The Unhallowed Harvest/Chapter 13
On the morning following Mrs. Bradley's visit to Ruth Tracy there was unusual activity at the Chichester home. It was confined wholly to Miss Chichester. She was in a high state of excitement and anticipation. She ordered her car early from the garage and started down-town. She stopped at a large department store and called up Barry Malleson's office by telephone. But Barry was not yet down. She wandered aimlessly about the store for fifteen minutes, and then tried again to speak to Barry. Still he had not reached the mills. Then she reëntered her car and was taken to a big office building a few blocks away. She left the elevator at the sixth floor and entered the anteroom of the law-offices of Tracy, Black and Westgate. Mr. Westgate was in, but he was busy. Would she wait, or would she see Mr. Tracy who was just at present disengaged? She did not care to see Mr. Tracy; her errand was particularly with Mr. Westgate, and she would wait. She decided to try again to reach Barry. This time she was successful. The office telephone girl announced that he was there. So Miss Chichester sat at a table with a desk 'phone in her hands and entered into conversation with Barry.
"I am here," she said, "at Phil's office, and I want you to come up here. It's very important."
It was apparent that Barry both demurred and failed to understand, for Miss Chichester added after a moment:
"At Phil Westgate's office. You must come up, Barry. It won't take ten minutes, and I'm sure you can spare me that much time. Besides, it's a matter of very serious importance to you. Please come right away."
Evidently Barry yielded, for she said, after a brief interval of silence:
"Thank you so much! I'll wait right here."
She hung up the receiver, and went and sat on the window ledge and looked down into the street. She saw Barry as he turned the corner and crossed over toward the office building. When he entered the room a moment later she drew him mysteriously to a bench in a corner.
"No," she said, in reply to Barry's question, "I can't tell you what it is; not until we see Phil. I know you'll be surprised, and maybe you'll be shocked, and I want you to have the benefit of Phil's judgment on it at once."
But Phil was still engaged. Other clients had come, in the meantime, to see him, and were sitting about the anteroom waiting. Barry tapped the floor with the toe of his shoe impatiently.
"I can't sit around here all the morning," he said. "I've got work to do down at the office; important work. You must realize, Jane, that I'm vice-president of the company and that all matters of magnitude pass through my hands."
"I'm sure it can't be much longer, Barry. Those people have been in there now, to my certain knowledge, at least half an hour."
But he was still ill at ease, and finally he went over to the telephone girl, and asked her to call in to Westgate that Mr. Barry Malleson and Miss Chichester were waiting to see him, and that Mr. Malleson was in great haste. Word came back immediately that Westgate would see them in a moment. And it was really less than five minutes when his door opened and Judge Bosworth came out followed by Colonel Boston, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Cochrane and Mr. Rapalje.
Miss Chichester's curiosity was so greatly aroused as to the meaning of this meeting of vestrymen that she came near losing sight, for the moment, of the purpose of her own errand. But when she was once in Westgate's room with Barry, there was no delay in making the object of her visit known.
"I've brought Barry with me," she said, "because I want him to hear the disclosures I am about to make—they so deeply concern him—and because he will need good, sound advice the moment he hears them."
For the first time Barry looked worried.
"I don't know what she's got up her sleeve, Phil; honest I don't. I haven't said a word to her that she could construe as a promise of any kind."
There was a twinkle in Westgate's eye.
"I'm afraid you're in bad, Barry," he said. "Jane has a mighty determined look on her face this morning."
"But, Phil, old man, you know very well that I wouldn't for the world deceive any woman; and what's more Jane has never"
But at that point Jane herself interrupted him.
"Oh, Barry, you silly fellow! It's a warning I want to give you, not an ultimatum. And Phil's a lawyer and he can tell you what to do. I always knew it, but I had no proof. Now I have the evidence. I saw it with my own eyes."
"Saw what?" asked Westgate.
"Saw him hug and kiss her."
Barry started from his chair.
"I never did!" he exclaimed. "I never even tried to. Jane, you've made a terrible mistake!"
"Now, Barry," said Westgate, "just restrain yourself for a few minutes and we'll ask Miss Chichester to explain. Jane, will you please begin at the beginning and tell us the entire story?"
"Certainly! You know I went yesterday afternoon to call on Ruth Tracy, and while I was there this person came in."
"What person? Who?" asked Westgate.
"Why, that socialist widow."
"Mrs. Bradley?"
"Yes; and she said some impertinent things and I got up and left."
"And what happened then?" asked Westgate, tipping back in his office chair, putting his thumbs into the armholes of his vest, and trying hard to look serious.
"Well, it wasn't twenty minutes later that I was going up-town, and just as my car turned into Grove Street I saw this person, not three feet away from me, walking in a most clinging and confidential way with Stephen Lamar, the socialist and anarchist and atheist."
"But," inquired Westgate, "where does Barry get into the plot?"
"He doesn't get into it directly," replied Miss Chichester; "but it concerns him seriously. I want him to know what kind of a person this is he's been running after."
Then Barry spoke up.
"Mrs. Bradley isn't engaged to marry me," he said. "I don't know why she hasn't got a right to walk on the street with Stephen Lamar or any one else if she wants to."
"That isn't the point, Barry," protested Miss Chichester. "The point is that you haven't got a right to walk on the street with her, or haunt her office, or commend her beauty, after you know what she's done."
"Why," said Barry, "I don't think it's so very bad for her to be seen on the street with this man. Maybe it wasn't her fault that he was with her. I don't think I would deprive her of my friendship on that account, Jane."
"Oh, but wait! You haven't heard it all yet," exclaimed Miss Chichester. "Wait till I tell you the rest, and then let me hear you dare to defend her, Barry Malleson."
"Proceed," said Westgate soberly.
"Well, I made up my mind that things weren't right, and that I'd see it out. So I had Albert drive downtown again. I knew that those Factory Hill people usually cross the foot-bridge instead of going around, so I gave them time to get there, and then we drove up Brook Street, past the entrance to the foot-bridge. Sure enough they were just going across. I had Albert stop the car so I could get a good square look at them. They were so interested in each other that they didn't see or hear us. And now what do you think?"
She turned first to Westgate and then to Barry to prepare them for the awful disclosure she was about to make. Her question was in the nature of a shock-absorber.
"This is getting serious," said Westgate, straightening up. "Are you sure it was Mrs. Bradley?"
"Positively certain!"
"And Stephen Lamar?"
"I couldn't be mistaken."
"Barry, have you any questions you desire to ask in order to test the witness's knowledge before she makes the final disclosure?"
"I don't see that what she's saying concerns me particularly," replied Barry. "I don't object to Mrs. Bradley having company home. It's rather a lonesome route across the bridge and up the hill. She ought to have somebody with her, going that way after dark."
"But," protested Jane, "think whom she chose to go with her. A man who isn't a fit companion for men, let alone for women."
"I don't think much of his theories," replied Barry, "but I never heard that he was positively bad."
"Barry Malleson! What do you call a bad man, I'd like to know? Why, this man flouts religion, and denounces the Church, and preys on society, and"
"Well, Jane," interrupted Westgate, "suppose we put all that aside for the moment, and you go on and tell us what you saw at the bridge."
"Yes. Well, I saw them start across the bridge together, and before they got half-way over they stopped and—really, this isn't very nice to tell."
"Probably not," said Westgate, "but we can't tell whether or not it was very nice to do until we hear what it was they did."
"Well, if you force me to tell it, why, I saw him put his arm around her waist, and pull her close up to him and—and kiss her."
"You astonish me!" exclaimed Westgate. "This thing was done in the early evening, under the glare of the electric lamp, in full view of any person who might be passing?"
"Exactly! It was scandalous, Phil. And they weren't satisfied with doing it once; they repeated it, and then she actually walked the rest of the way across the bridge with his arm around her waist. Barry Malleson, what do you think of that?"
"I don't know," replied Barry, uncertainly, "that it has anything to do with me."
It was apparent, nevertheless, that the news had impressed him profoundly. And to that extent at least Miss Chichester had made her point.
"But you do know," she persisted, "that a woman who conducts herself so scandalously is not a proper person for you to associate with. Phil will tell you so, won't you, Phil? He'll tell you that it's dangerous. That you're likely to get caught in the trap of an adventuress."
Westgate turned soberly to Barry.
"If what Jane tells us is true," he said, "and I have no particular reason to doubt her word, you've been skating on very thin ice, young man, very thin ice."
"Thank you, Phil!" exclaimed Miss Chichester. "But you must do more than warn him; you must stop him. You're a lawyer. You can get out an injunction, or a writ of habeas corpus or something, and compel her to keep away from him."
"Why," responded Westgate, "I think it's a question of his keeping away from her. And Barry's own good sense, and sober judgment, and quick wit, will control him to that extent at least. Won't it, Barry?"
But Barry was still reluctant to renounce the charming widow offhand at the behest of her rival, or at the suggestion of the gentleman learned in the law.
"I won't jump before I'm ready," replied Barry. "I'll find out more about this thing first. I'll ask Mrs. Bradley about it."
"Barry! Can't you believe what I tell you? When I saw it with my own eyes?"
Miss Chichester was growing more appealingly impatient. But Barry still shook his head incredulously.
"I'll believe it when she tells me it's so," he replied. "You might have been deceived in some way. And maybe if it is so it wasn't her fault. I'll ask her."
Then Westgate again intervened.
"If you take my advice," he said, "you'll do nothing of the kind. If she can't make up a plausible excuse, she's not the woman I take her to be. Now, my suggestion would be Have you told anybody else about this, Jane?"
"Not a soul," replied Miss Chichester, promptly.
"Then don't. Don't say a word. Keep the whole thing under cover. Don't either of you mention it to any one, least of all to Mrs. Bradley. I'll put a detective on the case. If we find out that Lamar is actually making love to the widow, with her permission, we'll put the facts before Barry in such a convincing way that he'll have to accept them, and wind up his romance."
Westgate brought his fist down on the table with such positive and conclusive effect that there appeared to be no more to say; and his callers, feeling that the interview was at an end, rose to their feet.
"I'll take your advice," said Miss Chichester, "but I'm sure you'll find out that I was right."
Barry did not dissent from Westgate's plan. His mind was, by this time, in such a whirl that he had not the ability to dissent from anything. He went out into the street, and started back toward the mill. Miss Chichester offered to take him in her car. She pleaded with him to go with her. But for once he was resolute. He would walk. When he reached the narrow street that led to the mill, he did not turn in there. He kept on down Main Street till he reached the Potter Building. Again he ignored the elevator and mounted the stairs. He had not promised to take Westgate's advice, and refrain from interviewing Mrs. Bradley. Every succeeding step that he had taken in his journey from the lawyer's office had but added to his determination to find out for himself, from original sources, how much if any of Jane Chichester's remarkable story was true.
Mrs. Bradley was in, and she was alone. Her greeting was more cordial, her smile more alluring, her eyes more fascinating as she turned them on her visitor, than they had ever been before. Barry did not beat about the bush. It was not his way. He went straight to the heart of his errand.
"I've heard something this morning," he said, "and I want to know if it's a fact."
"Am I in a position," she inquired, "to tell you whether or not it is a fact?"
"If you're not," he replied, "I don't know who is."
She smiled again, showing her perfect teeth.
"Very well," she said. "Go on. If it's not one of the secrets of the League, I may be able to tell you."
"It has nothing to do with the League, Mrs. Bradley. It concerns you personally—and me."
"Has some one been forecasting your deplorable future?"
"That's exactly it."
"Well, what did you hear? Let's know the worst."
"I heard that last night, on the Malleson foot-bridge, you permitted Stephen Lamar to walk across the bridge with his arm around your waist, and to kiss you twice. Is that so?"
She did not answer him. Her face grew scarlet, and then pale. Her effort to breathe was as labored as it had been on the bridge the night before. But her eyes looked him through and through. He weakened and winced and cowered under them. He began to frame apologies.
"I guess, maybe," he stammered, "that I had no right to—to ask"
"You had a perfect right," she interrupted him. "You have made love to me honorably. If another man makes love to me with my permission, you have a right to know it."
Barry began to breathe more freely.
"I—I thought you'd look at it that way," he said.
"Yes, that's the right way. Now let us see. You've been told that I crossed the foot-bridge last evening with Stephen Lamar, and that he had his arm around me, and kissed me?"
"Yes, that's the story; but I didn't"
"Never mind that; let me tell you. Stephen Lamar did not cross the foot-bridge with me last evening. He has never crossed the foot-bridge with me. He did not have his arm around my waist. He has never had his arm around my waist. He did not kiss me. He has never kissed me. Is that sufficient?"
"That's more than sufficient," replied Barry, his face aglow with satisfaction. "I knew it was a mistake. I'll tell"
"No!" The word came from her lips with sharp vehemence. "You'll tell nobody, on pain of forfeiting my friendship. Let them think it. Let them say it."
"But," protested Barry, weakly, "it ought to be denied."
"What does it matter?" she replied. "You know it's a lie, because I've told you so. What difference does it make who else believes it or disbelieves it? I'm beholden to no one for my character or conduct. You must not deny the story. I beg you not to deny the story."
She reached her hand across the table and laid it caressingly on his. She turned her luminous eyes on him, eloquent with voiceless pleading. What could he do but promise to keep silent? By the same token he would as readily have promised her to wear a wooden gag in his mouth all the days of his life. There were few things which in that moment he would not have promised her at her request. He went out from her presence, as he had gone out on the occasion of his last preceding visit at her office, treading on air. In the distance, as he walked up the street, he caught a glimpse of Miss Chichester speeding onward in her car. He lifted the tips of his gloved fingers to his lips, and blew a kiss in her direction.
"What's the meaning of this unusual gallantry?" asked an acquaintance who was passing.
"It means," replied Barry, "that it's better to kiss some women at a distance of two blocks than at a distance of two inches."
But another man who saw Barry's salute said to himself: "Malleson's fool is going daft for sure."