BILL MEETS A RELATIVE
Perez had a fine house, a revelation to me; big halls, big rooms, the walls covered with pictures, Injun relics, armor, swords, guns, and what not; many servants to fetch and carry, and an ease and comfort over it for which delicious is the only word.
We had a bully little dinner out in the cool garden, which I got through all right by playing second to Perez. The finger-bowls had me off the trail a little, but I waited and discovered their purpose. You can find out everything if you wait long enough.
Then with coffee and cigars we began to talk.
"Now for the plan of Señor Saunders," says Perez, opening the bottom of his well-supported vest. He looked so respectable and ordinary sitting there, that my plan lost its light. I forgot the other side of him.
"Well," I begun, lamely, "Saxton wants to marry Mary."
Perez politely acknowledged that such was the fact.
"Then," says I, "why don't he just do it?"
Perez looked his disappointment.
"That would be well, surely," says he in the tone one uses to a harmless fool.
"Here," says I. "First, I want to break into Mr. Belknap. You say he's got some kind of political game on?"
Perez renewed his interest. "Si," says he. "This is what he makes. He is now going to and fro, putting those that have come to his church against those of the old religion. Against the Catholic Church he lays the blame of everything wrong. It will be a revolution, he says, to annihilate that enemy of man, the old church, and in its place put that wonder of virtue, the church of Mr. Belknap. What will happen is that many poor men shall be killed, and the wolf-rascals get fat, as usual. With Belknap are the few in earnest, who think; the many who neither care nor think, but are led; those that fight for love of it; those who are hypocrites, and those who look for profit. On our side, the same. There is no advantage to either by comparison in that. In here comes the difference. Such men as Oriñez and myself know that this unhappy land must have peace, before any notion of right can grow. When it is all fight, fight, fight, one cannot think evenly—has your brother been killed? Your wife and sisters murdered? And then you will think calmly of the issue? Time is needed to heal these old wounds, that more can work together. So Oriñez and I fight for time—I with my money and my counsel, he with the terror of his name. Once I did Oriñez a favor; he never forgets. So when I called to help me in this, the tiger sheathed his claws; the man of blood turned shepherd; the robber, honest; but,"—and here Perez's voice took a bitterness worse than curses,—"but Mr. Belknap, that respected man of God, will have it that the need of the State is the drawing of blood—once more, fire, slaughter, rape, till the land stinks with corpses, lays black in the sunlight and rings with the cries of injured women—a great work...."
Perez stood up, gripping the table. "I am a little, peaceful man," he said, "but there are times when I could drive a knife through that man and shout with joy for every blow." He sat down quickly and smiled a faint smile. "My obsession," said he, wiping his forehead; "I, too, preach peace through the letting of blood. Belknap may be as much in earnest as myself—Bah! This foolish pretense of candor! He is not; he is a scoundrel—whether he knows it or not, a scoundrel."
"Well, that's good news," said I. "It won't be hard for me to pick a quarrel with him, which is precisely what I intend to do. I'll meet his schemes with some of my own, Mary likes me, and it will be at least a stand-off in her mind if Brother Belknap and I fall out. Then the next thing is for Arthur to get a party of men, capture Mary, take her off and marry her."
Perez threw up his hands in horror. "Señor Saunders!" he cried; "for you to say this! I am astonished! Abstract the lady without her wish? Surely I have not heard you rightly—chanzas aparte, you play with me—you wish to see me look?"
"Not I," says I, stout; "I mean every word of it. As Sax said this afternoon, there's times when it's wicked to twiddle with courtesy. That girl will ruin her whole life if Belknap has the making of it. Her friends oughtn't to stand by and see it done—damn it, man! Suppose she dropped her handkerchief as she was falling over a cliff—what would you do first: save her life or pick up the handkerchief?"
Perez puffed and thought a moment. "Tiene V. razon," he says, "there is more here than a ball-room. I knew her as a girl, I know her now. Belknap I know too. My life I stake on it that for Belknap to win her, means her life wrecked, and yet I stop—from habit. I stake my life—I mean it—on my judgment, yet dare not stake an action to make that judgment good."
He waited again, while the minutes slipped by; drumming on the table; shifting things in his mind. The whole air of long, long use to the handsome, nice things I saw about me struck me strong in the man. He was born to it, and his forebears centuries before him. Yet instead of breeding out the man in him, it had only taken off the scum.
At last he spoke. "Give me more time, campañero. I shall consider this further. To meddle with other lives is always a dangerous business, just as not to meddle may be a shameful one. As it stands, if he gets not the lady for a wife, Saxton is a lost man—I know him. On his word, on your word and on my word, she is not indifferent to him. We know Belknap is a rascal, and for her unfit. And so, action—yet I am a man of peace."
He smiled at me. "Did you ever see a man of peace in more unpeaceful place? Well, Señor Saunders, your plan has that daring which often cows success. It remains to be seen whether Arthur can by any means be brought to think of it: his pride will be afire at the thought—yes, that is it. Listen. If you can gain his acceptance—and you have no plan without it—I am with you, heart and soul."
"Good!" says I. "Shake hands on it. I sha'n't strike Arthur at once. I mean to work up the disagreement with Brother Belknap first. 'T will do no harm in any case if his head is punched."
Perez laughed. "You are warrior, pure and not so simple," says he. "Heaven send strength to your arm when you meet."
"I ask no odds of top, bottom, nor middle," says I. "Give me a fair field."
"There spoke a better spirit than Achilles of old times," says Perez. "So should I be, if I had an arm like that."
"I'll bet there'd be some danger in you, my friend!" says I.
The light went out of his face. "Mention it not," he said sternly. "Once it was my misfortune to kill a man—you are not offended at my speech?"
"Not on your family portraits!—but, of course, I couldn't know—you ain't put out, for your part?"
"Only what is right I should be—what is it your great poet says—'bears yet a precious jewel in its head'? So with me. To walk with a ghost has done me no harm. In pity for myself, I pity others. But this is a melancholy talk—come, I shall show you my pictures. Some are wonderful, all are good."
So we went into the fine old house again and saw the paintings. They were beyond my calculations. Outside of the things Sax never finished and bar a chromo or two, I'd never seen a picture—I don't count the grandfathers' portraits at home—decent people enough, them and their wives, but not what you'd call beautiful except Great-Grandmother De La Tour—she was a corker.
Seeing that I enjoyed 'em, Perez explained the pictures to me, what were the good points. When I've told people the names on the pictures in Perez's gallery, I've simply been told I lied.
Next Perez said, "You like music, Señor Saunders?"
"You bet!" says I. So he led the way into a room off the gallery. It was a long, high room rounded at one end, with an arched ceiling. The least whisper in there rang clear. At the round end was an organ. Perez called; a little Injun boy came to pump the organ.
Perez seated himself on the bench. "Now," said he, "if only we had Arthur—foolish fellow! Here is this great house with only one small man in it! I beg him to live here, but he will not—he says he must live in a place rough, as you saw."
"I'm inclined to think Sax knows his pasture, Mr. Perez," I answered.
He nodded. "I only spoke as I often do," he said, "of what I wish, instead of what must be—so little a change would make this so much better a world." He thought for a second. "An easier world," he corrected; "really it is better as it is—well, I am more musician than philosopher,—what will you, amigo mio? Something grand? military? of sentiment, or peace?"
"I tell you, Mr. Perez," says I, "I don't know anything about music. Can't you play pieces not too high for me, yet good to listen to, so I feel it, and learn at the same time?"
He laughed as if I tickled him. "There speaks that so practical Northern head," says he, "that will have the heart lifted and also a dollar in the pocket."
"Am I foolish?" I asked. I never yet played being big before a man who knew something. When he knows he sees your little play and despises you for it.
"Not foolish, chico," says Perez. "Only wise with a wisdom strange to me." He wheeled and looked at me. "A most strange young man you are; the strength of a giant, roaring health and no fool, and yet you will listen to an older man—you wish to listen. Receive the thanks of an older man. The hope of such service is the one poor vanity remaining to him. May time so deal with you that you shall never know the compliment you pay—listen!"
The old organ burst into a pride of sound. Big and splendid—steel and fair ladies—roses and sudden death. Made my heart get big and want to do something. Perhaps talking with Perez, his air of decent sadness, and his old-time way of speaking, kind of lofty for this date, yet never slopping over; and perhaps the beautiful old house with its hangings, pictures, and armor helped the music, but anyhow, as I listened, I had visions. I felt like a lost calf that's got back to the herd and a sight of mama. I was still in my dream when I realized the music had stopped and that Perez was looking at me.
"May I take a liberty?" said he. "A resemblance has perplexed me since I met you."
"Sure," says I, waking up.
He walked to the corner where there stood an old suit of armor. It was made for a sizable man. Together we put the corselet on me, and then I fixed the helmet and followed Perez's lead.
He held a lamp before us, as we went down a passage into a small side room. There I thought I saw my image in a glass. Perez laughed at my face, when I found it was a picture. It seemed magic to me.
"What in the world!" says I.
"Behold the Marquis De La Tour!" says he.
"The devil it is!" says I. "Still respected, though forty greats removed! Perez, old man, that's my grandpa!"
"The face proves it," he answered. "He is also mine. Cousin, I felt the pull of blood this day. Your hand, and we shall have a bottle of wine."
"It ain't often that a man meets his forty-ply great-grandpa and so nice a Spanish cousin," says I. "I reckon I can square it with Mary later. Lead on, McDuff, and dammed be he who cannot hold enough."
A very tidy little tidal wave of joy broke over the Perez mansion. Everybody rejoiced; we had the man-servant and the maid-servant and the rest of the menagerie in drinking healths to the new-met relatives. To this day I ain't exactly sure how close connected Perez and I are. Grandpa De La Tour was a little nearer than Adam, to be sure, but not near enough, so there wouldn't have been some fussing about his will, if it should suddenly be discovered.
One of his daughters married a Spaniard that started the Perez line,—and My! but that line was spread out thin! There'd been pretty husky families on my side, too; however, I was durned proud to claim kin with a man like Perez, and I wouldn't have spoiled the lonesome little man's joy in finding a relative, anyhow. All his tribe but him had been wiped out completely. I was the only relative he had—that is, that he knew about. The United States was full of 'em, if he'd only known it. Europe, too, I reckon. Still, his talk about the pull of blood wasn't nonsense, neither. I felt drawn to him from the first, and who can say that in feeling and ways of acting we really weren't closer connected than some brothers are? And Grandpa De La Tour was all right for an excuse. I sure did look like him—not so much now, that I wear hair on my face, but then I wouldn't have known which was him and which was me if we met on the street.
Before we turned in for the night I spoke to Perez again about Sax and Mary. He listened eager enough now. What I suggested was all right—little peculiarities of a gentleman. As Perez put it, "The greater courtesy of the heart, that stops not at the puny fences of the fixed way." How different the same thing looks in different lights! He was dead right about the fences. I never saw a fence yet without wanting to tear a hole in it, but you've only to string a thread across, if I've no business there, to keep me out.
It appeared to me then, and it appears to me still, that I had a right to interfere in Mary's affair. At times, of course, you're a plain meddlesome Pete, if you cut in, and you deserve all you probably will get,—as many kicks as the parties can land on you before you escape; on the other hand, Perez was right when he said it sometimes was shameful not to interfere. And while marriage is the most private of all things, it's the most binding, too: you can lose money, get experience, and make more; fall out with your friends and make it up again, but a lifetime tied to one person is the stiffest proposition a human being is called upon to face. Here's Mary, a girl without much experience, putting herself in the way of being hooked for life to a man I knew to be a fraud—let her suffer for her folly? No, by the Lord! Let me suffer for my folly, if necessary, but in it I go. We're all kids and sometimes we've got to be made to do the right thing—and—here's the rub—if strict but kind papa is sure he's right (which he can't be) its easy; if not, I suppose it's up to us as per general orders, do the best you can and prepare to go down with the wreck. I envy the man who's sure he's right, but the Lord have mercy on his friends. Well, that's what Perez and I arrived at; that we were stacked against a blooming mystery and we'd shoot at the one glimmer of light we had. Mary did care for Sax. Good. Belknap was a fraud. Good. To the devil with the rest of the argument.
However, I didn't reveal my full plan regarding Belknap to my kinsman. I had a hunch that even my likeness to Grandpa De La Tour wouldn't convince him. You see, like most kids, savages, and people not grown up in general, I believed in playing the game as it was played on me. I wouldn't let a rogue escape for want of a helpful lie in season, acted or spoken. I couldn't see why you shouldn't get him his way, so long as you got him. It took me some years to understand Saxton's saying, that it was better for a rascal to escape, than for an honest man to turn rascal in catching him. Plain enough when you think of it. If you work low down on the other feller, to trip him, there's two rascals, that's all. It comes medium hard to see it in that light, though, when before your eyes the rascal is having it all his own way. And, while I disapprove of my own methods, the results was great. No use talking, the wicked sometimes prosper and your Uncle William played in a full-jeweled streak of luck. The next day I opened my campaign.