The Major

R >> Ralph Connor >> The Major


"Your message, Larry?" cried Jane, a light breaking upon her face. "Did
you leave a message for me?"

"I did. I told Mrs. Allen to tell you where I had gone--Helen was so
anxious to go--and that I would be right back." Larry's voice was full
of reproach.

"Oh, Larry, I am so glad," said Jane, her tone indicating the greatness
of her relief. "I knew it was all right--that something had prevented. I
am so glad you came in. You must have thought me queer."

"No," said Larry, appeased, "I knew all the time there must be some
explanation, only I was feeling so miserable."

"And I was miserable, too, Larry," she said gently. "It seemed a pity
that this should happen on our last night." All her wrath was gone.
She was once more the Jane that Larry had always known, gentle, sweet,
straightforward, and on her face the old transfiguring smile. Before
this change of mood all his irritation vanished. Humbled, penitent, and
with a rush of warm affection filling his heart, he said,

"I should have known you were not to blame, but you are always right.
Never once in all these years have you failed me. You always understand
a fellow. Do you know I am wondering how I shall ever do without you?
Have you thought, Jane, that to-morrow this old life of ours together
will end?"

"Yes, Larry." Her voice was low, almost a whisper, and in her eyes an
eager light shone.

"It just breaks my heart, Jane. We have been--we are such good friends.
If we had only fallen in love with each other.--But that would have
spoiled it all. We are not like other people; we have been such chums,
Jane."

"Yes, Larry," she said again, but the eager light had faded from her
eyes.

"Let's sit a bit, Larry," she said. "I am tired, and you are tired,
too," she added quickly, "after your hard day."

For a little time they sat in silence together, both shrinking from the
parting that they knew was so near. Larry gazed at her, wondering to
himself that he had ever thought her plain. Tonight she seemed beautiful
and very dear to him. Next to his mother, was her place in his heart.
Was this that he felt for her what they called love? With all his soul
he wished he could take her in his arms and say, "Jane, I love you." But
still he knew that his words would not ring true. More than that, Jane
would know it too. Besides, might not her feeling for him be of the
same quality? What could he say in this hour which he recognised to be
a crisis in their lives? Sick at heart and oppressed with his feeling
of loneliness and impotence, he could only look at her in speechless
misery. Then he thought she, too, was suffering, the same misery was
filling her heart. She looked utterly spent and weary.

"Jane," he said desperately. She started. She, too, had been thinking.
"Scuddy is in love with Helen, Macleod is in love with Ethel. I wish to
God I had fallen in love with you and you with me. Then we would have
something to look forward to. Do you know, Jane, I am like a boy leaving
home? We are going to drift apart. Others will come between us."

"No, Larry," cried Jane with quick vehemence. "Not that. You won't let
that come."

"Can we help it, Jane?" Then her weariness appealed to him. "It is a
shame to keep you up. I have given you a hard day, Jane." She shook her
head. "And there is no use waiting. We can only say good-bye." He rose
from his chair. Should he kiss her, he asked himself. He had had no
hesitation in kissing Helen an hour ago. That seemed a light thing to
him, but somehow he shrank from offering to kiss Jane. If he could only
say sincerely, "Jane, I love you," then he could kiss her, but this he
could not say truly. Anything but perfect sincerity he knew she would
detect; and she would be outraged by it. Yet as he stood looking down
upon her pale face, her wavering smile, her quivering lips, he was
conscious of a rush of pity and of tenderness almost uncontrollable.

"Good-bye, Jane; God keep you always, dear, dear Jane." He held her
hands, looking into the deep blue eyes that looked back at him so
bravely. He felt that he was fast losing his grip upon himself, and he
must hurry away.

"Good-bye, Larry," she said simply.

"Good-bye," he said again in a husky voice. Abruptly he turned and left
her and passed out through the door.

Sore, sick at heart, he stumbled down the steps. "My God," he cried,
"what a fool I am! Why didn't I kiss her? I might have done that at
least."

He stood looking at the closed door, struggling against an almost
irresistible impulse to return and take her in his arms. Did he not love
her? What other was this that filled his heart? Could he honestly say,
"Jane, I want you for my wife"? He could not. Miserable and cursing
himself he went his way.



CHAPTER XX

THE GERMAN TYPE OF CITIZENSHIP


Mr. Dean Wakeham was always glad to have a decent excuse to run up to
the Lakeside Farm. His duties at the Manor Mine were not so pressing
that he could not on occasion take leave of absence, but to impose
himself upon the Lakeside household as frequently as he desired made it
necessary for him to utilise all possible excuses. In the letter which
he held in his hand and which he had just read he fancied he had found a
perfectly good excuse for a call. The letter was from his sister Rowena
and was dated May 15th, 1914. It was upon his sister's letters that he
depended for information regarding the family life generally and about
herself in particular. His mother's letters were intimate and personal,
reflecting, however, various phases of her ailments, her anxieties for
each member of the family, but especially for her only son now so far
from her in that wild and uncivilised country, but ever overflowing with
tender affection. Dean always put down his mother's letters with a smile
of gentle pity on his face. "Poor, dear Mater," he would say. "She is at
rest about me only when she has me safely tucked up in my little bed."
His father's letters kept him in touch with the office and, by an
illuminating phrase or two, with the questions of Big Business. But when
he had finished Rowena's letters he always felt as if he had been paying
a visit to his home. Through her letters his sister had the rare gift of
transmitting atmosphere. There were certain passages in his letter just
received which he felt he should at the earliest moment share with the
Lakeside Farm people, in other words, with Nora.

His car conveyed him with all speed to Lakeside Farm in good time
for the evening meal. To the assembled family Dean proceeded to read
passages which he considered of interest to them. "'Well, your Canadian
has really settled down into his place in the office and into his own
rooms. It was all we could do to hold him with us for a month, he is so
fearfully independent. Are all Canadians like that? The Mater would have
been glad to have had him remain a month longer. But would he stay? He
has a way with him. He has struck up a terrific friendship with Hugo
Raeder. You remember the Yale man who has come to Benedick, Frame and
Company, father's financial people? Quite a presentable young man he is
of the best Yale type, which is saying something. Larry and he have tied
up to each other in quite a touching way. In the office, too, Larry has
found his place. He captured old Scread the very first day by working
out some calculations that had been allowed to accumulate, using some
method of his own which quite paralysed the old chap. Oh, he has a way
with him, that Canadian boy! Father, too, has fallen for him. To hear
him talk you would imagine that he fully intended handing over ere long
the business to Larry's care. The Mater has adopted him as well, but
with reservations. Of course, what is troubling her is her dread of a
Canadian invasion of her household, especially--'um um--" At this point
Mr. Dean Wakeham read a portion of the letter to himself with slightly
heightened colour. "'While as for Elfie, he has captured her, baggage
and bones. The little monkey apparently lives only for him. While as for
Larry, you would think that the office and the family were the merest
side issues in comparison with the kid. All the same it is very
beautiful to see them together. At times you would think they were
the same age and both children. At other times she regards him with
worshipful eyes and drinks in his words as if he were some superior
being and she his equal in age and experience. She has taken possession
of him, and never hesitates to carry him off to her own quarters,
apparently to his delight. Oh, he has a way with him, that Canadian
boy! The latest is that he has invited Elfie to stay a month with him in
Alberta when he gets his first holiday. He has raved to her over Polly.
Elfie, I believe, has accepted his invitation regardless of the wishes
of either family. The poor little soul is really better, I believe,
for his companionship. She is not so fretful and she actually takes her
medicine without a fight and goes to bed at decent hours upon the merest
hint of his Lordship's desire in the matter. In short, he has the family
quite prostrate before him. I alone have been able to stand upright and
maintain my own individuality.'"

"I am really awfully glad about the kid," said Dean. "After all she
really has rather a hard time. She is so delicate and needs extra care
and attention, and that, I am afraid, has spoiled her a bit."

"Why shouldn't the little girl spend a few weeks with us here this
summer, Mr. Wakeham?" said Mrs. Gwynne. "Will you not say to your mother
that we should take good care of her?"

"Oh, Mrs. Gwynne, that is awfully good of you, but I am a little afraid
you would find her quite a handful. As I have said, she is a spoiled
little monkey and not easy to do with. She would give you all a lot of
trouble," added Dean, looking at Nora.

"Trouble? Not at all," said Nora. "She could do just as she likes here.
We would give her Polly and let her roam. And on the farm she would find
a number of things to interest her."

"It would be an awfully good thing for her, I know," said Dean, vainly
trying to suppress the eagerness in his tone, "and if you are really
sure that it would not be too much of a burden I might write."

"No burden at all, Mr. Wakeham," said Mrs. Gwynne. "If you will write
and ask Mrs. Wakeham, and bring her with you when you return, we shall
do what we can to make her visit a happy one, and indeed, it may do the
dear child a great deal of good."

Thus it came about that the little city child, delicate, fretted,
spoiled, was installed in the household at Lakeside Farm for a visit
which lengthened out far beyond its original limits. The days spent upon
the farm were full of bliss to her, the only drawback to the perfect
happiness of the little girl being the separation from her beloved fidus
Achates, with whom she maintained an epistolary activity extraordinarily
intimate and vivid. Upon this correspondence the Wakeham family came
chiefly to depend for enlightenment as to the young lady's activities
and state of health, and it came to be recognised as part of Larry's
duty throughout the summer to carry a weekly bulletin regarding Elfie's
health and manners to the Lake Shore summer home, where the Wakehams
sought relief from the prostrating heat of the great city. These week
ends at the Lake Shore home were to Larry his sole and altogether
delightful relief from the relentless drive of business that even
throughout the hottest summer weather knew neither let nor pause.

It became custom that every Saturday forenoon Rowena's big car would
call at the Rookery Building and carry off her father, if he chanced to
be in town, and Larry to the Lake Shore home. An hour's swift run over
the perfect macadam of the Lake Shore road that wound through park
and boulevard, past splendid summer residences of Chicago financial
magnates, through quiet little villages and by country farms, always
with gleams of Michigan's blue-grey waters, and always with Michigan's
exhilarating breezes in their faces, would bring them to the cool depths
of Birchwood's shades and silences, where for a time the hustle and
heat and roar of the big city would be as completely forgotten as if a
thousand miles away. It was early on a breathless afternoon late in July
when from pavement and wall the quivering air smote the face as if blown
from an opened furnace that Rowena drove her car down La Salle Street
and pulled up at the Rookery Building resolved to carry off with her as
a special treat "her men" for an evening at Birchwood.

"Come along, Larry, it is too hot to live in town today," she said as
she passed through the outer office where the young man had his desk. "I
am just going in to get father, so don't keep me waiting."

"Miss Wakeham, why will you add to the burdens of the day by breezing
thus in upon us and making us discontented with our lot. I cannot
possibly accept your invitation this afternoon."

"What? Not to-day, with the thermometer at ninety-four? Nonsense!" said
the young lady brusquely. "You look fit to drop."

"It is quite useless," said Larry with a sigh. "You see we have a man in
all the way from Colorado to get plans of a mine which is in process
of reconstruction. These plans will take hours to finish. The work is
pressing, in short must be done to-day."

"Now, look here, young man. All work in this office is pressing but none
so pressing that it cannot pause at my command."

"But this man is due to leave to-morrow."

"Oh, I decline to talk about it; it is much too hot. Just close up your
desk," said the young lady, as she swept on to her father's office.

In a short time she returned, bearing that gentleman in triumph with
her. "Not ready?" she said. "Really you are most exasperating, Larry."

"You may as well throw up your hands, Larry. You'd better knock off for
the day," said Mr. Wakeham. "It is really too hot to do anything else
than surrender."

"You see, it is like this, sir," said Larry. "It is that Colorado mine
reconstruction business. Their manager, Dimock, is here. He must leave,
he says, tomorrow morning. Mr. Scread thinks he should get these off as
soon as possible. So it is necessary that I stick to it till we get it
done."

"How long will it take?" said Mr. Wakeham.

"I expect to finish to-night some time. I have already had a couple of
hours with Dimock to-day. He has left me the data."

"Well, I am very sorry, indeed," said Mr. Wakeham. "It is a great pity
you cannot come with us, and you look rather fagged. Dimock could not
delay, eh?"

"He says he has an appointment at Kansas City which he must keep."

"Oh, it is perfect rubbish," exclaimed Rowena impatiently, "and we have
a party on to-night. Your friend, Mr. Hugh Raeder, is to be out, and
Professor Schaefer and a friend of his, and some perfectly charming
girls."

"But why tell me these things now, Miss Wakeham," said Larry, "when you
know it is impossible for me to come?"

"You won't come?"

"I can't come."

"Come along then, father," she said, and with a stiff little bow she
left Larry at his desk.

Before the car moved off Larry came hurrying out.

"Here is Elfie's letter," he said. "Perhaps Mrs. Wakeham would like to
see it." Miss Wakeham was busy at the wheel and gave no sign of having
heard or seen. So her father reached over and took the letter from him.

"Do you know," said Larry gravely, "I do not think it is quite so hot as
it was. I almost fancy I feel a chill."

"A chill?" said Mr. Wakeham anxiously. "What do you mean?"

Miss Wakeham bit her lip, broke into a smile and then into a laugh. "Oh,
he's a clever thing, he is," she said. "I hope you may have a real good
roast this afternoon."

"I hope you will call next Saturday," said Larry earnestly. "It is sure
to be hot."

"You don't deserve it or anything else that is good."

"Except your pity. Think what I am missing."

"Get in out of the heat," she cried as the car slipped away.

For some blocks Miss Wakeham was busy getting her car through the crush
of the traffic, but as she swung into the Park Road she remarked, "That
young man takes himself too seriously. You would think the business
belonged to him."

"I wish to God I had more men in my office," said her father, "who
thought the same thing. Do you know, young lady, why it is that so many
greyheads are holding clerk's jobs? Because clerks do not feel that
the business is their own. The careless among them are working for five
o'clock, and the keen among them are out for number one. Do you know if
that boy keeps on thinking that the business is his he will own a big
slice of it or something better before he quits. I confess I was greatly
pleased that you failed to move him."

"All the same, he is awfully stubborn," said his daughter.

"You can't bully him as you do your old dad, eh?"

"I had counted on him for our dinner party to-night. I particularly want
to have him meet Professor Schaefer, and now we will have a girl too
many. It just throws things out."

They rolled on in silence for some time through the park when suddenly
her father said, "He may be finished by six o'clock, and Michael could
run in for him."

At six o'clock Miss Wakeham called Larry on the 'phone. "Are you still
at it?" she enquired. "And when will you be finished?"

"An hour, I think, will see me through," he replied.

"Then," said Miss Wakeham, "a little before seven o'clock the car will
be waiting at your office door."

"Hooray!" cried Larry. "You are an angel. I will be through."

At a quarter of seven Larry was standing on the pavement, which was
still radiating heat, and so absorbed in watching for the Wakehams' big
car that he failed to notice a little Mercer approaching till it drew up
at his side.

"What, you, Miss Rowena?" he cried. "Your own self? How very lovely of
you, and through all this heat!"

"Me," replied the girl, "only me. I thought it might still be hot and a
little cool breeze would be acceptable. But jump in."

"Cool breeze, I should say so!" exclaimed Larry. "A lovely, cool, sweet
spring breeze over crocuses and violets! But, I say, I must go to my
room for my clothes."

"No evening clothes to-night," exclaimed Rowena.

"Ah, but I have a new, lovely, cool suit that I have been hoping to
display at Birchwood. These old things would hardly do at your dinner
table."

"We'll go around for it. Do get in. Do you know, I left my party to come
for you, partly because I was rather nasty this afternoon?"

"You were indeed," said Larry. "You almost broke my heart, but this
wipes all out; my heart is singing again. That awfully jolly letter
of Elfie's this week made me quite homesick for the open and for the
breezes of the Alberta foothills."

"Tell me what she said," said Rowena, not because she wanted so much to
hear Elfie's news but because she loved to hear him talk, and upon no
subject could Larry wax so eloquent as upon the foothill country of
Alberta. Long after they had secured Larry's new suit and gone on their
way through park and boulevard, Larry continued to expatiate upon the
glories of Alberta hills and valleys, upon its cool breezes, its flowing
rivers and limpid lakes, and always the western rampart of the eternal
snow-clad peaks.

"And how is the mine doing?" inquired Rowena, for Larry had fallen
silent.

"The mine? Oh, there's trouble there, I am afraid. Switzer--you have
heard of Switzer?"

"Oh, yes, I know all about him and his tragic disappointment. He's the
manager, isn't he?"

"The manager? No, he's the secretary, but in this case it means the same
thing, for he runs the mine. Well, Switzer wants to sell his stock. He
and his father hold about twenty-five thousand dollars between them. He
means to resign. And to make matters worse, the manager left last week.
They are both pulling out, and it makes it all the worse, for they had
just gone in for rather important extensions. I am anxious a bit. You
see they are rather hard up for money, and father raised all he could on
his ranch and on his mining stock."

"How much is involved?" inquired Rowena.

"Oh, not so much money as you people count it, but for us it is all we
have. He raised some fifty thousand dollars. While the mine goes on and
pays it is safe enough, but if the mine quits then it is all up with
us. There is no reason for anxiety at present as far as the mine is
concerned, however. It is doing splendidly and promises better every
day. But Switzer's going will embarrass them terribly. He was a perfect
marvel for work and he could handle the miners as no one else could.
Most of them, you know, are his own people."

"I see you are worrying," said Rowena, glancing at his face, which she
thought unusually pale.

"Not a bit. At least, not very much. Jack is a levelheaded chap--Jack
Romayne, I mean--my brother-in-law. By the way, I had a wire to say that
young Jack had safely arrived."

"Young Jack? Oh, I understand. Then you are Uncle Larry."

"I am. How ancient I feel! And what a lot of responsibility it lays upon
me!"

"I hope your sister is quite well."

"Everything fine, so I am informed. But what was I saying? Oh, yes,
Jack is a level-headed chap and his brother-in-law, Waring-Gaunt, who is
treasurer of the company, is very solid. So I think there's no doubt but
that they will be able to make all necessary arrangements."

"Well, don't worry to-night," said Rowena. "I want you to have a good
time. I am particularly anxious that you should meet and like Professor
Schaefer."

"A German, eh?" said Larry.

"Yes--that is, a German-American. He is a metallurgist, quite wonderful,
I believe. He does a lot of work for father, and you will doubtless have
a good deal to do with him yourself. And he spoke so highly of Canada
and of Canadians that I felt sure you would be glad to meet him. He is
really a very charming man, musical and all that, but chiefly he is
a man of high intelligence and quite at the top of his profession. He
asked to bring a friend of his with him, a Mr. Meyer, whom I do not know
at all; but he is sure to be interesting if he is a friend of Professor
Schaefer's. We have some nice girls, too, so we hope to have an
interesting evening."

The company was sufficiently varied to forbid monotony, and sufficiently
intellectual to be stimulating, and there was always the background of
Big Business. Larry was conscious that he was moving amid large ideas
and far-reaching interests, and that though he himself was a small
element, he was playing a part not altogether insignificant, with a
promise of bigger things in the future. Professor Schaefer became easily
the centre of interest in the party. He turned out to be a man of the
world. He knew great cities and great men. He was a connoisseur in art
and something more than an amateur in music. His piano playing, indeed,
was far beyond that of the amateur. But above everything he was a man
of his work. He knew metals and their qualities as perhaps few men in
America, and he was enthusiastic in his devotion to his profession.
After dinner, with apologies to the ladies, he discoursed from full and
accurate knowledge of the problems to be met within his daily work and
their solutions. He was frequently highly technical, but to everything
he touched he lent a charm that captivated his audience. To Larry he was
especially gracious. He was interested in Canada. He apparently had a
minute knowledge of its mineral history, its great deposits in metals,
in coal, and oil, which he declared to be among the richest in the
world. The mining operations, however, carried out in Canada, he
dismissed as being unworthy of consideration. He deplored the lack of
scientific knowledge and the absence of organisation.

"We should do that better in our country. Ah, if only our Government
would take hold of these deposits," he exclaimed, "the whole world
should hear of them." The nickel mining industry alone in the Sudbury
district he considered worthy of respect. Here he became enthusiastic.
"If only my country had such a magnificent bit of ore!" he cried. "But
such bungling, such childish trifling with one of the greatest, if not
the very greatest, mining industries in the world! To think that the
Government of Canada actually allows the refining of that ore to be done
outside of its own country! Folly, folly, criminal folly! But it is
all the same in this country, too. The mining work in America is
unscientific, slovenly, unorganised, wasteful. I am sorry to say," he
continued, turning suddenly upon Larry, "in your western coal fields
you waste more in the smoke of your coke ovens than you make out of
your coal mines. Ah, if only those wonderful, wonderful coal fields were
under the organised and scientific direction of my country! Then you
would see--ah, what would you not see!"

"Your country?" said Hugo Raeder, smiling. "I understood you were an
American, Professor Schaefer."

"An American? Surely! I have been eighteen years in this country."

"You are a citizen, I presume?" said Mr. Wakeham.

"A citizen? Yes. I neglected that matter till recently; but I love my
Fatherland."