XII.—IN WHICH NORRIS TAKES HIS LIGHT FROM UNDER THE BUSHEL
I FOUND Norris in bed, propped up with pillows and looking very pale. His mother and nurse were with him; the ladies had gone out to dinner with Forbes and would spend an hour or so at the ball.
“I had a bad turn at ten o'clock,” said Norris, “but the doctor came and patched me up, and has gone out for a walk. Mother, will you and the nurse go into the other room until I call you? I want to talk with Mr. Potter.”
Mrs. Norris, the elder, was a slim, tender little woman, with a flavor of the old-time Yankee folks in her customs and conversation. When she was not doing something for her “boy,” as she called him, I often found her sitting in her rocking-chair by the window with her fancy-work or her Bible. Once when I sat waiting to see Norris, while he was napping, she sang “The Old, Old Story” in a low voice as she rocked.
Before leaving the room that night, when I had been summoned to his bedside, she went to his bed and leaned over him and looked thoughtfully into his face. Then she gently touched it with her hand.
“How is my boy feeling now?” she asked.
“Oh, I'm better, mother,” he answered, cheerfully.
“You look more and more like your father,” she said, standing by the bed, with her hands on her hips, reluctant to leave him.
“I wish I were as good a man as my father,” said Norris.
“Your father! He is one of the saints of heaven,” she answered.
Then she turned away and went through the door which the nurse had left open in her departure.
“I am glad that you heard her say that,” said Norris. “It will help you to understand my father. I remember hearing a man say once that my father would go to Hades for a friend. Of course that overdrew it, but he was a most generous man, and what a woman my mother is! I often wake in the night and find her looking down at me, and she's up at daylight every morning. Wherever she is there's a home—something not made with hands, and it is very dear to me.”
“The old, old sort—there's not many of them left,” I said.
“Now, for the new sort,” he whispered, as he drew a letter from his breast pocket and passed it to me.
It was from the young Count Carola, and I was not in the least surprised by this message in English which, with all its impurity, was better than the count knew:
It has become possible for me to render you a service, and I am glad to do the same, knowing that you are one of nature's noblemen. As you know, my income is not large, and I sometimes write articles for a newspaper here in Rome and for another in Naples, being fond of literature and politics. To-day a man asked me to read a story which they had and translate it into the Italian language. I found that it was an account of your career and told of things which, if they were published, would injure you and your family. I could not believe them, knowing, as I do, that you are the soul of honor. I told the man that it was false, and that he had better not publish it. After some arguments he gave up all idea of publishing the story, and gave it over to me. I was glad to do what I did, because I love you and the dear madame and your beautiful daughter, Miss Gwendolyn.
It would not be consistent with the honesty of a gentleman of my standing to take anything from a friend for such a favor, and I ask you to offer me no reward but your friendship. So please do not think of it again. But may I not hope that you will let me try to win your heart. Mine is an ancient name and family, and every member of it has lived honest to this day. I would like to go to America and go to work in some business. I am tired of living idle and would be thankful for your advice. I am also very much worried, and I speak of it with regrets. I hear that Mrs. Norris is favorable to the Count Raspagnetti. You would not, I am sure, permission your daughter to marry him without securing information about his character, which you can accomplish it so easily here in Rome.
I made light of the whole matter to save him worry, but what I saw in it was a conspiracy between Muggs and the count; Muggs had dictated most of the letter. The thumb-print of Muggs was unmistakable. “Nature's nobleman,” “the soul of honor,” “a gentleman of my standing,” “lived honest!” Who but the nugiferous Muggs, with his cheap, learned-by-rote polish, would express himself in that fashion? Any one who had known Muggs for an hour would see his hand in this letter. There were his stock phrases and that peculiar adverbial weakness of his. Who but Muggs could have written that sentence calculated to answer Norris's chief objection to such a man—idleness? He had delivered the whip into the hands of the count, but was holding the reins. The business part of the thing being over, Muggs had let him finish the letter in his own way.
“Who is the Count Raspagnetti?” Norris asked.
“I do not know him.”
“A new candidate of whom I have not heard!”
“And another discoverer of wealth and beauty,” I said. “Refer him to me. Above all, don't have any communication with the slim count.”
“Potter, you are a great friend,” he said. “What the Count Carola wants is to marry my daughter, and I shall not submit to it.” His anger had risen as he spoke. He whispered his determination with a clenched fist.
“At last we have come to a parting of the ways,” he went on. “I don't know how I shall do it, but I'm going to confess my sins. We'll get the family together, and I'll lay my heart bare. It's the only thing to do. It will be hard on Gwendolyn, but not so hard as marrying a reprobate. It will be hard on my wife, but there are things worse than disgrace.”
“I welcome you back to happiness and sanity,” I said, giving him my hand.
“Do you think I have been crazy?”
“Well, you haven't been right in your head on this subject, not quite sane about it. You have reminded me of a woman I knew who threw her cat out of a second-story window. The cat with open claws landed on top of a bald-headed gentleman. Then she tumbled down a flight of stairs and broke a clavicle and the nose of a man who was coming up. And what do you think it was all about?”
He smiled as he looked up at me and shook his head.
“Nothing,” I said. “She thought the house was afire when it wasn't. If you stand up to this thing like a man you'll be surprised by what happens and by the immensity of your former folly. Women are not playthings. They are built to carry trouble. A good woman can walk off, like a pack-horse, with a burden of trouble. You haven't been fair to your women. You have treated them as if they were too good to be human. It's a gross injustice.”
“Call my mother,” said Norris, “and then go down and meet Gwendolyn and Mary and bring them here. I'm going to make an end of this thing to-night.”
“Please remember this—don't get excited, keep cool, and take it easy. I'll stand by you.”
“Oh, I'm quite calm now that my mind is made up,” said he. “If it kills me I couldn't die in a better cause.”
I called his mother and went below stairs. As I waited I thought of the new plan of Muggs. The count's letter clearly intimated that Norris must be his friend or he would publish the facts. If he could force a marriage he would share the financial end in some manner with Muggs. A little after one o'clock the ladies arrived with Richard Forbes. I took charge of Gwendolyn and her mother, and the boy bade us good night.
We sat down together for a moment.
“We had a wonderful time,” said Gwendolyn. “All the aristocracy of Rome was there.”
“Including the wonderful Count Raspagnetti,” her mother added. “The young Count Carola stood near as we got into our car. He is the most pathetic thing!”
“We must have nothing more to say to him,” I said. “He has discovered another most beautiful woman in the world in Miss Muriel Fraley, of Terre Haute. He is one of the greatest beauty-finders that I have ever seen. But we must have nothing more to say to him. He has resorted to blackmail to achieve his purpose.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Norris. Before I could answer she suddenly opened her heart to me.
“So many things have happened and are happening which I cannot understand,” said she. “My husband has never taken me into his confidence. I have long known that he was troubled about something. It has always seemed to annoy him if I rapped ever so softly on the door of his mystery. Now I do not dare to come near it for fear of making him worse. You seem to know the man Wilton. Who is he? Why does he turn up in Italy? I detest him, and I am sure that my husband does also.”
“Mr. Norris has had business relations with him, but they are now at an end,” I answered.
“So I had hoped,” said she. “But he called here to see my husband yesterday. Of course he didn't succeed. The nurse gave Mr. Norris the card, and his symptoms changed suddenly and were alarming. I am terribly worried and nervous. I love my husband, and I've felt often that I haven't been a good wife to him, but he would not let me.”
Her eyes had filled with tears.
“Your unhappiness will end this night. Come with me to Whitfield's room. He has something to tell you. He asked me to meet you here.”
“How strange!” said Mrs. Norris, as she rose with a frightened look.
I led the way, and we proceeded in silence to the room where Norris lay. His mother sat beside him on the bed.
“Mary and Gwendolyn, come here,” he said.
He took a hand of each in his as they stood by his bedside.
“Potter, I want you to stay with us and hear what I have to say,” he called to me.
A little moment of silence followed in which his spirit seemed to be breaking its fetters.
“Mary, I have sinned against you,” he said. “It was your right to know long since what I have now to tell you. But I was a coward. I loved you and feared to lose your love, and so I kept you from knowing the truth about me. Then came Gwendolyn, and the lovelier she grew the more cowardly I became. I hadn't the heart to tell either of you what I now must tell, that I went to prison long ago for a crime. It was not a very bad crime, but bad enough to disgrace you.”
In a flash the thought came to me that he was not going to tell the whole' truth; he would protect his father's good name.
Mrs. Norris put her arm about her husband's neck and kissed him tenderly. “My love,” said she, “I knew all that years ago, but for fear of hurting you I've never spoken of it. Long, long ago I knew all about your trouble.”
His mother rose from the bed where she had been calmly sitting with bowed head and tearful eyes.
“Not all,” said she. “You do not know that he took my husband's sin upon him, and that all these years he has been suffering in silence for the sake of another. I am sure there is no greater saint in heaven than this man.”
“Oh, Whitfield! Why didn't you let me help you?” said his wife, as she sank to her knees beside him.
The scene had suddenly become too sacred for any words of mine.
Not one of us spoke for a while, but there was something above all words in the silence. It was feebly expressed at length in these of Norris, and I like to recall them when I begin to feel a bit cynical:
“I'm no saint. I'm just an average American businessman—very human, very foolish! But there are many who would do more than I have done for the love of a friend. My father was such a man.”
Gwendolyn came and kissed me when I bade them good night, and I drew her aside and said to her:
“With such men in America why are we looking for counts in Italy?”
She made no answer, but I understood the little squeeze of gratitude which my hand felt.
XIII.—IN WHICH I FIGHT A DUEL WITH ONE OF THE OLDEST WEAPONS IN THE WORLD
NEXT morning a note came to Betsey from Mrs. Norris saying that she and Gwendolyn had decided to spend the whole day at home with their patient, and would, therefore, be unable to ride out as they had planned to do. She inclosed another letter of dog-like servility from the slim count and asked me to see what I could do to suppress him. In this letter he referred to me as a vulgar fellow who had disregarded his challenge. This she did not understand, and rightly thought that I would know what he meant.
So I was reminded that the pitchforks and the time to use them had arrived. I informed De Langueville of the fact. He invited me to call at his studio at noon, and added that he hoped it would be convenient to bring the forks with me. I sent Betsey out shopping and 'phoned for Richard, and when he came to my room I met him with one of those weapons in my hands.
“I am ready for the stern arbitrament of the pitchfork,” I said. “Will you come with me?”
“Certainly,” said he.
“Come on,” I said, as I started with one of the forks in my hands. “I'm going to get through with my haying to-day if possible.”
“Hadn't we better send the forks by messenger?” said Richard.
“No, I'd rather carry them myself,” I answered. “I don't want them to be delayed or lost in transit.”
“They are not so elegant as swords or guns,” he said, as he took one of the forks.
“They are more reputable,” I assured him.
We made our way into the crowded street and soon entered a drug shop to buy some first-aid materials, and deposited our forks in a corner near a small boy who sat on a stool devouring primes. He soon discovered a better use for his prunes and amused himself by-impaling them on the fork tines. When we were ready to go we gathered the fruit and gave it back to the boy.
I never had so much fun with a pitchfork in all my life. In fact, I can think of no more promising field for the pitchfork than the city of Rome. It is an exciting tool, and as an inspirer of reminiscence the fork is even mightier than the sword or the pen. Mine rose above me like a lightning-rod, and currents of thought began to play around the burnished tines. I never dreamed that there were so many ex-farmers of our own land in Italy. A number of them stopped us to indulge in stories of the hay-field. We might have learned of many a busy and exciting day on “the old farm,” but time pressed and we sprang into a cab and soon entered the studio of the sculptor with the forks in our hands.
“Here we are,” I said, as De Langueville opened the door.
To my painful surprise, the young count was there. He was looking at a sword when we caught sight of him. He sheathed and laid it down on a table and joined the sculptor, who had begun to examine the forks. The end of each tine excited their interest. De Langueville felt them, and then there was a little dialogue in Italian between him and his friend which was not wholly lost upon me.
“They use it to fight Indians,” said the sculptor.
“They are poisoned,” said the count, as his eye detected some stains on the steel which had been made by the prime-juice.
“I think so,” the other answered, and then, addressing me in English, he asked:
“Will you kindly name the day and hour?”
“Here and now,” was my answer.
Another dialogue in Italian followed, and then De Langueville said to me:
“It is impossible. The count requests for more time.”
“I have no more time to waste on this little matter,” I said. “If he wishes to call it off—” But he didn't—no such luck for me! I had talked too much. The count had taken exception to the words “call it off.” They must have sounded highly insulting, for he flew mad, as they say in Connecticut, and stepped forward with a fine flourish and seized one of the forks. “Call it off” was apparently the one thing which the count could not stand, and I had meant to be careful. His rich Italian blood mounted to his face. I began to like him better.
“I will fight you here and at present if my friend the baron will give to us the permission,” he declared.
“One moment,” said the baron, as he hurried away.
We sat in silence for five minutes or so when he returned with a surgeon.
I could not run now, and there were no trees to climb, although there was an heroic figure of the New Italy with a kind of staging that rose to her chin. There was also a long alley that was lined with busts and statues.
“It looks as if we are in for it,” Forbes whispered.
“I'm ready,” I assured him. “A man who talks as much as I do ought to be willing to fight, especially when there's no chance to run. I enjoy life and safety as much as any one, but you can carry it too far.”
Forbes turned away and conferred with the sculptor, and placed us about fifteen feet apart.
“I will count three, and at the last number you will approach together and fight,” said De Langueville.
The young count had no lack of courage, for I have since learned that he regarded me as a kind of human cobra with poisoned fangs more than a foot long. He was rather pale when we stood face to face.
I am a man a little past fifty, and not so quick as when I was a boy, no doubt, but I have always kept myself in good shape—tramped and chopped wood and hoed beans enough to feed Boston for a month of Saturdays; so I think that I am as strong as ever. I had no sanguinary designs upon the count; I chiefly harbored preservative designs upon myself. I had got into this trouble in a good cause, and my white feathers were carefully dyed. Of course I couldn't acknowledge that a count was better than a mister.
So I faced the blue-blooded warrior as if he were a cock in a field of good timothy, with rain-clouds in the sky. We stood with our forks raised, and the six tines rang upon one another as soon as the word was given. He was overwrought by his fear of poison, I suppose, and had not the power of arm and shoulder that I had. We shoved and twisted, and then he broke away and came on with little stabs at the air. Suddenly I caught his tines in mine and wrenched the fork from his hands. Forbes has said that I looked savage, and I believe him, for I was getting hot.
“First blood!” I shouted, as I rushed toward him, intending to pick up his fork and put it back in his hands. But he did not stop to learn my intentions. “First blood!” meant murder to him. I had taken but a step in his direction when he was in full flight. I didn't blame him a bit. I would have fled; any one would have fled. That yell and the prune-juice did it.
“Hold on!” I shouted, with a fork in each hand, as I chased him a hundred feet or more down a long aisle lined with the busts of grocers, butchers, brokers, and lumber kings. The words “Hold on!” must have sounded nasty, for he put on more steam. I did not mean to hurt him; I only wished to take his hand and congratulate him on his speed. But I couldn't go fast enough. Before I was half down the aisle he had got to the end of it and jumped over the high shelf between the marble presentments of the missing actress and the Michigan lumber dealer. I knew better than to laugh—it was ill-bred—but I could not help it. Now I could hear the feet of the count hurrying toward me. I ought to have kept still.
“We cannot fight with such weapons,” said the baron; “it is barbarous.”
“If you will fight me with the sword I shall prove to you my grand courage,” said the young count, as he emerged, panting, from behind a group of statues.
“I need no further proof of your courage,” I said, gently. “You act brave enough to suit me.”
“Try me with the sword,” he urged. “You are one coward; you are one coward. You have attacka me when the weapon was not in my hand.”
Richard came forward coolly and put his hand on the count's arm.
“You are wrong, and you ought to apologize,” he said, firmly.
The count turned upon him with a polite bow, and said:
“Perhaps you will give me the satisfaction.”
“If you like, I'll take it up for him,” said Forbes, with admirable coolness. “He is older than you, and not accustomed to the sword.”
“Look here—I won't let you fight for me,” I said. “These fellows are used to the sword and pistol. They have nothing else to do and are looking for a sure thing. Fight him with your fists—if he's bound to fight again.”
“Him! That would be too sure a thing, I'm afraid,” said Richard. “I've practised this game of fencing at college and the Fencers' Club. I'm not afraid of the count.”
I had observed that a number of swords had been lying on a table near us. Before Richard's remark was finished the count had picked up one of them and said to my friend:
“Come—you are not fearful—like a lady. Give me one chance.”
Before anything more could be done or said the young men were at it, and, to my great relief, I saw that Forbes was able to take care of himself. The count was a clever swordsman, but my friend was stronger and just as quick.
It is about the prettiest survival of feudal times, this bloody game of the sword.
I observed that the clock in the studio indicated the moment of 12.18 when the contest began. It lasted for an hour or more, as I thought, when it ended with blood-flowing from the sword-arm of the count at 12.21. The count was satisfied and breathing heavily. Forbes was fresh and strong.
“It is enough,” the slim count shouted, and the battle was over.
“You play with the sword so skilful,” the latter panted, as De Langueville and the surgeon began to dress his wound.
“All you need is a pair of lungs,” said Forbes. “The pair you have may do for sucking cigarettes, but not for fighting.”
“And I politely request that you do not use them again in making love to Miss Norris,” I said. “Hereafter I shall carry a fork with me, and any man who follows us again will get it run into him. But now that you know that they do not want to graft you on their family tree you will, of course, annoy them no more. I expect you're a much better fellow than you seem to be.”
“And they will permission her to marry Raspagnetti?” he demanded.
“Why not?” was my query.
“Well, he has been married already and has amuse himself by dragging his wife around his palace by the hairs of her head.”
“It's a bad fashion,” I said; “it wears out the carpets.”
He looked puzzled.
“But it's an ancient diversion of the Romans,” I went on, remembering that panel in one of the galleries which portrayed the extraction of the whiskers of a captive who was tied hand and foot—one of the basest amusements I can think of.
As we talked the surgeon was at work on the arm of the young man.
“Let's go and get a bite to eat,” Richard proposed, and we made our escape.
While we were eating he said:
“Don't say anything of my part in this little scrap. I'm ashamed of it. To draw blood from him is like taking candy from a child.” At the hotel Richard found a cable that summoned him to New York. Late that afternoon Gwendolyn and her mother and Betsey went with him to the station where he took a train for the north. I bade the boy good-by and said as I did so:
“Leave the case in my hands again.”
“It's hopeless!” said he.
“Not exactly!” I answered.
“She has turned me down.”
“Turned you down?”
“Yes, I had a talk with her last evening.”
“You'll have to try it again some other evening,” I said.
“She doesn't want to marry any one. That's about the way she puts it—but more politely. I told her that if she didn't want to be proposed to again she'd better avoid me. I expect to convince her that she's wrong.”
He left me, and I went to see Norris, who had sent word that he wished to talk with me.