Short Fiction · A Transaction In Hearts (6/12) (1/2)

V

Decidedly the days were shorter. As Gonfallon let himself in with a latchkey, it was barely five, yet already night had come. The hall was dark; and as he drew off his gloves, straightening and folding them methodically as was his custom, he told himself that Jane must have forgotten the gas.

From the sitting-room came a murmur, and through the portiere a thread of light. “It is Ruth,” he reflected. For that morning she had appeared at breakfast, declaring that she had rested well, and that for the time being at least she was free of pain. “It is Ruth and some visitor,” he reflected⁠—Mr. Qualms, perhaps⁠—and he made to enter the room, but at once he drew back. The glimpse which he caught had shown him not Ruth, but Claire, and at her side Trement Yarde. They were standing a little apart from each other, their backs turned to the door, and for a moment Gonfallon hesitated, his hand on the curtain’s fringe.

Since the preceding night he had not seen the girl. She had breakfasted, as she usually did, in her room, and, shortly after the morning meal, matters connected with the bishop’s decease had demanded his presence abroad, detaining him until now.

And as he hesitated, Yarde, who had been speaking in a monotone, pitched his voice in higher keys. Gonfallon’s fingers tightened on the fringe. He hated the man, he hated his looks, the cut of his coat, his intonation, everything, even to his manner and the trick he had of contemplating his fingernails.

“This is the third time I have asked you,” Gonfallon heard him say.

“If it is the last,” Claire answered, “there must be luck in odd numbers, after all.”

“You are decided, then?”

“Fully.”

“Very good. It remains to me⁠—there, listen a moment, won’t you?”

During the pause that followed Gonfallon fancied the young man eying the polished tips of his fingers.

“It is this. Some day you may be in need of assistance. If you are, believe me, there is no one to whom you can turn more readily than to me. You know where I live, and, parenthetically, I can assure you that the walls of my apartment are dumb⁠—”

“Leave the room.”

The command reached Gonfallon with the resonance of a bell.

“Certainly, since you wish it. In fact, I was on the point of doing so. Save at your invitation, I will not venture to enter it again.”

It was evident that Yarde had turned. Gonfallon dropped the fringe, and groped back into the shadows.

“I am sorry to have annoyed you,” the young man added. He had reached the threshold, and Gonfallon moved yet farther away.

“If you do not leave I will ring.”

“And I must assure you,” he continued, “that I would not have made this suggestion had I not⁠—unless, h’m, well⁠—I saw my father this afternoon. He is in Wall Street, you know. Good night, Miss Bucholz.”

There was a rush of light, the curtain fell again, the front door opened and closed.

Gonfallon still stood in the darkness, one arm extended along the wall, the other pendent at his side. His head was bent, his eyes fixed on the stair. From the adjoining room came the sound of Claire’s uneasy tread: she seemed to be pacing the room, restless as a panther is, lashing the furniture with her skirt.

What manner of girl was she, that Yarde should permit himself such a speech? And what manner of man was he, that he should suffer such a speech to pass unpunished? Gonfallon’s hand clinched, and the arm which had extended along the wall he raised in anger. But it was himself he could have struck: he was humiliated at his own attitude. He knew, none better, that it had been his duty to interrupt, to protect, and to force that libertine from the door.

And Claire! He heard her cross the room again, and felt that the indignity was smarting still. If she had repulsed the man at first, might it not be because of him?

He left the shadows; in a moment he was with her. The promenade had ceased: she had thrown herself on a lounge, and sat, her feet crossed, her virginal eyes upturned and pensive.

“I saw that man Yarde go out,” he began, abruptly. “What was he doing here?”

Claire lowered her eyes from the ceiling to the wall. “Really,” she answered; “I took no note of his action. He spoke of the weather, I believe, and⁠—let me see; oh, yes, he quoted a passage from Horace, which if I understood I would repeat, and⁠—and asked after you. Ruth seems better today, doesn’t she?”

Gonfallon’s breath came quicker. The change in Claire, a change which since the preceding night was greater than that of an August displaced by March, the flippancy of her indifference, the enervations of the day, the conflicts with himself, the conversation overheard and uninterpreted, the unexplained presence of a man whom he loathed and whom he could give himself no valid reason for loathing⁠—these things had put him in a state of irritation which is comparable only to that which comes of a sudden depletion of force. But of the inward ferment there was little if any outward show. He eyed her narrowly, his lip austere.

“At your age, Ruth would have felt herself contaminated by such a man,” he said, at last, and paused expectant of some reply.

But Claire answered nothing. Her eyes had gone up again to the ceiling. From beneath her skirt a patent-leather shoe, narrow and pointed, moved in and out.

“Did you not hear me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, with her negligent drawl⁠—“yes, I heard; but you see, Chris, customs have changed since the fall of Troy.”

To this Gonfallon feigned assent, his lip austerer than before.

“Very true,” he said. “Yet, if I may not admonish you, it is at least my duty to inform your father that you receive a ruffian to insult you in my house.”

“Ah!” As though battle were imminent, she straightened herself. Her expression had lost its flippancy; it had become frosty and brilliant. “Do you know, I thought you were listening? In regard to father, do as you like; only don’t tell him you mistook his daughter for⁠—”

The speech unfinished was like a bugle blown through the crimson of an autumn eve. It was harmonious, it was inspiring, but it jarred. It awoke Gonfallon from a trance. Claire’s eyes were no longer pensive; they had the chill and glitter of steel. And now as she laughed her voice was hard and metallic as her eyes.

“There, Chris,” she added, in lighter tone; “I am not one of your congregation yet.”

She had arisen, and was about to pass him by, but something in his face seemed to detain her steps. Through one of those influences occult yet recognized, her lips took on their former sweetness, her eyes glowed, and she smiled.

“Claire⁠—” he murmured, and would have caught and held her, perhaps, but a voice in the hall, unheard by him, must have alarmed her: she eluded him, and disappeared in the dining-room beyond.

“Mr. Bucholz, sir, and can he see you?” It was Jane the housemaid, angular as a hendecagon and prim as a Puritan Sunday.

Gonfallon started. He was as an aeronaut dropped from colorless ether into some dank moraine.

“He says it’s most important,” the woman added, and patted her apron flat.

As yet he was not wholly himself; the variety and multiplicity of emotions had not had the effect of a sedative; but he nodded gravely enough, and presently he caught a whiff of alcohol: Mr. Bucholz was before him.

“Take a seat,” said Gonfallon, mechanically.

“Thanks, I’ve just had one.”

The tone in which he spoke arrested attention. For a second Gonfallon eyed him suspiciously. Could it be that Claire⁠—But no; such a supposition was absurd.

“Gonfallon, I want a moment with you. Are you busy?” Mr. Bucholz spoke with the air of one to whom the possible occupation of his host was a matter of no importance.

To Gonfallon’s hands came a sudden moisture. “No,” he replied.

Mr. Bucholz had a forehead that was wide yet low, the forehead of a murderer. His face was thin, his body obese. Since his disasters his complexion had assumed the hue of a brandied cherry. He looked shabby, and he was unshorn. His manner was a compound of alternate pompousness and jocularity. To Gonfallon he was revolting. To Jane, and possibly to others, it was a matter of wonder that such a man could be the father of a girl like Claire.

“You are well, I hope?” Gonfallon added.

At this Mr. Bucholz laughed aloud; but his laugh was nervous, yet unsonorous as a muffled bell⁠—a laugh that came wholly from within, a laugh which frightened and which chilled.

“See here, parson, I want you to do something for me⁠—something⁠—how shall I put it? Well, let us call it ad majorem Dei gratiam. That is technical, is it not?”

“And concise.”

“And concise, as you say. By the way, I think I will change my mind. Suppose you sit down too.”

Mr. Bucholz found a seat, and Gonfallon, relieved of his sudden panic, followed suit.

“You remember,” Mr. Bucholz continued, “that when Jerolomon got me in that corner everything went. Twenty million; not a penny less. The place at Irvington, the house on Fifth Avenue, the yacht, the stable, stocks, bonds, all the tra-la-la of wealth, evaporated in a night. I lost my grip. The few hundred thousand that remained followed in a fortnight. The last fifty-dollar bill I could call my own I dropped in a bucket-shop. Curious, isn’t it?” And Mr. Bucholz put his hand to his head and for the moment seemed to lose himself in thought.

“Well?”

“Ah, yes.” And Mr. Bucholz looked up again. “Well, after that, as you know, Usselex gave me his gold-business. It was good of Usselex, for I had squeezed him once myself. Jerolomon, I have reason to believe, suggested it to him. However, it was four thousand a year⁠—just the salary I paid the gardener who did picturesque geometry for me at Irvington: why, you get almost three times as much yourself. Or rather,” he added, in an undertone, as though reflecting on the point of the speech, “or rather I got it for you. But that’s as may be. A week ago I learned, accidentally as I then thought, that Jerolomon was engineering another corner in wheat. I went to him and asked a loan. He laughed at me. I told him he had taken everything I had. ‘Bucholz,’ he answered, ‘I took back at compound interest what you once took from me. I am not lending money today: I am paying off old scores. Good morning to you.’ And he turned on his heel. In the course of the afternoon I got ten thousand dollars: I went in and bought. Yesterday the market fell: the ten thousand were wiped out.”

“Dear me!”

“And now,” continued Bucholz, “that ten thousand must be repaid.”

“Of course it must be. Only⁠—”

“Only you haven’t got it, I suppose. Not even ad majorem Dei gratiam. Well, sir, you have got to get it.”

As he spoke, he rose from his seat and fronted his host. His face had changed. Up to this it had conveyed the varying shades of indifference, apathy, and disgust, but now it was resolute, it expressed a determination menacing and inflexible as a bayonet, and of which Gonfallon seemed to feel the point and the chill.

“You have got to get it,” he repeated, “and before Saturday at that.”

And as Gonfallon made no answer, Bucholz bent over him until his face almost touched his listener’s ear. “I put Usselex’ name on the check,” he whispered, and drew himself up.

“You⁠—you say you put Usselex’ name on the check?”

And as Bucholz nodded encouragingly, invitingly even, to the dawn of understanding which he discerned breaking in Gonfallon’s eyes, the latter cowered in his chair. “Why, that is forgery!” he gasped.

“Be still,” hissed Bucholz; “be still.” Then, seeing that the shot had told, he nodded again, and added, with a negligent, musing air, “Yes, that, I believe, is what it is called.” He laughed a little⁠—or was it a laugh?⁠—a sound that had in it the ghoulish mock of the graphophone, a tone that runs cracked and thin, like a man’s laughter, as Swinburne puts it, heard in hell, far down.

Gonfallon still cowered in his chair. Bucholz assumed a graver mien, and, affecting to ignore his son-in-law’s attitude, monologued at the wall. “There was a time,” he said⁠—“but bah! what is the use? Why, I couldn’t turn a block that someone didn’t rush to me with hands outstretched: ‘Oh, my dear Mr. Bucholz, how are you?’ Today the same people⁠—and to every man jack of them I have been of use⁠—the very same ones, people whom I lifted not out of the dust alone, but out of the mud, will not loan me a dollar. After all, they are only human, I suppose. What is that line in the catechism? However, that is not to the point. I am sorry about it all, but it was not for myself I worked, it was for Ruth and for Claire. It was for them I made myself rich, respected, famous even. It was for them I got into that trap of Jerolomon’s. It was for them I did this thing. Ruth you can always look after, but Claire⁠—well, I used to think she would be the richest girl in the land. The hope of a parvenu, you will say. I grant it; but it was for her I cared, for her and for Ruth, not for myself.”

“I can do nothing,” said Gonfallon. In his eyes was the look of one who has sounded an abyss. “No, nothing. The very utmost I could raise would not cover a quarter of the⁠—the⁠—”

“Forgery is the word, but theft will do.”

“Of the amount,” he continued, in a dogged effort to pass the interruption unheeded. “And there is no one to whom I could go,” he added, reflectively, “save perhaps to Nicholas Manhattan. And if I went to him I would have to explain; which of course is impossible.”

“Not impossible in the least,” said Bucholz, very gravely; “not impossible in the least. I don’t see at all why you should say so. Nothing could be more proper. Mr. Manhattan is your parishioner; he is even a warden, isn’t he? I haven’t the pleasure of knowing him personally, and yet I am quite sure that he wouldn’t let a trifle like ten thousand weigh with him if he knew your good repute and that of Gethsemane was concerned.”

“My good repute! My good repute has nothing to do in the matter.”

“You are mistaken, dear boy; it has. When I am promenading a striped suit through the corridors of Sing Sing, it were facetious indeed did my son-in-law continue to officiate in the Church of the Holy Bilk⁠—I mean Gethsemane. Your parishioners in whom you have instilled so well all the beautiful precepts of Christian charity will show you the difference between theory and practice. Not an atom of charity will you get from them. Why, dear boy, you might just as well begin to pack up at once. If this thing gets out, never will they let you preach again. Really they won’t. I think you can take my word for that⁠—Why, Claire, where did you spring from?”

Unobserved by either, the girl had entered the room. To her father’s query she made no direct answer; she hastened towards him and gave him a fleeting caress.

Then, turning to Gonfallon, “Ruth wants you,” she explained.

“Can she have heard?” he wondered. He scanned her face; it was untroubled, and as she spoke, her voice assured.

“She has not heard,” he decided, and, waving at Bucholz, “I will be back presently,” he said.

“Saturday is the first of the month,” that gentleman announced. “The bank-account will be balanced then.”

But Gonfallon had already left the room. As he ascended the stair, he felt as though it were giving way beneath him. On each side were threatening hands. Yet above no haven was discernible, while below was an abyss.

“Of us two,” he muttered, “the nobler still is he;” and then, mentally, he bolted at the eccentricity of his own thought. “I am daft,” he told himself.

The stair, however, did not give way beneath him, the threatening hands did not detain his steps; he reached his wife in safety and sank in a chair at her side.

“Were you busy, Chris?” she asked. “I could have waited. It is merely a line from Mrs. Manhattan: she wants us all to dine with her on the 12th. I, of course, cannot go. But you will take Claire, will you not?”

“No, no,” he answered, impatiently. The 12th, indeed! He would be in little mood for dining then. “No,” he repeated. “Send a regret.”