Children of the Whirlwind
of her interview with Joe Ellison which had transmuted suspicion into
certainty, of her theory of the motives which had actuated Jimmie
Carlisle in so perverting the directions of the man who had held Jimmie
as his most trusted friend.
Larry was fairly stunned by this recital of what had been done. And he
was further stunned as he realized the fullness of what now seemed to be
the circumstances.
“God, think of it!” he breathed. “Maggie trying to be a great
adventuress because she was brought up that way, because she thinks her
father wants her to be that--and having never a guess of the truth! And
Joe Ellison believing that his daughter is a nice, simple girl, happily
ignorant of the life he tried to shield her from--and having never
a guess of the truth! What a situation! And if they should ever find
out--”
He broke off, appalled by the power and magnitude of what he vaguely
saw. Presently he said in a numbed, awed voice:
“They should know the truth. But how are they to find out?”
“I'm leaving all that to you, Larry. Maggie and Joe Ellison are your
affair. It's up to you to decide what you think best to do.”
Larry was silent for several moments. “You've known this for some time,
grandmother?”
“For several weeks.”
“Why didn't you tell me before?”
“I was afraid it might somehow bring you closer to Maggie, and I didn't
want that,” she answered honestly. “Now I think a little better of
Maggie. And you've proved to me I can trust a great deal more to your
judgment. Yes, I guess that's the chief reason I've come out here to
tell you this: you've proved to me I've got to respect your judgment.
And so whatever you may do--about Maggie or anything else--will be all
right with me.”
She did not wait for a response, but stood up. Her voice which had been
shot through with emotion these last few minutes was now that flat,
mechanical monotone to which the habitants of her little street were
accustomed.
“I must be getting back to the city. Good-night.”
He started to accompany her to her car, but she forbade him, saying that
it would not help matters to have him seen and possibly recognized by
the taxicab driver; and so she went out of the grounds alone. Within
another hour and a half she was set down unobserved in a dim side street
in Brooklyn. Thence she made her way on foot to the Subway and rode
home. If the police had noticed her absence and should question her, she
could refuse to answer, or say that she had been visiting late with a
friend in Brooklyn.
Larry sat long out in the night after his grandmother had left him. What
should he do with this amazing information placed at his disposal? Tell
Joe Ellison? Or tell Maggie? Or tell both? Or himself try to meet Jimmie
Carlisle and pay that traitor to Joe Ellison and that malformer of
Maggie the coin he had earned?
But for hours the situation itself was still too bewildering in its
many phases for Larry to give concentrated thought to what should be
its attempted solution. Not until dawn was beginning to awaken dully, as
with a protracted yawn, out of the shadowy Sound, was he able really to
hold his mind with clearness upon the problem of what use he should
make of these facts of which he had been appointed guardian. He decided
against telling Joe Ellison--at least he would not tell him yet. He
recalled the rumors of Joe Ellison's repressed volcano of a temper; if
Joe Ellison should learn how he had been defrauded, all the man's vital
forces would be instantly transformed into destructive, vengeful rage
that would spare no one and count no cost. The result would doubtless
be tragedy, with no one greatly served, and with Joe very likely back in
prison. If he himself should go out to give Old Jimmie his deserts,
his action would be just good powder wasted--it likewise would serve no
constructive purpose. Larry realized that it is only human nature for a
wronged man to wish for and attempt revenge; but that in the economy of
life revenge has no value, serves no purpose; that it usually only makes
a bad situation worse.
A tremendous wrong had been done here, a wrong which showed a malignant,
cunning, patient mind. But as Larry finally saw the matter, the point
for first consideration was not the valueless satisfaction of making the
guilty man suffer, but was to try to restore to the victims some part of
those precious things of which they had been unconsciously robbed.
And then Larry had what seemed to him an inspiration: his inspiration
being only a sane thought, and what the Duchess, though she had
not pointed the way to him, had thought he would do. Maggie was
the important person in this situation!--Maggie whose life was just
beginning, and whose nature he still believed to be plastic! Not Joe
Ellison or Old Jimmie Carlisle, who had almost lived out their lives and
whose natures were now settled into what they would be until the end.
By playing upon the finer elements in Maggie's character he had all but
succeeded in rousing to dominance that best nature which existed within
her. He would privately tell Maggie the truth, and tell only her and
leave the using of that knowledge to her alone. The shock of that
knowledge, the effect of its revelations upon her, together with the
responsibility of what she should do with this information, might be
just the final forces necessary to make Maggie break away from all that
she had been and swing over to all that he believed she might be.
Yes, that was the thing to do! And he would do it within the next twelve
hours; for Dick had told him that Maggie was coming out again to Cedar
Crest on the afternoon of the day which was now rousing from its sleep.
That is, he would do it if the police or the allies of his one-time
friends did not locate him before Maggie came. But of that he had no
serious fear; he knew he had made a clean get-away from the Grantham,
and that the shrewd Duchess had left no scent by which those bloodhounds
of the Police Department could trail her.
Larry did not even try to sleep; he knew it would be of no avail. Back
in his own room he sat going over the situation, and his decision. He
tingled with the sense of the tremendous power which had been delivered
into his hands. Yes, tremendous! But what were going to be Maggie's
reactions the moment he told her?--just what would be her course after
she knew the truth?
CHAPTER XXX
Larry undressed, had a bath, shaved, dressed again, and started to
work. But that day the most Larry did was abstractedly going through
the motions of work. He was completely filled with the situation and its
many questions, and with the suspense of waiting for Maggie to come and
of how he was going to manage to see her privately.
The meeting, however, proved no difficulty; for Maggie, who arrived at
four, had come primarily on Larry's account and she herself maneuvered
the encounter. While they were on the piazza, Dick having gone into the
house for a fresh supply of cigarettes, and Miss Sherwood being in an
animated discussion with Hunt, Maggie said:
“Miss Sherwood, I've never had a real look down at the Sound from the
edge of your bluff. Do you mind if Mr. Brandon shows me?”
“Not at all. Tea won't be served for half an hour, so take your time.
Have Mr. Brandon show you the view from just the other side of that old
rose-bench; that's the best view.”
They walked away chatting mechanically until they were in a garden seat
behind the rose-bench. The rose-bench was a rather sorry affair, for
it had been set out in this exposed place by a former gardener who had
forgotten that the direct winds from the Sound are malgracious to
roses. However, it screened the two, and was far enough removed so that
ordinary tones would not carry to the house.
“Did your grandmother get you word about the police?” Maggie asked with
suppressed excitement as soon as they were seated.
“Yes. She came out here about midnight.”
“Then why, while you still had time, didn't you get farther away from
New York than this?”
“If I'm to be caught, I'm to be caught; in the meantime, this is as safe
a place as any other for me. Besides, I wanted to have at least one more
talk with you--after something new grandmother told me about you.”
“Something new about me?” echoed Maggie, startled by his grave tone.
“What?”
“About your father,” he said, watching closely for the effect upon her
of his revelations.
“What about my father? What's he been doing that I don't know about?”
“You do not know a single thing that your father has done.”
“What!”
“Because you do not know who your father is.”
“What!” she gasped.
“Listen, Maggie. What I'm going to tell you may seem unbelievable, but
you've got to believe it, because it's the truth. I can see that you
have proofs if you want proofs. But you can accept what I tell you as
absolute facts. You are by birth a very different person from what you
believe yourself. Your father is not Jimmie Carlisle. And your mother--”
“Larry!” She tensely gripped his arm.
“Your mother was of a good family. I imagine something like Miss
Sherwood's kind--though not so rich and not having such social standing.
She died when you were born. She never knew what your father's business
actually was; he passed for a country gentleman. He was about the
smoothest and biggest crook of his time, and a straight crook if there
is such a thing.”
“Larry!” she breathed.
“He kept this gentleman-farmer side of his life and his marriage
entirely hidden from his crook acquaintances; that is, from all except
one whom he trusted as his most loyal friend. Before you were old enough
to remember, he was tripped up and sent away on a twenty-year sentence.”
“And he's--he's still in prison?” whispered Maggie.
Larry did not heed the interruption. “He had developed the highest kind
of ambition for you. He wanted you to grow up a fine simple woman like
your mother--something like Miss Sherwood. He did not want you ever
to know the sort of life he had known; and he did not want you to be
handicapped by the knowledge that you had a crook for a father. He still
had intact your mother's fortune, a small one, but an honest one. So
he put you and the money in the hands of his trusted friend, with the
instructions that you were to be brought up as the girls of the nicest
families are brought up, and believing yourself an orphan.”
“That friend of his, Larry?” she whispered tensely.
“Jimmie Carlisle.”
“O--oh!”
“I don't know what Jimmie Carlisle's motives were for what he has done.
Perhaps to get your money, perhaps some grudge against your father,
which he was afraid to show while your father was free, for your
father was always his master. But Old Jimmie has brought you up exactly
contrary to the orders he received. If revenge was Old Jimmie's motive,
his cunning, cowardly brain could not have conceived a more diabolical
revenge, one that would hurt your father more. Till a few years ago,
when word was sent to your father that Old Jimmie was dead, Jimmie
regularly wrote your father about the success of his plan, about how
splendidly you were developing and getting on with the best people. And
your father--I knew him in prison--now believes you have grown up into
exactly the kind of young woman he planned.”
“Larry!” she choked in a numbed voice. “Larry!”
“Your father is now as happy as it is possible for him to be, for he has
lived for years and still lives in the belief that his great dream, the
only big thing left for him to do, has come to pass: that somewhere out
in the world is his daughter, grown into a nice, simple, wholesome young
woman, with a clean, wholesome life before her. And though she is the
one thing in all the world to him, he never intends to see her again for