GIDEON'S KNOCK
BY
MARY HALLECK FOOTE
Written for THE SPINNERS' BOOK OF FICTION
_All Rights Reserved_
BY A curious coincidence, whenever George Fleming was translated to awider berth, it was my luck to succeed him in the job he had justquitted. This had happened more than once, in the chances and changesthat befall the younger men in the mining profession, before we began tojolly each other about it--always at long range.
When I heard he had resigned from the Consolidated Resumption, toeverybody's surprise, at a time of great prosperity to the mine, Ihailed my chance and congratulated myself that I should speedily beasked to fill his place: and I was!
I wrote him on the spot a playful letter, alluding to my long, sternchase and begging him to hold on this time till I could shake him by thehand; I had come to have a personal sentiment toward him apart from thenatural desire to meet face to face the author of my continuedadvancement. But to this letter I received no word of reply.
His silence haunted me, rather--I thought about him a good deal while Iwas closing up my affairs in other directions before taking over theConsolidated Resumption. Meanwhile the company's cashier, Joshua Dean,a man of trust but small initiative, was filling the interregnum.
I found him living alone in the manager's house with the Flemings'Chinese cook as man of all work. The Resumption has never tolerated aboarding-house or a village or compound within sight of its officialwindows. Its first manager was a son of the chief owner, who built hishouse in the style of a gentleman's country-seat, small but exclusiveand quite apart from the work. I liked the somber seclusion of theplace, planted deep with trees of about twenty years' growth, showingtheir delicate, changing greens against the darker belt of pines. Butits aspect increased, if anything, that uneasy sensation, like a coldwind in my back, which I still had in thinking of Fleming.
I had driven out to dine with Dean on the evening of my arrival. It wasthe last week in January; there had been much rain already for thefoot-hills. Wet sprays from the untrimmed rose hedges disputed mypassage through the inner gate. Discolored pine-needles lay in soddendrifts on the neglected grass. The hydrant leaked frozen puddles downthe brick-paved walk. Mounting the veranda steps I laid my hand on theknocker, when an old Chinese servant popped his head out at a side-doorand violently beckoned me in that way.
Dean, as I knew, had made his home with the Flemings for some timebefore their departure. After a few talks with him and a survey of thehouse I decided we might venture to continue the arrangement withoutgetting in each other's way. It was a house peculiarly adapted to a_solitude a deux_. There was no telephone nearer than the office. Iargued that Fleming was a man who could protect himself from frivolousintrusions, and his wife could have had but little in common with herneighbors in the village.
He had resigned on account of her health, I was told. It must have beena hasty flitting or an inconclusive one. The odd, attractive rooms werefull of their belongings still. We two casual bachelors with ourcircumspect habits could make no impression on the all but speakingsilence of those empty rooms. They filled me at times with a curiousemotion of sadness and unrest.
Joshua seldom talked of the Flemings, though I knew he received lettersfrom them. That he was deeply attached to their memory, hoarded it andbrooded over it, I could not doubt. I even suspected some jealoussentiment on his part which made it hard for him to see me using theirchairs, planting myself amongst their cushions and investigating theirbook-shelves. I thought it strange they had left so many things behindthem of a personal nature. They seemed to have ceased to care for whatmost of us rolling stones are wont to cling to. Their departure hadsomething unspeakable in it--akin to sudden death, or a sickness of theheart that made life indifferent to them.
"They must have loved this room!" I said to him one evening. It wasduring the black rains of February--Dean and I with our chairs to thefire, waiting for the Eastern mail. The night watchman's orders were tostop for it if the trains were anywhere near on time. At this stormseason the Westbound was frequently behind and the road to town aquagmire. We never looked for Fahey--he was the man I found there asnight watchman--before eight o'clock. It had rained and snowed off andon since the month began. In the dark, low rooms the fire burned allday. The dining-room, which had blue-green walls in imitation of Flemishtapestry and weathered-oak furniture, was darkened still more by thepines that gave a cloistered look to the view from our back windows intoa small, square court, high-walled and spread with pine-needles. Therooms we used were two small ones united, done in white and yellow andwith slim curtains which we could crush back upon the rods; but eventhere one could not see to read by daylight. This continuous, arcticgloom added, no doubt, to the melancholy spell of the house, whichnevertheless charmed me, and held me almost with a sense of impalpablepresences sharing with Joshua and me our intimate, wistful seclusion. IfI was happy, in a luxuriously mournful sort of way, I knew that he wasnot--that he grieved persistently over something that cast a greynessover his thoughts in keeping with the atmosphere. I knew that he knewwithout any names whom I meant whenever I spoke of _they_.
"Yes, they loved it," he said, answering my exclamation. "They made it,somehow, as character is said to shape its own set of features."
"Had they lived here long?"
"For a mine house, yes. It was, of course, a home. They had no other."
"A happy one?" I ventured.
"Can any one be called happy who has the gift of strong feeling, andtwo children at stake, in this world?" I had never heard him speak withsuch bitterness.
"But to have any one to feel for--that is life," I said. "I wish I hadmore of it myself."
"Life, then, is not happiness."
I left him the last word, and sitting so, both silent, we heard ascreen-door at the kitchen-end blow to with a bang and a clatter oftinware that sent the blood to my face in wrath. I said something--aboutJim and his fly-doors (Jim believed that flies or their ghosts besiegedthat house all winter)--when the old heathen himself came boiling intothe room like a whole United States mail service delayed.
"Hoo! Heap bad ou'si'! Heap snow!" he panted, wiping drops from the lockof the mail-pouch with his apron.
My wrath increased, because once more Fahey had got past the front doorwith the mail, whereas each night I had promised myself to waylay himand change his roundabout method of delivery. "If I live till tomorrow,"I said crossly, "I'll see if he can't climb those steps and hand us thebag himself."
Jim stood listening. "We might be at dinner," Joshua suggested.
"What's the matter with knocking?--what is the knocker for?" It struckme, as I spoke, that I had not heard the sound of the knocker since theday Jim stayed my own hand and shunted me in at the side; it seemed hemust have practised the same vigilance with subsequent comers, for Icould not recall one person who had entered the house announced by thebrass lion's head on the door.
"_He_ no lock!" Jim planted himself in front of me; his voice quaverednervously. "All time I _un_-lock! Fi' 'tlock whistle blow--I go quick!Nobody wait. I all time run."
"Why should you run? What is the knocker for?" I repeated. At this Istepped past him startling him somewhat, and hurled open the front door.I had heard our coy watchman going down the path.
"Tomorrow night, Fahey," I shouted, "you bring the bag in this way.Knock, man! There's the knocker--see?"
Jim looked at me with eyes aghast. He gathered himself for speech,breathing deeply.
"Mis' Oth' (my name is Othet), I tell you: Long time-_long_ time, no manknock flon' do'. In this house, no good. No good knock. Sometimesome-come-you no man see!" He lowered his voice to a rapid whisper,spreading his yellow palms tremulously. "You tell man come knock flon'do'--I go 'way. Too much bad thing!"
Muttering to himself he retreated. "Now what has he got on his mind doyou suppose? Could you make out what he was driving at?"
Dean smiled, a non-committal smile. "It would be rather awkward for
us,wouldn't it, if Jim should leave? We are too far from the coast for cityservants in winter. I doubt if any of the natives could be persuaded tostay in this house alone."
"You think Jim would leave if I made Fahey knock at that door everynight?"
Joshua answered me obliquely. "If I could ever quote anything straight,I would remind you of a saying in one of George Eliot's novels that'we've all got to take a little trouble to keep sane and call things bythe same names as other people.' Perhaps Jim doesn't take quite troubleenough. I have difficulty sometimes myself to find names for things. Ishould like to hear you classify a certain occurrence I have in mind,not unconnected, I think, with Jim's behavior tonight. I've neverdiscussed it, of course. In fact, I've never spoken of it before." Hesmiled queerly. "It's very astonishing how they know things."
"The menials?"
He nodded. "Jim was in the house at the time. No one knows that he heardit,--no one ever told him. But he is thinking of it tonight just as Iam. He's never forgotten it for a moment, and never will."
Joshua dragged the charred logs forward and stooped amid their sparks tolay a fresh one with its back to the chimney. Then he rose and lookedout; as he stood in the door, I could hear the hissing of fine snowturning to rain and the drenched bamboo whipping the piazza posts; overall, the larger lament of the pines, and, from the long rows of lightsin the gulch, the diapason of the stamp-heads thundering on through thenight.
"'Identities of sensation,'" said Joshua, quoting again as he shut thedoor, "are strong with persons who live in lonely places! Jim and I havelived here too long."
"Well, I hope you won't live here another moment till you have told methat story," I urged, and we drew again to the fire.
"There was a watchman here before Fahey," he began, "an old plainsman,with a Bible name, Gideon. He looked like the pictures of oldOssawattamie Brown, and he had for the Flemings a most unusual regard.It was as strong as his love for his family. It was because of whatFleming did for his son, young Gid, when they caught him stealingspecimens with a gang of old offenders. Gid was nineteen, and a prettygood boy, we thought. Such things happen between men of the right sortevery day, I suppose,--Fleming would say so. But it was his opportunityto do it for a man who could feel and remember, and he made a friend forlife right there. It is too long a story to tell, but young Gid's allright--working in the city, married and happy,--trusted like any otherman. It wasn't in the blood, you see.
"Before his boy got into trouble, Fleming used to call the old man'Gideon,' talked to him any old way; but after his pride fell down itwas always 'Mr. Gideon,' and a few words when he brought the mail, aboutthe weather or the conduct of the trains. The old man appeared to standtaller in those moments at the door, when he brought to the house thevery food of its existence. They lived upon their letters, for both thechildren were away. The army boy in the Philippines; it was during theMindanao campaign; and Constance (Joshua, I noticed, took a deep breathbefore the name), the daughter, was at school in the East. Gideon couldgauge the spirits of the two, waiting here for what he brought them. Hekept tally of the soldier's letters, the thin blue ones that camestrolling in by the transport lines. But hers--her letters were hispride.
"'It's there all right,' he would say--'she never misses a Monday mail,the little one!' or, as the winter months wore on--'you'll be countingthe weeks now, madam. Six more letters and then the telegram from Ogden,and I hope it's my privilege to bring it, madam.' For as Fleming gavehim his title, the old man passed it back with a glow of emphasis,putting devotion into the 'madam' and life service into the 'Mr.Fleming, sir.'
"Then she came home--Constance--she was no longer the little one. Tallerthan her mother, and rather silent, but her looks were a language, andher motions about the house--I suppose no words could measure theirpride in her, or their shrinking when they thought of her in contactwith the world. People laughed a little, looking at her, when her mothertalked of the years they were going to have together. And she wouldrebuke the laugh and say, 'We do not marry early in my family, nor theFlemings either.' When the August heat came on, they thought she was toopale--they spared her for a visit to some friends who had a houseboatoff Belvedere, or some such place. It was an ambush of fate. She camehome, thin, brown, from living on the water,--happy! too happy forsafety. She brought her fate with her, the last man you'd suppose couldever cross her path. He was from Hawaii, an Englishman--not all English,some of us thought. Handsome as a snake; a face that kept no marks. Eyesall black--nothing of the pupil showing. They say such eyes are not tobe trusted. I never liked him. I'd better not try to describe him.
"It seemed madness to me, but I suppose they were no more helpless thanother fathers and mothers. He had plenty to say for himself, andintroductions--all sorts of credentials, except a pair of eyes. They hadto let it go on; and he took her away from them six months after she sawhim first. That's happiness, if you call it so!"
Again I added, "It is life."
"There was not much left of it in this house after she went," Joshuamused. "It was then they asked me to come up and stay with them. Asilence of three does not press quite so close as a silence of two. Andwe talked sometimes. The mine had taken a great jump; it was almost amockery the way things boomed. The letters, I noticed, were not what theschoolgirl letters had been to her mother. They came all right, theywere punctual, but something I felt sure was wrong. Mrs. Fleming wouldnot have missed a mail for anything in the world--every hour's delaywore upon her. She would play her game of solitaire, long after bedtime,at that desk by the drop-light. It seemed she could not read; nothingheld her. She was irritable with Fleming, and then she would pet himpiteously to make up. He was always gentle. He would watch her over hisbook as she walked up and down in the back room in the light between thedining-room curtains. If he saw I noticed, he'd look away and begin totalk.
"I have gone a little ahead of my story, for this was after the darkweather came on and the mails were behind; we knew there was some newstrain on her spirits. You could see her face grow small and her fleshwaste away.
"One night we sat here, Fleming and I, and she was pacing in her soft,weary way in the back of the room. There came a knock. It was Gideon's,yet none of us heard the gate click nor any step outside. She stoodback, for she never showed any impatience--she tried to pretend that sheexpected nothing. Fleming opened the door; he stood there an instantlooking out.
"'Didn't you hear a knock?' he asked me. Before I could answer he wentoutside, closing the door, and we heard him go down the steps slowly.
"When he came in he merely said, 'A jar of wind.
"'A jar of wind!' Mrs. Fleming mocked him. The knock came again as shespoke. Once, twice, then the light tap: I have described Gideon's knock.We did not pretend again it was the wind.
"'You go this time;' Fleming tried to laugh. 'See if there is anythingdoing.'
"There was nothing doing whatever, and nothing to be seen. I turned onthe electrics outside, and Fleming, seeing the light, came out to joinme. I asked him if those were his tracks--a man's footsteps could beseen printed in the fresh, light snow as far as the lowest step andback. All beyond, where the light streamed down the path to the gate,was sky-fresh snow softly laid without wind. 'Those are my tracks,' hesaid. 'There were no others before--sure,' he repeated, 'and there is noone down at the gate. You need not go down there. Say nothing to her,'he continued as we re-opened the door.
"She was expecting us. She was very pale but half smiling, braving itout. She fixed her eyes on Fleming and then on me. 'Did you not _both_hear that knock?' As she spoke it came again. I stood nearest the door;I hurled it open. Absolutely nothing. The lights, burning in a sillyway, made shadows on the steps. Not a mark, not even a leaf-track on thepath we could see below.
"I went over to the telephone and called up the post-office. Whathappened at the house in absence I do not know. I found the drawing-roomempty; Fleming joined me coming from his wife's room.
"'She is fearfully upset by that knocking,' he s
aid. 'Can't we think upsome explanation?'
"I feared he would have less courage for inventing explanations afterwhat I had to tell him.
"I had followed the track of a horse and cart to the stable and foundGideon's old mare at her hitching-post; the cart was empty, the muddylap-robe dragging over the wheel. At the post-office they told me Gideonhad started for the mine an hour and a half ago. 'Hasn't he got outthere with that telegram yet?' they added. From the telegraph office,where they knew Gideon's hours, they had sent a message across to thepost-office to be carried out by him with the mail. The voice on thetelephone remarked, 'I guess they ought to get that wire pretty soon. Itwas marked _Important.'_
"Fleming was cold and shaking as he listened. 'Drive back along the roadthrough the woods, Joshua'--he seldom called me by that name. 'I thinksomething has happened to the old man. His knock is on duty tonight, butwhere is he?'
"It came again, and following it a low cry from passage behind closeddoors. 'She heard it too,' said Fleming. And he went to his wife.
"I called up the landing-man to help me--Tommy Briscoe; I knew hewouldn't spread any talk about. The search was not long. A lanternburning by itself in the woods showed us where he had stopped the cartand half turned and tramped around in the snow. He'd dropped the bagout, probably, missed it and looked for it on foot, setting his lanterndown. He'd gone back quite a bit along the road, and, coming back withit, the light in his eyes, he had made a misstep, and the shaft--the oldGranite Hill shaft, you know--it's close to the road. We found him inthe sump at the bottom. There had been too much rain, but it is a deepshaft anyway. He kept his hold on the bag, and he kept his senses longenough to hook it onto a poor little stray pine-root above the water,where he died. It was a cruel death, but his face was good to look at."
"And the telegram?" I asked.
"It was safe. He'd saved everything, except himself. They were drivenover to Colfax that night, with not a moment to spare----"
"But you haven't told me what it was."
"The message? Yes, it was from her, Constance--sent from an address inthe city. It said--I suppose I may repeat it. It is part of the night'swork.
"'Come to me, mother,' it said. 'I am here. I need you.'"
"And they were in time?"
"To bid her good-by," said Joshua. "There was no hope for her but indeath. Of course, they never explained. She simply fled from--we don'tknow what. As long as she could she bore it without complaint, and thenshe came home. She had them both with her and she knew them.
"I believe they were willing to give her up. It was the only solutionleft. They were very fixed in their ideas about divorce, and what comesafter. They believed in staking all or nothing and abiding the result.The logic of her choice was death. They saw her free, without a stain,without an obligation in this life even to her child, for it lay deadbeside her. They did grieve for that. They wanted it to live. It wouldhave been something--yet, I believe, even that was best.
"They lived on here for a while, if you call it living; but the silencein these rooms was more than she could endure. And I need not tell youthat the watchman, who was put on after Gideon, had orders to leave thatknocker alone."
"And you think," I asked, "that while Gideon lay dead at the bottom ofthe shaft, his knock was 'marching on'?" I regretted instantly the turnof my last sentence. Joshua stiffened as he replied:
"No; I cannot assert that he was dead, but I am convinced that what wasleft of him, of his mortal--or immortal--consciousness, was notconcerned with himself. What may happen to us at that last boundary postis one of the mysteries no man can solve till he gets there."
"Joshua," I said, "the drift of your conclusion is a tribute to Gideon'sfaithfulness--well deserved I have no doubt. But if you'll allow me tosay so, it is not a tribute to the healthy state of your mind. I regretto say it, but I fear that I agree with you: I think you have lived inthis house too long."
"If I had lived here too long for any other reason," he answered gently,"enough has been said. It is better we should understand each other.But, as to my mind--I prefer to keep it unhealthy, if by that you meanthe tendency to project it a little further than reason, founded on suchlaws of the universe as we know, can help us. Healthy minds are such asaccept things--endeavor to forget what gives immeasurable pain. I preferthe pain."