CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
In the transaction with Mellin, there was one thing that cut Elijah more deeply than all others. Mellin had insisted that the mortgage be registered. He was too shrewd to let this pass by. He had a hold upon Elijah and he had no intention of loosening it without a consideration. The registration was a public recognition of the fact that Elijah had dealings with Mellin and on a large scale. There was no use in requesting that the transaction be kept in obscurity. The object of registration was publicity, and publicity was not confined to those concerned in knowing; the books were open to inspection by the busiest gossip as well as by the most earnest business man.
For the first time in his life, Elijah was learning the bitter lesson, that even divine guidance does not release the guided from responsibility for his actions. There was bitterness in his heart, the feeling that he had been betrayed.
Ysleta lived on sensations, and it was a dainty morsel, when the news of Elijah's connection with Mellin became known. Yet it had no malice toward Elijah, it simply welcomed him as one of themselves and this was what cut. He could no longer conceal from himself that he had fallen.
The news of course reached Uncle Sid and Winston. Winston was shocked, yet after the first effects had passed away, he recognized the fact, that after all, he was not surprised. Absorbed in his field duties, he had put from him for the time his feeling that Elijah was not wholly to be trusted, that for all his vaunted beliefs, he yet lacked the subtle sense of honor that would keep him true to himself and to his fellows. Winston did not know, nor did Uncle Sid, of the darker stain that was on Elijah's soul.
"Perhaps it ain't as bad as it looks," the old seaman remarked when he had broken the news to Winston.
"Perhaps not," Winston replied, "but I have been in pretty close touch with Elijah since he has been in California, and I know he's sailed close to the wind, mighty close," he added decisively.
Uncle Sid looked thoughtful.
"Where'd he get money to start with?"
Winston waited a long time before replying. He was turning over in his mind the best thing to be done. He felt that he could trust the old man.
"You remember the Pacific failure?"
"I reckon I do, young man. I have cause to. I lost fifteen dollars and sixty-five cents in that failure."
Winston smiled at Uncle Sid's earnestness.
"The Las Cruces lost more than that. An even fifty thousand. At least our books show that."
Uncle Sid started. He looked at Winston with wide-open eyes, every line of his wrinkled face drawn tense.
"I declare, Ralph, if I ever thought the Lord would lead 'Lige quite so far as that!"
"I guess, Uncle Sid, that you and I think alike about the Almighty's share in this transaction. If this isn't the devil's work, I don't know the gentleman."
Uncle Sid made no immediate reply. A little later they entered the Las Cruces office. Helen looked up as the door opened. A frank cordial smile illumined her face as she recognized her callers.
"Hello, Ralph! It's about time you came in. If you'd waited much longer, I'd have asked for a letter of introduction." She turned to Uncle Sid with the same cordial smile. "Well Captain, I see you aren't dry-docked yet."
"No. My seams ain't started yet. What water there is in these parts is just as wet as any."
"Oh we've got plenty of water here and we're going to have more."
"Yes, I guess you have, such as 'tis. Good enough for old-fashioned sailin' craft. But when folks ain't satisfied with goin' as fast as God's wind blows 'em, an' they put in engines an' boilers, the dum water's liable to eat holes in their boilers an' blow 'em up." He looked around the room curiously. "There's a power o' steam escapin' around here. Where's 'Lige? Look's as if 'Lige had got a hole eat in his boilers, an' me an' Ralph's come in to see if we can help patch 'em up."
Helen noted the keen, old eyes and the humorous wrinkles that for all their humor were yet hard.
"He hasn't been in this morning; I expect him every moment."
Uncle Sid turned to Winston.
"It's your watch, Ralph. You take the wheel."
Winston felt reassured to a certain extent, by Helen's perfectly natural manner. There were the same frank eyes, the same friendly smile that he knew so well. Did she know all that they wished to know or was she as ignorant as they of all but public gossip? He was going to find out.
"I suppose you know, Helen," he began soberly, "that there are some pretty ugly rumors about Elijah flying around Ysleta?"
"Yes, I do know." Helen's face grew hard.
"How much truth is there in them?"
Helen met Winston's piercing look squarely.
"I don't know any more than you know." There was no apparent hesitation in her manner, but her thoughts were busy anticipating what was to come.
Ralph made an impatient gesture.
"We can talk till doomsday, Helen, and you can answer and tell us nothing, if you choose. You know we are not gossips, and you know that we are Elijah's friends."
"Why didn't you say that to start with?" Helen flashed back. "You began asking me questions and I answered your questions truthfully."
Uncle Sid noted the strained situation.
"She's laid you broadside on there, Ralph; that gun is out o' action. You'll have to limber up another battery."
Winston and Helen both turned to Uncle Sid; then, smiling, their eyes met and the threatened storm passed by.
"Just what is it, Ralph?"
"We want to know the whole business, Helen, so far as you know."
Uncle Sid again broke in.
"When a bell rattles, we want to know whether its cracked, or whether there's just something on it that can be got off."
"I don't think Elijah's cracked, Uncle Sid." She grew very sober as she turned once more to Winston.
"The rumor that Mellin holds Elijah's note for one hundred thousand dollars, that the note is secured by a mortgage on the Palm Wells tract, is true. These facts are recorded. I have seen the records. Further than that, I know nothing."
"Ur-r-rh!" grunted Uncle Sid, whose thoughts suddenly reverted to Eunice MacGregor. "I guess I know the tree to smoke that coon out of."
Helen shot an intelligent glance at Uncle Sid, her lips parted, then she thought better of her impulse and remained silent.
Winston again turned to Helen.
"I shall have to ask you another direct question, Helen. Did the company get their deposit from the Pacific?"
Helen looked squarely at Winston.
"I don't know."
"Perhaps you don't know, Helen, but you are in a better position to guess than we are. There's no use playing with words. That Palm Wells business called for ready money. I know as well as you do that Elijah had no such amount. The question is, where did he get it?"
"If I knew absolutely, I would tell you. I will tell you what I do know, but I shall have to ask you to keep it to yourselves for a little." Then she told of Elijah's discovery of the frostless belt; how, half in jest, half in earnest, she had told him that she might avail herself of her knowledge; of Elijah's alarm; of their agreement to acquire the tract together.
"We have," she concluded, "got the Pico ranch in our hands. My five thousand is in it. There was fifty-five thousand paid down. Elijah did not tell me where he got the money, but I supposed at the time that he had pledged a part of his holdings in the Las Cruces to raise it."
Uncle Sid looked up. There was sternness but yet kindness in the keen eyes that held Helen's.
"Don't you think you ought to know, Helen?"
Helen's face grew suddenly drawn and white.
"I have told you all that I ought to tell you, perhaps more than was right. I went into this business of my own free will and there have come complications that I did not foresee, but I am not justified in trying to free myself at the expense of another. I am telling you the truth so far as I know it. It isn't for me to make inferences."
The interview, so far as its object was concerned, was ended. Uncle Sid rose stiffly and took the girl's hand in his own.
"I'm afraid that you've made mistakes, lassie, but so have the rest of us. You've got stuff in you worth savin', an' we're goin' to stand by you."
Winston also rose. As Helen placed her hand in his, he said:
"Uncle Sid has spoken for me too, Helen." He held her hand for a moment only, but there was, in the clasp of it, that which went straight to her heart. She did not dare to look in his eyes. She had told him the truth as she knew it, but not as she suspected it. How much more could she have known if she would; how much more ought she to have known? She had not until now, seen clearly where her course was bound to lead if followed to the end. Had she wilfully declined to see? She was going over her past, analyzing it clearly, logically, unsparing of herself. Even yet she could not understand the subtle influence with which Elijah had surrounded her, but at last her eyes were open to its danger. She had given admiration, sympathy, her best to help him, her warm but disquieting friendship. Here she stopped abruptly, her eyes wide open, her face scarlet, her heart throbbing in an agony of pain and shame. The parting pressure of Ralph's hand came to her, the eager look of sympathy which she had felt but not seen. She longed to hear his voice again, to feel the touch of his hand in her own. Slowly she raised her head. Her face was pale and set. Her sins were upon her; the sins of innocence, but the burden was none the lighter for that; yet she would bear it alone and in silence.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was late in the afternoon of the same day when Elijah came to the office. There was the old rush and swing in his motions, but there was also a tense, restless light in his eyes that told of a mind not at peace with itself; of a mind still determined, but lacking the old time confidence. He returned Helen's greeting effusively, but his manner was forced, not spontaneous. He went to his desk and began nervously rummaging the accumulated papers. Frequently he called Helen to him to help straighten some simple matter.
She bore his nervous petulance with patience, for she felt that she knew the cause of his agitation. In sheer desperation, Elijah was bent upon making trouble, knowing that in every detail he was wrong, knowing that even the cause of his agitation was of his own creation. The gossips of Ysleta told him this; told him in words that he could not twist into a defense of himself, and this increased his nervous petulance. He was wrong, terribly wrong, and he knew it, knew that he was trying to make wrong, right. Point after point he brought up with Helen, only to have each explained in a way that he was compelled to admit was without fault.
Helen was patient. She thought that she knew. Her own bitter suffering made her understand. Her heart went out in great throbs of sympathy toward the sorely tried man, who had done wrong and was repenting, even as she had done wrong and was now bent upon righting it.
At last, however, after an unusually severe and wholly unwarranted outburst, she threw down the paper which she held. Patience had ceased to be a virtue. It was a menace, not only to herself, but to the man toward whom it was exercised.
"There's no use going on in this way any longer, Elijah! There's no trouble where you are bent on finding it. It's in the beginning. Let's go back and straighten that out, then we can get somewhere."
"Well, what is it!" There was an exasperating twist in Elijah's words.
Helen passed it by.
"I've done wrong and I know it. I wanted to get ahead, and getting ahead meant money. I couldn't get into the Las Cruces – "
"I gave you the chance," interrupted Elijah.
Helen paid no heed to the interruption.
"So I began to look around for myself. You know the rest."
"There's no use going back to that." Elijah spoke impatiently.
"Yes there is use," Helen persisted. "You have done wrong and you know it. You're trying to square yourself by finding fault with me. It's no use. The farther you go, the worse off you are. The long and short of it is, you can't throw dust in your own eyes."
"I'm not trying to throw dust in my own eyes." The very vehemence of his denial gave the lie to his words.
"You are trying to, and you can't. Nothing can blind your eyes to the fact that you are a criminal."
Elijah's eyes were blazing through their narrowed lids.
"I won't allow even you to say such things to me."
"If you would only say them to yourself, it wouldn't be necessary. I hate to say it, Elijah, but, – you took fifty thousand dollars of the company's money. That's embezzlement. It's a crime." Helen voiced her long suppressed suspicion. "You smoothed it over by putting in its place your note for the amount, secured by your stock in the company."
"Have you been through my private papers?" Elijah burst out.
"That's not to the point; but no, I haven't."
"Then how do you know this?"
In spite of herself, in spite of her growing horror at the weakness of this man who had seemed so strong, Helen could not repress a touch of womanly sympathy in her reply.
"Because, Elijah, I know you."
Elijah was not to be turned easily from a real wrong. It was good to feel a just cause of resentment.
"You have no right to pry into my private affairs. I have given you no warrant for it."
"Yes, you have given me a right. I am associated with you in this business and I have a right to know. I wish you would tell me if I am right in my guess."
The impulse was strong in Elijah to attempt to deceive Helen even as he had long deceived himself, but there was a look in her eyes that weakened the impulse.
"Why?"
"Because that would square you with yourself. You could hunt a way out then, and I'm ready to help you. But you haven't answered my question yet. Am I right?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Ralph and Uncle Sid were in to see you this morning."
"What about?"
"Seymour will be here soon – "
Elijah interrupted.
"Who's told Seymour?"
"When he comes," Helen went on, "he'll ask questions. He won't be particular about the questions; but he'll be mighty particular about the answers. You know what he'll ask, and you know what you'll be obliged to answer. Do you want to get ready, or do you want him to fall on you in a heap?"
Elijah could not conceal his agitation. He moistened his dry lips with his tongue. As he had argued with himself, so he began to argue now; not to Helen, but to the vision she had forced his eyes to see.
"I saved the company from loss. If Mellin had not been a friend of mine, he never would have warned me that the Pacific was going to fail. I saved the money for the company. I wanted the money, I needed it to carry on my work. I didn't embezzle it, I gave the company my note. It is secured at twice its value, by my entire holdings in the Las Cruces company." Elijah's face was drawn; his eyes had an eager, hunted look.
Was this pitiful creature the man who had so moved her? Helen would have given the world to have taken that look from his eyes; to have put in its place the clear, inspired light that had at first so drawn her to him; but she hardened her heart.
"Elijah, you're a hypocrite! You've got the instincts of a thief without his courage. This stuff doesn't go with me. You took the company's money. Make good or take the consequences."
Elijah sprang to his feet.
"My God, Helen! I won't listen to such things. You've no right to say them."
Helen calmed herself with an effort.
"I was quoting Mr. Seymour. Would you rather wait and hear him directly?"
Elijah made a pathetic gesture as he sank back in his chair.
"I didn't think you would turn on me like this, Helen."
Helen rose and placed her hand on Elijah's shoulder. He could not see her face, and she no longer tried to keep her eyes from showing the conflicting emotions that almost overpowered her.
"I haven't turned on you, Elijah. I'm not going to turn on you. I believe in you yet. We've made a mistake. We must find a way out."
"You made a mistake?"
"Yes. When you paid Pico the fifty thousand, I felt quite sure that a part of it must have come from the Las Cruces. I am as guilty as you are."
Before she could prevent, Elijah had snatched her hand from his shoulder and was pressing it to his lips. Helen wrenched her hand from his lips. As if drawn by her resisting hand he rose to his feet, his burning eyes resting on hers. In vain she tried to withdraw her hand from his fierce clasp.
"Don't leave me, Helen, don't leave me!" With wide open arms he sprang toward her.
With hardly a perceptible motion, she was beyond the reach of his outstretched hands. She had no palliating knowledge of his inner thoughts, no knowledge of the malevolent suggestions of Mrs. MacGregor, no knowledge of the scene in Elijah's house, where the lamplight fell on a tear-stained baby face, on blistered sheets with hopeless figures, upon renunciation, as Elijah closed the door and deliberately put his wife from him.
Helen stood erect, composed, her eyes filled with loathing, contempt, but not for Elijah alone. This was the hardest to bear. What had she said, what had she done to bring this horrible thing upon herself?
Elijah slowly grasped the meaning of Helen's eyes. She had not spoken. There was no need that she should speak.
"No! no! no! Helen, not that, not that; you don't understand."
"Stop! I won't listen. Not to a word."
"You will! You must!" There was no passion now either in words or looks, only a set determination to be heard.
Try as she would, Helen could not stop the explanation he offered, the palliation of his sins past and to come. Even as he had said, she was compelled to listen, but there was no softening of her eyes, no change in the set, hard face.
"You and I cannot stay any longer in this office. You will go or I." Elijah made as if to speak. "Stop!" Her voice was imperative. "I would be justified in leaving everything, but I began this wretched business and at whatever cost to myself, I will see it through."
Elijah felt the hopelessness of further words. Like one in a horrible dream, he turned to his desk and began to straighten his papers.
"I will attend to that. Go!"
Without a word or look, Elijah closed the office door behind him.
It required all Helen's fortitude to control herself. She attempted no self-palliation, she put this aside. She had been innocent of intentional wrong doing, but this made no difference. The fact was beyond recall. Only the future was hers in which to make atonement at whatever cost to herself.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Uncle Sid and Winston, after leaving the office, went toward the Rio Vista. Winston was the first to break the silence. He spoke musingly.
"Helen doesn't absolutely know whether Elijah got that money or not. If she had known certainly, she would have told us. But she suspects that he got it and used it, or at least a part of it. There are only two who do know surely, Mellin and Elijah. Mellin has a strong hold on Elijah, or he couldn't have got that note from him. Elijah drew the money, converted it to his own use, and Mellin knows it and is making Elijah pay him to keep quiet."
"Well!" Uncle Sid stopped abruptly and thrust his walking stick into the sand. "Well!" he repeated, "what are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to hunt Mellin down and make him give up." Winston's jaws set.
Uncle Sid smiled grimly.
"Well, young man, I'm all-fired rejoiced that you ain't a-huntin' me. I'm goin' a-huntin' too."
At the Rio Vista they parted. Uncle Sid stumped up to the hotel office.
"Say, senner," he was addressing the clerk, "Mrs. MacGregor ain't been sighted yet, has she?"
The clerk smiled affably.
"Not yet, Captain. Expect her to make port today. Any messages?"
"Yes, plenty, but I'll deliver 'em myself."
Mrs. MacGregor made port promptly and as promptly Uncle Sid began to deliver his message.
"Well, Eunice, it seems you've finally settled to the conviction that there's more money in a servant o' the Lord than in folks that's got handles to their names."
"What do you mean, Sidney?"
"What do you mean, Eunice, takin' your ward's money an' puttin' it into this wild-cat business?"
"I'm not aware that I have told you or any one else what I have done with Alice's money."
"I'm perfectly aware o' you, Eunice, an' I have been for a good many years. You ain't got a cent o' your own an' you've been spungin' off from Alice. She didn't seem to mind, so I didn't interfere; but this is different. You just back right out now or I'll make you." Uncle Sid's face was not pleasant to contemplate.
Mrs. MacGregor smiled complacently.
"It seems to me that you are very suddenly and deeply interested in my doings."
"I am!" Uncle Sid snapped out. "An' for two reasons. In the first place you are swindling Alice out o' her money, an' in the second, the good name o' the Harwoods is in danger. Either one is enough to rile my fightin' blood, an' take 'em both together, I'm fifty years younger'n my birthday calls for."
Mrs. MacGregor spoke coldly.
"You are very much mistaken, Sidney, if you think you are frightening me."
"I am mistaken. I never thought you a fool, I declare if I did! Not this kind. Accordin' to my notion, you've tried on a powerful lot o' different kinds o' fool, but I never thought you'd settle down to this."
Mrs. MacGregor vouchsafed no reply. She went to her closet, and began sorting various articles of clothing and laying them out on the bed.
"What are you up to now?"
"I'm going East on business."
Uncle Sid rose to his feet and walked to Mrs. MacGregor. Laying his hands on her shoulders, he turned her sharply till her eyes met his. The eyes that looked coldly into his had a well-bred, unruffled stare, exasperatingly insolent, exasperating, because they gave no open ground for resentment.
"Eunice, I'm going to make a fool of myself. I've got two hundred thousand laid up in the best kind o' securities. They bring me in ten thousand a year. You just get back that girl's money, an' I'll give you this so long as I live. If I go first, an' it's likely I will, I'll fix it so you'll get it so long's you live."
Mrs. MacGregor spoke calmly.
"Why didn't you say this to me before?"
"Because there's been no especial reason for my making a fool o' myself before."
Mrs. MacGregor, still looking into her brother's eyes, thought rapidly. Her regret that Uncle Sid had not spoken before was sincere. She would accept now if she could. She thought of accepting Uncle Sid's offer and then trying to free herself; but if she should fail, she knew that Uncle Sid would not hesitate to cut her off instantly, and without mercy. She was convinced that there was no way out of it. Elijah would fight against it, Mellin would oppose everything before he would let go his hold. More sincerely than she had ever regretted anything in her life, she regretted her inability to accept her brother's offer. There was only one way open – to go on. Her calm, cynical smile was more exasperating than her stare.
"Alice will be down from San Francisco in about two weeks. I want you to take care of her while I am East."
Uncle Sid was answered. He thrust his sister from him so violently, that she staggered to regain her balance, but the calm, insolent smile never left her face.
"I'll take care of her. I'll take care o' her, an' you too, an' that servant o' the Lord."
Uncle Sid stamped from the room. Mrs. MacGregor summoned a messenger from the office. He was instructed to secure a ticket that evening for the overland express. Then she resumed her preparations for departure. She had arranged all details with Elijah. The Palm Wells company had been fully organized, its officers chosen. To Mrs. MacGregor was entrusted the task of raising the necessary funds – for what? Both Mrs. MacGregor and Elijah had avoided these details.
Mrs. MacGregor was promptly on hand for the overland express, and it was with a great and growing sense of satisfaction and importance that she settled herself in her sleeper. Her journey to the East was not so pleasant as she had anticipated; but her hand was turned to her voluntary task, and she could not now go back if she would. She put aside disagreeable impossibilities and gave her thoughts to her future, the raising of money to further her schemes and Elijah's.
Uncle Sid had at once divined that his sister's first field of operations would be their native town and Elijah's. He accordingly took prompt measures to block her plans. He at once wrote to his banker, an old and trusted friend, giving him an outline of the situation and advising him against co-operation with Mrs. MacGregor. The keen business acumen which had enabled him to accumulate two hundred thousand in first-class securities, pointed his written utterances in keen-edged words which never missed their mark, and invariably carried conviction with them.
Many a mickle makes a muckle, and the seafaring mickles of Mrs. MacGregor's native town which had been so painfully accumulated through many years of toil, and towards which that astute lady had turned expectant and longing eyes, were now plunging her into the depths of despair.
The denizens of Fall Brook turned greedy eyes to the golden promises she offered them, their ears were always open, but the end was ever the same. The knots in the stockings were only tied the tighter because of their canny greed and because of her words which threatened to despoil them. Finally the promises of Mrs. MacGregor, made to a scant but influential few, of stock in the Palm Wells tract, as a bonus for persuading their fellows to invest, added zealous recruits to her cause. These, however, not only failed in positive results, but defeated her every hope of success. In a land where the equality of individuals was the breath of life, the arbitrary choice of the few to be the leaders of the many was an insult which no self-respecting New Englander could fail to resent.
The gray-haired banker was Mrs. MacGregor's last resort. Urged by messages from Elijah, at first urgent, then importunate, Mrs. MacGregor turned to the banker. He was tarred with the same stick as were his fellow citizens; moreover, he was in receipt of an extra stick from Uncle Sid. The letter that had traveled eastward with Mrs. MacGregor had received due consideration, and its contents had been judiciously distributed. With the same measure, with which for years she had measured her fellow townsmen, Mrs. MacGregor was being measured. Wounded pride, bitter, burning resentment, accompanied her on her return trip to California.