CHAPTER XXXIV
IN WHICH TWO MASSEYS MEET IN MEXICO
And while things were moving toward their crisis for Larry and Ruth another drama was progressing more or less swiftly to its conclusion down in Vera Cruz. Alan Massey had found his cousin in a wretched, vermin haunted shack, nursed in haphazard fashion by a slovenly, ignorant half-breed woman under the ostensible professional care of a mercenary, incompetent, drunken Mexican doctor who cared little enough whether the dog of an American lived or died so long as he himself continued to get the generous checks from a certain newspaper in New York City. The doctor held the credulity of the men who mailed those checks in fine contempt and proceeded to feather his nest valiantly while his good luck continued, going on many a glorious spree at the paper's expense while Dick Carson went down every day deeper into the valley of the shadow of death.
With the coming of Alan Massey however a new era began. Alan was apt to leave transformation of one sort or another in his wake. It was not merely his money magic though he wielded that magnificently as was his habit and predilection, spent Mexican dollars with a superb disregard of their value which won from the natives a respect akin to awe and wrought miracles wherever the golden flow touched. But there was more than money magic to Alan Massey's performance in Vera Cruz. There was also the magic of his dominating, magnetic personality. He was a born master and every one high or low who crossed his path recognized his rightful ascendency and hastened to obey his royal will.
His first step was to get the sick man transferred from the filthy hovel in which he found him to clean, comfortable quarters in an ancient adobe palace, screened, airy, spacious. The second step was to secure the services of two competent and high priced nurses from Mexico City, one an American, the other an English woman, both experienced, intrepid, efficient. The third step taken simultaneously with the other two was to dismiss the man who masqueraded as a physician though he was nothing in reality but a cheap charlatan fattening himself at the expense of weakness and disease. The man had been inclined to make trouble at first about his unceremonious discharge. He had no mind to lose without a protest such a convenient source of unearned increment as those checks represented. He had intended to get in many another good carouse before the sick man died or got well as nature willed. But a single interview with Alan Massey sufficed to lay his objections to leaving the case. In concise and forcible language couched in perfect Spanish Alan had made it clear that if the so-called doctor came near his victim again he would be shot down like a dog and if Carson died he would in any case be tried for man slaughter and hanged on the spot. The last point had been further punctuated by an expressive gesture on the speaker's part, pointing to his own throat accompanied by a significant little gurgling sound. The gesture and the gurgle had been convincing. The man surrendered the case in some haste. He did not at all care for the style of conversation indulged in by this tall, unsmiling, green-eyed man. Consequently he immediately evaporated to all intents and purposes and was seen no more. The new physician put in charge was a different breed entirely, a man who had the authentic gift and passion for healing which the born doctor always possesses, be he Christian or heathen, gypsy herb mixer or ten thousand dollar specialist. Alan explained to this man precisely what was required of him, explained in the same forcible, concise, perfect Spanish that had banished the other so completely. His job was to cure the sick man. If he succeeded there would be a generous remuneration. If he failed through no fault of his there would still be fair remuneration though nothing like what would be his in case of complete recovery. If he failed through negligence—and here the expressive gesture and the gurgle were repeated—. The sentence had not needed completion. The matter was sufficiently elucidated. The man was a born healer as has been recorded but even if he had not been he would still have felt obliged to move heaven and earth so far as in him lay to cure Dick Carson. Alan Massey's manner was persuasive. One did one's best to satisfy a person who spoke such Spanish and made such ominous gestures. One did as one was commanded. One dared do no other.
As for the servants whom Alan rallied to his standard they were slaves rather than servants. They recognized in him their preordained master, were wax to his hands, mats to his feet. They obeyed his word as obsequiously, faithfully and unquestioningly as if he could by a clap of his lordly hands banish them to strange deaths.
They talked in low tones about him among themselves behind his back. This was no American they said. No American could command as this green-eyed one commanded. No American had such gift of tongues, such gestures, such picturesque and varied and awesome oaths. No American carried small bright flashing daggers such as he carried in his inner pockets, nor did Americans talk glibly as he talked of weird poisons, not every day drugs, but marvelous, death dealing concoctions done up in lustrous jewel-like capsules or diluted in sparkling, insidious gorgeous hued fluids. The man was too wise—altogether too wise to be an American. He had traveled much, knew strange secrets. They rather thought he knew black art. Certainly he knew more of the arts of healing than the doctor himself. There was nothing he did not know, the green-eyed one. It was best to obey him.
And while Alan Massey's various arts operated Dick Carson passed through a series of mental and physical evolutions and came slowly back to consciousness of what was going on.
At first he was too close to the hinterland to know or care as to what was happening here, though he did vaguely sense that he had left the lower levels of Hell and was traversing a milder purgatorial region. He did not question Alan's presence or recognize him. Alan was at first simply another of those distrusted foreigners whose point of view and character he comprehended as little as he did their jibbering tongues.
Gradually however this one man seemed to stand out from the others and finally took upon himself a name and an entity. By and by, Dick thought, when he wasn't so infernally-tired as he was just now he would wonder why Alan Massey was here and would try to recall why he had disliked him so, some time a million years ago or so. He did not dislike him now. He was too weak to dislike anybody in any case but he was beginning to connect Alan vaguely but surely with the superior cleanliness and comfort and care with which he was now surrounded. He knew now that he had been sick, very sick and that he was getting better, knew that before long he would find himself asking questions. Even now his eyes followed Alan Massey as the latter came and went with an ever more insistent wonderment though he had not yet the force of will or body to voice that pursuing question as to why Alan Massey was here apparently taking charge of his own slow return to health and consciousness.
Meanwhile Alan wired Tony Holiday every day as to his patient's condition though he wrote not at all and said nothing in his wires of himself. Letters from Tony were now beginning to arrive, letters full of eager gratitude and love for Alan and concern for Dick.
And one day Dick's mind got suddenly very clear. He was alone with the nurse at the time, the sympathetic American one whom he liked better and was less afraid of than he was of the stolid, inexorable British lady. And he began to ask questions, many questions and very definite ones. He knew at last precisely what it was he wanted to know.
He got a good deal of information though by no means all he sought. He found out that he had been taken desperately ill, that he had been summarily removed from his lodging place because of the owner's superstitious dread of contagion into the miserable little thatch roofed hut in which he had nearly died thanks to the mal-practice of the rascally, drunken doctor and the ignorant half-breed nurse. He learned how Alan Massey had suddenly appeared and taken things in his own hands, discovered that in a nutshell the fact was he owed his life to the other-man. But why? That was what he had to find out from Alan Massey himself.
The next day when Alan came in and the nurse went out he asked his question.
"That is easy," said Alan grimly. "I came on Tony's account."
Dick winced. Of course that was it. Tony had sent Massey. He was here as her emissary, naturally, no doubt as her accepted lover. It was kind. Tony was always kind but he wished she had not done it. He did not want to have his life saved by the man who was going to marry Tony Holiday. He rather thought he did not want his life saved anyway by anybody. He wished they hadn't done it.
"I—I am much obliged to you and to Tony," he said a little stiffly. "I fear it—it was hardly worth the effort." His eyes closed wearily.
"Tony didn't send me though," observed Alan Massey as if he had read the other's thought. "I sent myself."
Dick's eyes opened.
"That is odd if it is true," he said slowly.
Alan dropped into a chair near the bed.
"It is odd," he admitted. "But it happens to be true. It came about simply enough. When Tony heard you were sick she went crazy, swore she was coming down here in spite of us all to take care of you. Then Miss Clay's child died and she had to go on the boards. You can imagine what it meant to her—the two things coming at once. She played that night—swept everything as you'd know she would—got 'em all at her feet."
Dick nodded, a faint flash of pleasure in his eyes. Down and out as he was he could still be glad to hear of Tony's triumph.
"She wanted to come to you," went on Alan. "She let me come instead because she couldn't. I came for—for her sake."
Dick nodded.
"Naturally—for her sake," he said. "I could hardly have expected you to come for mine. I would hardly have expected it in any case."
"I would hardly have expected it of myself," acknowledged Alan with a wry smile. "But I've had rather a jolly time at your expense. I've always enjoyed working miracles and if you could have seen yourself the way you were when I got here you would think there was a magic in it somehow."
"I evidently owe you a great deal, Mr. Massey. I am grateful or at least
I presume I shall be later. Just now I feel a little—dumb."
"My dear fellow, nothing would please me better than to have you continue dumb on that subject. I did this thing as I've done most things in my life to please myself. I don't want your thanks. I would like a little of your liking though. You and I are likely to see quite a bit of each other these next few weeks. Could you manage to forget the past and call a kind of truce for a while? You have a good deal to forgive me—perhaps more than you know. If you would be willing to let the little I have done down here—and mind you I don't want to magnify that part—wipe off the slate I should be glad. Could you manage it, Carson?"
"It looks as if it hardly could be magnified," said Dick with sudden heartiness. "I spoke grudgingly just now I am afraid. Please overlook it. I am more than grateful for all you have done and more than glad to be friends if you want it. I don't hate you. How could I when you have saved my life and anyway I never hated you as you used to hate me. I've often wondered why you did, especially at first before you knew how much I cared for Tony. And even that shouldn't have made you hate me because—you won."
"Never mind why I hated you. I don't any more. Will you shake hands with me, Carson, so we can begin again?"
Dick pulled himself weakly up on the pillow. Their hands met.
"Hang it, Massey," Dick said. "I am afraid I am going to like you. I've heard you were hypnotic. I believe on my soul you came down here to make me like you? Did you?"
But Alan only smiled his ironic, noncommital smile and remarked it was time for the invalid to take a nap. He had had enough conversation for the first attempt.
Dick soon drifted off to sleep but Alan Massey prowled the streets of the Mexican city far into the night, with tireless, driven feet. The demons were after him again.
And far away in another city whose bright lights glow all night Tony Holiday was still playing Madge to packed houses, happy in her triumph but with heart very pitiful for her beloved Miss Clay whose sorrow and continued illness had made possible the fruition of her own eager hopes. Tony was sadly lonely without Alan, thought of him far more often and with deeper affection even than she had while she had him at her beck and call in the city, loved him with a new kind of love for his generous kindness to Dick. She made up her mind that he had cleared the shield forever by this splendid act and saw no reason why she should keep him any longer on probation. Surely she knew by this time that he was a man even a Holiday might be proud to marry.
She wrote this decision to her uncle and asked to be relieved from her promise.
"I am sorry," she wrote, "if you cannot approve but I cannot help it. I love him and I am going to be engaged to him as soon as he comes back to New York if he wants it. I am afraid I would have married him and gone to Mexico with him, given up the play and broken my promise to you, if he would have let me. It goes that far and deep with me.
"People are crazy over his pictures. The exhibition came off last week and they say he is one of the greatest living painters with a wonderful future ahead of him. I am so proud and happy. He is fine everyway now, has really sloughed off the past just as he promised he would. So please, dear Uncle Phil, forgive me if I do what you don't want me to. I have to marry him. In my heart I am married to him already."
And this was the letter Philip Holiday found at his place at breakfast on the morning of the day Geoffrey Annersley was expected. He read it gravely. Rash, loving, generous-hearted Tony. Where was she going? Ah well, she was no longer a child to be protected from the storm and stress of life. She was a woman grown, woman enough to love and to be loved greatly, to sacrifice and suffer if need be for love's mighty sake. She must go her way as Ted had gone his, as their father had gone his before them. He could only pray that she was right in her faith that for love of her Alan Massey had been born anew.
His own deep affection for Ned's children seemed at the moment a sadly powerless thing. He had coveted the best things of life for them, happy, normal ways of peace and gentle living. Yet here was Ted at twenty already lived through an experience, tragic enough to leave its scarlet mark for all the rest of his life and even now on the verge of voluntarily entering a terrific conflict from which few returned alive and none came back unchanged. Here was Tony taking upon herself the thraldom of a love, which try as he would Philip Holiday could not see in any other light but as at best a cataclysmic risk. And at this very hour Larry might be learning that the desire of his heart was dust and ashes, his hope a vain thing, himself an exile henceforth from the things that round out a man's life, make it full and rich and satisfying.
And yet thinking of the three Philip Holiday found one clear ray of comfort. With all their vagaries, their rash impulsions, their willful blindness, their recklessness, they had each run splendidly true to type. Not one of the three had failed in the things that really count. He had faith that none of them ever would. They might blunder egregiously, suffer immeasurably, pay extravagantly, but they would each keep that vital spirit which they had in common, untarnished and undaunted, an unconquerable thing.