Conflict (Prouty)/Book 4/Chapter 4

by Olive Higgins Prouty

Chapter IV

I

One night Felix came home earlier than usual. Sheilah was in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal. She heard his key in the door, and a moment later, glancing into the dining-room, saw him sitting on the end of the couch, all crumpled up.

'Why, what is the matter, Felix?' she exclaimed, going up to him close.

'Send the children out.'

'Run out, children,' quickly Sheilah responded, and then, bending over Felix, 'What is it?'

Had he somehow at last discovered her love for Roger? But how? When? Perhaps——Oh, how unkind, how cruel of fate to have hurt him like this just when she was trying so hard to save him.

Then, 'I've lost my job,' he announced. 'They're cutting down help at the office. I'm through. I'm out.'

'Is that all!' Sheilah exclaimed, and she sat down on the end of the couch beside him and put her hand upon his knee. 'I was afraid——'

'What were you afraid?' Had she suspected what Mr. Fairchild now knew for a fact? He searched her eyes. 'What were you afraid?'

'Why, that something really dreadful had happened,' she laughed.

No, she didn't suspect yet. She couldn't and laugh.

'Losing your job isn't a crime, you know,' she went on lightly. 'We'll find another job somewhere. Perhaps we'll go to another city, to entirely new surroundings far away from here.'

'I'd like to go very far away from here,' said Felix. The farther away from his crime, the better.

'So would I,' she agreed instantly. The farther away from her temptation, the better. 'Why,' she went on, 'it may be the best thing that could have happened. Come, don't feel badly. Please.'

He didn't deserve such kindness. A man like him, who cheated—who stole.

'I'm sorry I've messed your life all up,' he murmured.

She patted his shoulder. 'You haven't! You haven't!' she denied.

She didn't deserve such devotion. A woman like her—unfaithful in everything but act.

They sat silently for a minute each with a buried secret.

'He must never know,' thought Sheilah.

'She must never know,' thought Felix.

II

It had been his chief thought ever since his connection with the missing bond had been discovered. Sheilah must never know.

'You won't tell my wife, will you?' he had begged, three days ago, when he had been summoned into Mr. Fairchild's private office. 'Do anything to me. I don't care. I don't count. But, oh, please don't let her know.'

Mr. Fairchild had gazed with sickening pity upon Felix. He hadn't even suspected him in connection with the missing bond until the afternoon before. He had known the bond was missing. He had known it for over a year. The lawyer who made out his tax-returns had informed him last January. Mr. Fairchild had told the lawyer it would probably turn up somewhere, in some corner in his desk, or at home in a forgotten drawer. The lawyer, however, reported the missing bond and one day, after long watching, from out of a cloudless sky, there appeared a homing coupon. Within a few days after its return the bond had been traced to the Jew who had sold Felix his Ford a year and a half ago.

Mr. Fairchild had looked very grave when he was told the facts, and as soon as he was alone, he had pressed a button and sent for Felix. There would be some explanation, surely. But Felix had simply bowed his head, and before Mr. Fairchild had finished his story had hastened to admit his guilt.

'Yes. I did it. I took it. But my wife doesn't know. Don't let her know.' He didn't even try to defend his act.

'But you can't possibly remain in my employ,' Mr. Fairchild had replied. 'You've ruined my confidence absolutely. There's no place for you here after this.'

'Of course. I'll go. Only Sheilah, my wife mustn't know why.'

'But you're guilty of acrime. Don't you know the punishment for an act like yours is imprisonment? Don't you know——' Mr. Fairchild did not spare Felix.

Felix sat cowed and silent under his merciless arraignment, not stirring a muscle, staring at the floor. Afterward, 'Yes, I know,' he said, 'but please don't tell my wife. It will be worse than prison for Sheilah if she finds out. You see she believes things like this are inherited, and we've got three children. Oh, Mr. Fairchild, have my children got to know too? Laetitia is away at a boarding-school now, making new friends, but if she knows what kind of a father she's got——And the boys—our two boys—all their lives they'll know what sort I was, and what they've got in their blood. I never took anything before. Why, if Sheilah knew that I——Oh, won't you please——' Suddenly he broke down, burying his face in his hands.

Mr. Fairchild got up and walked over to the window, and stood staring out a moment. He had a daughter at home and a boy, and a wife. 'Pull yourself together,' he said roughly to Felix, over his shoulder, and strode over toward the door. 'I'll be back in five or ten minutes. You stay here and get yourself into shape.'

When he returned his frown was deeper, his manner ever more stern and severe. He spoke with the irritability of a man acting against his better judgment.

'Can you pay this money back?' he demanded brusquely.

Felix shook his head, 'I don't know how. It's all gone but a little over fifty dollars.'

'Haven't you anything put away in the bank?'

'A little, but Sheilah is in charge of that. But,' timidly he suggested, 'I could give you my note, couldn't I?'

'And what as security?' Mr. Fairchild inquired scathingly—scathingly because there was a terrific combat taking place within him, between his determination to be just, and a desire to help a fellowcreature in distress.

'I don't know. I haven't any property of my own. Sheilah has always known so much more about money affairs. Once, though, I took out a life-insurance policy. A smooth-talking sort of fellow got me to do it. I never told Sheilah because I was afraid perhaps she'd think I'd been foolish. You see, I was already carrying one policy made out to her.'

'And what sort of a policy is this other?'

'I don't know exactly. But a thousand dollars is to be paid me when I'm a certain age, the man said. Do you think perhaps I could give you that as security?'

'Bring it in, and I'll see. But you can't get off scot-free, understand. A man can't commit an act like yours without paying for it. And it's my duty to see that you do it, one way or another,' he said sternly. 'I haven't decided yet what I shall do. I'll talk it over with the president of our company to-night, and see what his idea is, and let you know when I make up my mind. You'd better get back to your work now.'

There followed three torturing days for Felix. He tried to keep out of Sheilah's presence as much as possible, and Sheilah, absorbed with her own problems, did not observe him closely.

Mr. Fairchild summoned Felix into his office on the third afternoon. He told him curtly that he would accept the insurance policy as collateral on his note, and the sooner Felix terminated his services now, the better, he thought.

'You mean,' exclaimed Felix, 'you won't tell?'

'I suppose that's what I mean,' retorted Mr. Fairchild, in a tone of annoyance, as if the acknowledgment was extremely repugnant to him. 'I don't approve of it. It's against my principles.'

'And if Sheilah should come and want to know why I left——'

'We're cutting down help anyway, as it happens.'

'I don't know how to thank you, Mr. Fairchild.'

'I don't want your thanks,' snapped Mr. Fairchild.

III

But Sheilah didn't go to Mr. Fairchild to know why Felix left.

'You awake, Felix?' she called softly during the dark hours of an early dawn a few days later.

'Yes, I'm awake,' he replied from his bed a few feet away.

'How would you like to go upand help your father, now that you're looking for something new to do?'

'You mean for us to go up and live in Terry?'

'Yes, that's what I was thinking.'

'And for me to help father on the place? Father spends most of his time with his hens and in his garden now.'

'Well, there is a box-factory in Terry. You could probably get work there, and help your father on the place besides. And possibly,' she added, 'since your mother has had her stroke, she wouldn't mind a little help from me.'

'You mean for us to go and live with my folks?'

'Well, the house is plenty big enough.'

'You always said you wanted the children near the advantages of a city.'

'Laetitia and Roddie will be away at school. There will be only Phillip.'

'And you yourself have always wanted to be near a city.'

'Well, I want to get away from it, now. And you said you did, Felix.'

'Well, not so bad as all that! Oh, don't be afraid. Don't worry. Don't think you've got to go and live with my folks. I hope I won't bring you down to that! I haven't said anything about it because I wanted to be sure first, but I think we can go right on living here. Mr. Fairchild is being very kind to me, and he called me up when you were out last night, and told me about a job right here. I'm going to see the man to-morrow and talk things over with him.'

'And I'm going to Terry to see your mother and father to-morrow, and talk things over with them,' calmly Sheilah announced. 'I'm afraid you'll have to tell Mr. Fairchild you're not interested, Felix, because your wife has other plans.'