The Fortunes of Oliver Horn Part 5

"Richard," she called softly to her husband sitting in the adjoining room, in the chair that Malachi, in accordance with the old custom, had with his sweeping bow made ready for him. The inventor had been there since tea was over, lying back in his seat, his head resting on his hand. He had had one of his thoughtful days, worrying over some detail of his machine, still incomplete. The new device of which he had told her with such glee had failed, as had the others. The motor was still incomplete.

"Richard," she repeated.

"Yes, my dear," he answered, in his gentle voice. He had not heard her at first.

"Bring your chair over here."

The inventor rose instantly and, crossing the room, took a seat beside her, his hand finding hers in the dark.

"What is this you have been saying to Oliver about artists being great men?" she asked. "He's got a new idea in his head now--he wants to be a painter. I've thought for some time that Mr. Crocker was not a proper person for him to be so much with. He has evidently worked on the boy's imagination until he has determined to give up the law and study art."

"How do you know?"

"I've just heard him tell Sue Clayton so. All he wants now is my consent--he says he has yours."

The inventor paused, and gently smoothed his wife's fingers with his own.

"And you would not give it?" he inquired.

"How could I? It would ruin him--don't you know it?" There was a slight tinge of annoyance in her voice--not one of fault-finding, but rather of anxiety.

"That depends, my dear, on how well he could succeed," he answered, gently.

"Why, Richard!" She withdrew her hand quickly from his caressing touch, and looked at him in undisguised astonishment. "What has his SUCCEEDING to do with it? Surely you cannot be in earnest? I am willing he should do anything to make his living, but not that. No one we know has ever been a painter. It is neither respectable nor profitable. You see what a dreadful existence Mr. Crocker leads--hardly an a.s.sociate in town, and no acquaintances for his daughter, and he's been painting ever since he was a boy. Oliver could not earn a penny at such work."

"Money is not everything, my dear, nor social recognition. There are many things I would value more."

"What are they?" She was facing him now, her brows knit, a marked antagonism in her voice.

"Good manners and good taste, Sallie, and kindly consideration for another's feelings," he answered. He spoke calmly and kindly, as was his custom. He had lived almost all his life with this high-strung Sallie Horn, whose eyes flashed now and then as they had done in the old days when he won her hand. He knew every side of her temperament.

"Good manners, and good taste"--he repeated, as if wis.h.i.+ng to emphasize his thoughts--"Oliver has all of these, and he has, besides, loyalty to his friends. He never speaks of Mr. Crocker but with affection, and I love to hear him. That man is an artist of great talent, and yet it seems to be the fas.h.i.+on in this town to ridicule him. If Ollie has any gifts which would fit him to be a painter, I should be delighted to see him a painter. It is a profession despised now, as are many others, but it is the profession of a gentleman, for all they say, and a n.o.ble one!" Then he stopped and said, thoughtfully, as if communing with himself--"I wish he could be a painter. Since Gilbert Stuart's time we have had so few men of whom we can boast. This country will one day be proud to honor her artists."

Mrs. Horn sank back in her chair. She felt the hopelessness of all further discussion with her husband. "He would not have talked this way ten years ago," she said to herself. "Everything has gone wrong since he left the law." But to her husband she said:

"You always measure everything by your hopes, Richard, and you never look at the practical side of anything. Ollie is old enough to begin to think how he will earn his bread. I see now how hopeless it is for us to try and make a lawyer of him--his heart is not in it. I have come little by little to the conclusion that what he wants most is hard work, and he wants it right away, just as soon as we can find something for him to do--something with his hands, if necessary, not something full of dreams and imaginings," and her voice rose in its earnestness.

"I am getting more and more anxious about him every day," she added, suddenly controlling herself, "and when you encourage him in foolish vagaries you only make it harder for me, dear," and her voice softened and broke with emotion.

"He ought to have gone into the laboratory, Sallie," Richard added quickly, in a reflective tone--laying his hand on her shoulder as he noticed the change of voice--"just as I wanted him to do when he left school. There is a future for scientific men in this country which you do not see--a future which few around me seem to see. Great changes are coming, not only in science, but in the arts and in all useful knowledge. If Ollie can add to the brilliancy of this future by becoming a brilliant painter, able to help educate those about him, there could be no higher calling for him. Three things are coming, my dear--perhaps four." The inventor had risen from his seat and stood beside her, his eyes turned away into the dark as if he were addressing some unseen person. "The superseding of steam, aerial locomotion, and the education of the common people, black and white. One other may come--the freeing of the slaves--but the others are sure. Science, not money, nor family traditions, nor questions of birth, will shape the destinies of the country. We may not live to see it, but Oliver will, and I want him to be where he can help on the movement. You were opposed to his becoming a scientist, and I feel a.s.sured made a mistake.

Don't stand in his way again, dear."

"Yes, Richard, I was opposed to it, because I did not want him to waste his time over all sorts of foolish experiments, which would certainly--" She did not finish the sentence. Her anxiety had not yet gone as far as that. With a quick gesture she rose from her chair and drawing her white gossamer shawl about her shoulders--left the room and walked out onto the front steps, followed by Richard.

If the inventor heard the thrust he did not reply. He would not argue with his wife over it, nor did it check the flow of his courtesy. She had never seen the value of what he was striving for, but she would in time he knew.

"Yes, I think it is cooler out here," was all he said, as he placed a cus.h.i.+on to soften her seat on the threshold. When he had arranged another pillow behind her back and hunted round the dark parlor for a stool for her feet, he found a chair for himself and sat down beside her. She thanked him, but her thoughts were evidently far away. She was weighing in her mind what must be her next move if Oliver persisted in this new departure. Richard broke the silence.

"I haven't told you of the good offer I've had for the farm, Sallie."

"No, but we're not going to sell it, of course." She was leaning back against the jamb of the door as she spoke, the shawl hanging loose, her delicate white hands in her lap. It was an idle answer to an idle question, for her mind was still with Oliver.

"Well, I hadn't thought of doing so until to-day," he answered, slowly, "but I had a notice from the bank that they must call in the mortgage, and so I thought I might as well sell the whole place, pay off the debt, and use the balance for--"

"Sell the farm, Richard?" It was her hand now that sought his, and with a firm grasp as if she would restrain him then and there in his purpose.

"Yes, I can get several thousand dollars over and above the mortgage, and I need the money, Sallie. It will only be a temporary matter--" and he smoothed her arm tenderly, speaking as a lover of long standing might do who is less absorbed with the caress than with the subject under discussion. "The motor will be ready in a few weeks--as soon as the new batteries are finished. Then, my dear, you won't have to curtail your expenses as you have done." His voice was full of hope now, a smile lighting his face as he thought of all the pleasure and comfort his success would bring her.

"But you said that same thing when you were working on the steam-valve, for which you put that very mortgage on the farm, and now that's all gone and--"

"The failure of the steam-valve, as I have always told you, was due to my own carelessness, Sallie. I should have patented it sooner. They are making enormous sums on it, I hear, and are using my cut-off, and I think dishonestly. But the motor has been protected at every new step that I have taken. My first patent of August 13, 1856, supersedes all others, and cannot be shaken. Now, my dear, don't worry about it--you have never known me to fail, and I won't now. Besides, you forget my successes, Sallie--the turbine water-wheel and the others. It will all come, right."

"It will never come right." She had risen from her seat, and was standing over, him, both hands on his shoulders, her eyes looking down into his, her voice trembling. "Oh, Richard, Richard! Give up this life of dreams you are living, and go back to your law-office. You always succeeded in the law. This new career of yours is ruining us. I can economize, dear, just as I have always done," she added, with another sudden change of tone, bending over him and slipping her hand caressingly into his. "I will do everything to help you. I did not mean to be cross a moment ago. I was worried about Oliver's talk. I have been silent so long--I must speak. Don't be angry, dear, but you must keep the farm. I will go myself and see about the mortgage at the bank--we cannot--we must not; go on this way--we will have nothing left."

He patted her arm again in his gentle way--not to calm her fears, he knew so well that she was wrong, but to quiet the nerves that he thought unstrung.

"But I need this extra money for some improvements which I--"

"Yes, I know you THINK so, but you don't, Richard, you don't? For Heaven's sake, throw the motor out into the street, and be done with it. It will ruin us all if things go on as they have done."

The inventor raised his eyes quickly. He had never seen her so disturbed in all their married life. She had never spoken in this way before.

"Don't excite yourself, Sallie," he said, gravely, and with a certain air of authority in his manner. "You'll bring on one of your headaches--it will all come right. Come, my dear, let us go into the house. People are pa.s.sing, and will wonder."

She followed him back into the drawing-room, his hand still held fast in hers.

"Promise me one thing," she said, stopping at the door and looking up into his eyes, "and I won't say another word. Please do nothing more about the farm unless you let me know. Let me think first how I can help. It will all come out right, as you say, but it will be because we will make it come right, dear." She drew his face down toward her with one hand and kissed him tenderly on his cheek. Then she bade him good-night and resumed her seat by the window, to watch for Oliver's return.

Try as she would, she could not banish her fears. The news of Richard's intention to pay off the loan by selling the farm had sent a shudder through her heart such as she had never before experienced, for that which she had dreaded had come to pa.s.s. Loyal as she had always been to her husband, and proud as she was of his genius and accomplishments, and sympathetic as they were in all else that their lives touched upon, her keen, penetrating mind had long since divined the princ.i.p.al fault that lay at the bottom of her husband's genius. She saw that the weak point in his make-up was not his inventive quality, but his inability to realize any practical results from his inventions when perfected.

She saw, too, with equal certainty how rapidly their already slender means were being daily depleted in costly experiments--many of which were abandoned as soon as tried, and she knew full well that the end was but a question of time. Even when he had abandoned the law, and had exchanged his office near the Court-house for his shop in the back yard, and had given his library to his young students, she had not despaired; she still had faith in his genius.

She had first become uneasy when the new steam cut-off had failed to reimburse him. When this catastrophe was followed by his losing every dollar of his interest in the improved cotton-gin, because of his generosity to a brother inventor, her uneasiness had become the keenest anxiety. And now here was this new motor, in which he seemed more absorbed than in any other of his inventions. This was to plunge them into still greater difficulties and jeopardize even the farm.

Richard had not been disturbed by it all. Serene and hopeful always, the money question had counted for nothing with him. His compensation lay in the fact that his theories had been proved true. More-over, there were, he knew, other inventions ahead, and more important discoveries to be made. If money were necessary, these new inventions would supply it. Such indifference to practical questions was an agony to one of her temperament, burdened as she was by the thought of their increasing daily expenses, the magnitude of which Richard never seemed to appreciate.

And yet until to-night, when Richard had made his announcement about the mortgage, she had made no protest, uttered no word of censure.

Neither had any jar or discord ever disturbed the sweet harmony of their home-life. And she had only behaved as any other wife in Kennedy Square would have done in like circ.u.mstances. Remonstrances against a husband's business methods were never made in the best families. In his own house Richard was master. So she had suffered on and held her peace, while Richard walked with his head in the clouds, unconscious of her doubts. The situation must now be met, and she determined to face it with all her might. "The farm shall not be sacrificed, if I can help it," she kept repeating to herself; "any economy is better than that disaster."

When at last the shock of the news of the threatened disaster had pa.s.sed, and she had regained her customary composure, she decided to act at once and at head-quarters, outside of Richard's help or knowledge. She would send for Colonel Clayton, one of the directors of the bank, in the morning, and see what could be done to postpone for a time the bank's action. This would give her time to think what next could best be done to save the property. This settled in her mind, she gave herself up to the more important and pressing need of the moment--the dissuading of Oliver from this new act of folly.

At the end of an hour she was still sitting by the drawing-room window, straining her eyes across the Square, noting every figure that pa.s.sed into the radiance of the moonlight, her mind becoming clearer as her indomitable will, which had never failed her in domestic crises, began to a.s.sert itself.

When her eye fell at last upon her son, he was walking with swinging gait up the long path across the Square, whistling as he came, his straw hat tilted on one side, his short coat flying free. He had taken Sue home, and the two had sat on her father's steps in the moonlight long after the other boys and girls had scattered to their homes. The Colonel had come in while they were talking, and had bade them good-night and gone up to bed.

Girl as she was, Sue already possessed that subtle power of unconscious coquetry which has distinguished all the other Sue Claytons of all the other Kennedy Squares the South over since the days of Pocahontas. She had kept Oliver's mind away from the subject that engrossed him, and on herself; and when, at last, standing between the big columns of the portico she had waved her hand, good-night, and had gained his promise to stop in the morning on his way to the office, for just another word, she felt sure that his every thought was of her. Then she had closed the big front door--she was the last person in the house awake--and tripped upstairs, not lighting her candle until she had peeped through her shutters, and had found him standing on the other side of the street looking toward the house. He made a handsome picture of a lover, as he stood in the moonlight, and Sue smiled complacently to herself at the delicate attention paid her, but Oliver's eyes, the scribe is ashamed to say, were not fixed on the particular pair of green blinds that concealed this adorable young lady, certainly not with any desire to break through their privacy. One of the unforgivable sins--nay, one of the impossible sins--about Kennedy Square would have been to have recognized a lady who looked, even during the daytime, out from a bedroom window: much less at night. That was why Sue did not open her blinds.

Nor, indeed, was Oliver occupied with the question of Sue's blinds at all. He had for the moment in fact completely forgotten the existence of his lady-love. He was, if the truth must be told, studying the wonderful effect of the white light of the moon flooding with its radiance the columns and roof of the Clayton house, the dark magnolias silhouetted against the flight of steps and the indigo-blue of the sky.

He had already formulated in his mind the palette with which he would paint it, and had decided that the magnolias were blue-black and not green, and the steps greenish-white. He had, furthermore, determined to make an outline of it in the daylight, and talk to Mr. Crocker about it. Sue's eyes, which but a moment before had so charmed him, no longer lingered in his memory--nor even in any one of the far corners of his head and heart. It was only when her light flashed up that he awoke to the realization of what he was doing, and even this breach of good manners was forgotten by him in his delight over the effect which the red glow of the candle gave to the whole composition.

With the picture clearly stamped upon his brain, he turned and stepped quickly across the Square, and in another moment he had thrown his mother a kiss through the window, and rus.h.i.+ng inside had caught her in his arms.