, and cars dashed up the drive and parked on the lawn to make room for the fire engine. And then the fire company arrived, with chemicals and a big hose running back down the drive to a hydrant in the street.
A neighbor volunteered to try to reach the owner by telephone. The police arrived and took a hand also, and the fire roared high and reached forth arms of flame greedy to envelop the whole back of the house and one end, licking out now and then tentatively around the corner to the beautiful white front with its fine lacework of vines.