The Plum Tree Part 22

"Has Senator Goodrich seen Governor Burbank yet?" I asked De Milt in a casual tone, when he had told how he escaped un.o.bserved in Thwing's wake and delivered Burbank's message the next morning.

"I believe he's to see him by appointment to-morrow," replied De Milt.

So my suspicion was well-founded. Goodrich, informed of his brother-in-law's failure, was posting to make peace on whatever terms he could honeyfugle out of my conciliation-mad candidate.

A few minutes later I shut myself in with the long-distance telephone and roused Burbank from bed and from sleep. "I am coming by the first train to-morrow," I said. "I thought you'd be glad to know that I've made satisfactory arrangements in New York--unexpectedly satisfactory."

"That's good--excellent," came the reply. I noted an instant change of tone which told me that Burbank had got, by some underground route, news of my failure in New York and had been preparing to give Goodrich a cordial reception.

"If Goodrich comes, James," I went on, "don't see him till I've seen you."

A pause, then in a strained voice: "But I've given him an appointment at nine to-morrow."

"Put him off till noon. I'll be there at eleven. It's--imperative." That last word with an accent I did not like to use, but knew how to use--and when.

Another pause, then: "Very well, Harvey. But we must be careful about him. De Milt has told you how dangerous he is, hasn't he?"

"Yes--how dangerous he tried to be." I was about to add that Goodrich was a fool to permit any one to go to such a man as Scarborough with such a proposition; but I bethought me of Burbank's acute moral sensitiveness and how it would be rasped by the implication of his opponent's moral superiority. "We're past the last danger, James. That's all. Sleep sound. Good night."

"Good night, old man," was his reply in his pose's tone for affection.

But I could imagine him posing there in his night s.h.i.+rt, the anger against me snapping in his eyes.

On the train the next morning, De Milt, who had evidently been doing a little thinking, said, "I hope you won't let it out to Cousin James that I told you Goodrich was coming to see him."

"Certainly not," I replied, not losing the opportunity to win over to myself one so near to my political ward. "I'm deeply obliged to you for telling me." And presently I went on: "By the way, has anything been done for you for your brilliant work at Saint X?"

"Oh, that's all right," he said, "I guess Cousin James'll look after me--unless he forgets about it." "Cousin James" had always had the habit of taking favors for granted unless reward was pressed for; and since he had become a presidential candidate, he was inclining more than ever to look on a favor done him as a high privilege which was its own reward.

I made no immediate reply to De Milt; but just before we reached the capital, I gave him a cheque for five thousand dollars. "A little expression of grat.i.tude from the party," said I. "Your reward will come later." From that hour he was mine, for he knew now by personal experience that "the boys" were right in calling me appreciative.

It is better to ignore a debt than to pay with words.

XXIV

GRANBY INTRUDES AGAIN

Burbank had grown like a fungus in his own esteem.

The adulation of the free excursionists I had poured in upon him, the eulogies in the newspapers, the flatteries of those about him, eager to make themselves "solid" with the man who might soon have the shaking of the huge, richly laden presidential boughs of the plum tree--this combination of a.s.saults upon sanity was too strong for a man with such vanity as his, a traitor within. He had convinced his last prudent doubt that he was indeed a "child of destiny." He was resentful lest I might possibly think myself more important than he to the success of the campaign. And his resentment was deepened by the probably incessant reminders of his common sense that all this vast machine, public and secret, could have been set in motion just as effectively for any one of a score of "statesmen" conspicuous in the party.

I saw through his labored cordiality; and it depressed me again--started me down toward those depths of self-condemnation from which I had been held up for a few days by the excitement of the swiftly thronging events and by the necessity of putting my whole mind upon moves for my game.

"I am heartily glad you were successful," he began when we were alone.

"That takes a weight off my mind."

"You misunderstood me, I see," said I. "I haven't got anything from those people in New York as yet. But within a week they'll be begging me to take whatever I need. Thwing's report will put them in a panic."

His face fell. "Then I must be especially courteous to Goodrich," he said, after thinking intently. "Your hopes might be disappointed."

"Not the slightest danger," was my prompt a.s.surance. "And if you take my advice, you will ask Goodrich how his agent found Senator Scarborough's health, and then order him out of this house. Why harbor a deadly snake that can be of no use to you?"

"But you seem to forget, Harvey, that he is the master of at least the eastern wing of the party. And you must now see that he will stop at nothing, unless he is pacified."

"He is the fetch-and-carry of an impudent and cowardly crowd in Wall Street," I retorted, "that is all. When they find he can no longer do their errands, they'll throw him over and come to us. And we can have them on our own terms."

We argued, with growing irritation on both sides, and after an hour or so, I saw that he was hopelessly under the spell of his pettiness and his moral cowardice. He had convinced himself that I was jealous of Goodrich and would sacrifice anything to gratify my hate. And Goodrich's sending an agent to Scarborough had only made him the more formidable in Burbank's eyes. As I looked in upon his mind and watched its weak, foolish little workings, my irritation subsided. "Do as you think best,"

said I wearily. "But when he presents the mortgage you are going to give him on your presidency, remember my warning."

He laughed this off, feeling my point only in his vanity, not at all in his judgment. "And how will _you_ receive him, Harvey? He will be sure to come to you next--must, as you are in charge of my campaign."

"I'll tell him straight out that I'll have nothing to do with him," said I blandly. "The Wall Street submission to the party must be brought to me by some other amba.s.sador. I'll not help him to fool his masters and to hide it from them that he has lost control."

I could have insisted, could have destroyed Goodrich--for Burbank would not have dared disobey me. But the campaign, politics in general, life itself, filled me with disgust, a paralyzing disgust that made me almost lose confidence in my theory of practical life.

"What's the use?" I said to myself. "Let Burbank keep his adder. Let it sting him. If it so much as shoots a fang at me, I can crush it."

And so, Burbank lifted up Goodrich and gave hostages to him; and Goodrich, warned that I would not deal with him, made some excuse or other to his masters for sending Senator Revell to me. "See Woodruff,"

said I to Revell, for I was in no mood for such business. "He knows best what we need."

"They give up too d.a.m.n cheerfully," Woodruff said to me, when I saw him a week or ten days later, and he gave me an account of the negotiations.

"I suspect they've paid more before."

"They have," said I. "In two campaigns where they had to elect against hard times."

"But I've a notion," he warned me, "that our candidate has promised them something privately."

"No doubt," I replied, as indifferently as I felt.

I had intended to make some speeches--I had always kept the public side of my career in the foreground, and in this campaign my enforced prominence as director of the machine was causing the public to dwell too much on the real nature of my political activity. But I could not bring myself to it. Instead, I set out for home to spend the time with my children and to do by telephone, as I easily could, such directing of Woodruff as might be necessary.

My daughter Frances was driving me from the Fredonia station. A man darted in front of the horses, flung up his arms and began to shriek curses at me. If she had not been a skilful driver, we should both have been thrown from the cart. As it was, the horses ran several miles before she got them under control, I sitting inactive, because I knew how it would hurt her pride if I should interfere.

When the horses were quiet, she gave me an impetuous kiss that more than repaid me for the strain on my nerves. "You are the dearest papa that ever was!" she said. Then--"Who was he? He looked like a crazy man!"

"No doubt he is," was my reply. And I began complimenting her on her skill with horses, chiefly to prevent her pressing me about the man. I had heard, and had done, so much lying that I had a horror of it, and tried to make my children absolutely truthful--my boy Ed used to think up and do mischief just for the pleasure of pleasing me by confessing.

To make my example effective, I was always strictly truthful with them.

I did not wish to tell her who the man was; but I instantly recognized, through the drunken dishevelment, my mutineer, Granby--less than a year before one of the magnates of the state. My orders about him had been swiftly and literally obeyed. Deserted by his a.s.sociates, blacklisted at the banks, beset by his creditors, hara.s.sed by the attorney general, his a.s.sets chained with injunctions, his liabilities given triple fangs, he went bankrupt, took to drink, became a sot and a barroom lounger. His dominant pa.s.sion was hatred of me; he discharged the rambling and frantic story of his wrongs upon whoever would listen. And here he was in Fredonia!

I had one of my secretaries telephone the police to look after him; they reported that he had disappeared.

The next morning but one, my daughter and I went for an early walk. At the turn of the main drive just beyond view from the lodge, she exclaimed, "Oh, father, _oh_!" and clung to me. Something--like a scarecrow, but not a scarecrow--swung from a limb overhanging the drive.

The face was distorted and swollen; the arms and legs were drawn up in sickening crookedness. Before I saw, I knew it was Granby.

I took Frances home, then returned, pa.s.sing the swaying horror far on the other side of the road. I got the lodge-keeper, and he and I went back together. I had them telephone from the lodge for the coroner and personally saw to it that the corpse should be reported as found in the open woods a long distance from my place. But Granby had left a message "to the public" in his room at the hotel: "Senator Sayler ruined me and drove me to death. I have gone to hang myself in his park. Down with monopoly!" In spite of my efforts, this was published throughout the country--though not in Fredonia. Such of the big opposition papers as were not under our control sent reporters and raked out the whole story; and it was blown up hugely and told everywhere. Our organs retold it, giving the true color and perspective; but my blundering attempt to avoid publicity had put me in too bad a light.