Man's Country/Chapter 13
GEORGE thought it was an early wedding which Fay and her mother had agreed upon; but his notion of an early wedding was, say, about a week from next Friday, so they could make a week-end honeymoon of it at Niagara Falls. To his complete astonishment, consultation revealed that the two ladies considered next June as an early wedding.
Next June? Nine months away! Utterly impossible. Why, a whole new season's business would have been created and most of it pushed over the hill by that time; and it was a season's business that would require President Judson's undivided, undistracted mind. George had no more intention of conceding a nine months' engagement than he had of surrendering to any one of the big business obstacles which his bustling young career had already encountered. Indeed, such a prolongation of his unmarried state resolved itself into just that—a business obstacle.
"You see, Fay, that's a big job of mine out there at the works and it's my job alone because I made its difficulties myself," he began to reason in self-assured tones. "Judson-Morris is a going concern—but it's only that. It's like a top that holds its balance as long as you keep it spinning. And that isn't all. The Judson-Morris Motor Company has to keep going in a bigger and bigger way each year. I've got to keep pushing it—keep pouring myself into it more and more—or it will collapse on me, and instead of being a great success I shall be an enormous fizzle."
Fay's doting, amused eyes looked total incredulity, plus reproach that her lover should so malign himself.
"George! As if you could ever be a fizzle!"
But George was perfectly serious. "That's just what I could be," he assured her. "And so, Fay," he concluded, putting his will into plain, blunt words, "I want to get married just as soon as possible. It's necessary, in fact."
"You old dear!" Fay beamed, seizing his coat lapels and pretending playfully to shake him by them. "I know what you mean and you're just as complimentary as you can be to put it that way, but—you're only seeing the man's side of it. See my side for a minute. Getting married is the social climax of a girl's life. It is her great moment. Being engaged—with a splendid ceremony to look forward to—the selecting of bridesmaids and their presents and the wedding colors, the gathering and the making of the trousseau—the dreaming of the golden dreams—why that's the most exalted time in a girl's life. I'm not going to give it up, George; not one second of it."
Her eyes had half-closed as in some blissful ecstasy of contemplation out of which she roused to fling arms upon his shoulders with admiring raptures in her glance.
George Judson gasped dumbly in an atmosphere too rare for him to breathe.
"All right," he said, "oh, all right," and threw up his hands in token of surrender.
"You dear! Oh, you dear!" she exclaimed, and soft arms drew him down to her and soft lips touched him with a warm, electric thrill that was melting in its effect. "You are the most reasonable human being in all the world," she purred vivaciously, immensely pleased with him and with herself.
And George was pleased, too. At first he counted that quick capitulation of his a victory over himself; but away from her radiance, back once more in the cold world of business endeavor, and totalling up results, he felt somehow defeated. He saw that practically what had happened was a clash of wills, and it was his will that had been broken. He was gallant enough, however, to tell himself that he was glad that it was so; and wholeheartedly he threw himself into his work at the factory.
Never before had his mind been so keen, his decisions so quick and sure, his mastery of business detail so complete. The steady forward march of Judson-Morris showed it. Money, money, money! flowed from his touch—for himself and for all allied with him. Such absorption in such productive labor helped the days to pass. Fay's personality, too, was so infinitely rich and varied and delightful, that it spread a spell over the whole nine months of the engagement.
True, with all this prolonged intimacy of association with Fay Gilman before marriage, with its constant revelation of new and charming witcheries, came the discovery that sometimes they had misunderstood each other completely—that words did not mean the same to her that they meant to him because of the different back-groundings of their lives—but his magnificent self-assurance kept him going with never a doubt that the most fundamental difference in character and aim would prove easily soluble in the tropic sea of matrimony.
But Fay Gilman was also becoming aware of differences, though her attitude toward them was equally superior and self-assuring. That was why she planned a long honeymoon, entirely by themselves, away from everybody they had known, and especially away from the works—a nice, blissful six months in Europe, where one by one those vague but profound differences of which she was conscious, might come to the surface and be worked out.
But upon this rock of a half-year's honeymoon the frail, yet heavily-freighted, bark of love threatened to capsize.
"Six months in Europe?" George's voice sank to a hoarse whisper. "Why, Fay, dear, I couldn't do it! I couldn't leave the business. I couldn't." His tone—his look of almost fright made it clear to the girl that what she had so fondly planned was indeed impossible.
He saw her disappointment, followed by an expression that was like despair. "Why, how—how then are we ever going to get on? To get things—things settled between us? Compose our differences, I mean."
"It would be better, wouldn't it?" he conceded quickly, "besides being so wonderful—just like six months of heaven. But . . . Fay, darling! It simply isn't possible. I cannot get farther away from the factory than the end of a telephone wire," and his face assumed that expression of fright again and his tone was graveyard hollow. "Nor that for longer than a week or so—three weeks at the most."
Fay's logic—even her wilfulness—was turned aside by such candor and sincerity. George had conceded her point, yet confessed that the long honeymoon was impossible to him. There was nothing therefore for her to do but yield. She did so, but all at once felt herself chilled by a shadow falling into the brightness of her bridal day. It was the shadow of the business!
He felt that he knew this time that all his intuitions had been right: their differences were none of them vital. Dealt with in sweet and patient reasonableness they could all be settled in compromise—as this one had been.
But the compromise this time had been a triumph for him. It served to reassure a nature that needed small reassurance. It was a victory to a man growing now accustomed to victory. Heady with the wine of it, he went next morning bustling to his work at the factory. After a glance at his desk, he went on his usual morning tour of inspection—a swift, hurried walk through the plant.
As he came back into his office he slanted an eye expectantly through the glass frame to where he usually found Milton Morris sitting at this hour. The chair was empty. But even while he was gazing and noting this with inquiring eye, he saw Stella, Mr. Morris's little secretary, come in quickly, stare round her in a startled way as if to make sure of something, and then walk straight through the door into his own office without stopping to knock. She had a tiny white ball of a handkerchief pressed nervously against her lips.
"Mr. Judson!" she stammered excitedly: "Mr. Morris has—has had a stroke or something. The housekeeper 'phoned."
"Mr. Morris! A stroke?"
"The housekeeper wants you to go right out there, please."
George Judson leaped to his feet and went rushing out of the office and three steps at a time downward to his car. As he went there came over him with a rush a sense of all that he owed to this man.
"Quick! to Mr. Morris's!" he called to his chauffeur; and in an incredibly short time, as if he had plunged in a straight arrow flight, was being admitted by the housekeeper—for Milton Morris would never come to butlers. She was a tall, angular Scandinavian type, with the natural gloom upon her countenance considerably heightened.
"He is upstairs in his room, sir—you know where," said the woman solemnly, waving George on before her and following laggingly.
He bounded up the steps, but on the floor above halted, breathless. No servants were in sight. The bedchamber of Milton Morris stood at the far end in the corner over-looking Fort Street from a broad expanse of window. This door was ajar and George approached with trepidation and entered noiselessly, expecting to find a roomful of doctors and nurses.
Instead the chamber was empty save for Milton Morris. He lay upon the bed in which he had slept, a little on one side, his cheek denting the pillow, his finely etched features in repose, his iron-gray hair but slightly rumpled.
"Mr. Morris!" George called in a tone that trembled despite the manly quality of its appeal. "Mr. Morris!" Humbly this second time, he pleaded to be heard, and there was in his voice something of that gratitude he owed and always had been ready to acknowledge.
But there was no answer to the call; no response to the plea in it.
Stilled and awed by the silence, George touched the strong hand of Morris as it lay upon his breast. The cold of it chilled and startled him afresh; but he braced himself and still held it—tenderly, while the realization sank into his mind of what this was before him. It was Death!
Milton Morris was dead! At fifty-six he had quietly lain down to a night of rest under a burden of weariness so great that it took the sleep of death to provide repose. Such men, in modern industry, wear themselves out so soon.
Inarticulate and broken by so sudden a blow, George dropped upon his knees, his face buried in the bedclothes that formed the shroud, his body shaken by sobs.
George passed a reverent hand over the icy brow and smoothed back the locks of iron gray hair from it—a finely moulded forehead that, which had housed a finely organized brain. But as the young man gazed, a flood of recollections swept over him, and with it a welling up of that deep affection which he felt for this kindly, able man who had been to him half father, half elder-brother, loyal, unassuming friend, partner and fellow-creator of a great enterprise.
Dead! Milton Morris dead! His friend and associate! George Judson was appalled and staggered. Despite his vibrant young strength he felt himself suddenly bereft of all, even of his audacity.
"God! What'll I do without him?" he cried humbly. "What'll I do without him?"