HARRISON CRESSY REVERTS
Left to himself, Harrison Cressy discovered
to his annoyance that there was no train out of Dunbury
for two hours. That was the worst of these little
one-horse towns. You might as well be dead as
alive in ’em. By the time he had smoked
his after-dinner cigar he felt as if he might as well
be dead himself. He felt suddenly heavy, old,
almost decrepit, though that morning when he had left
Boston he had considered himself in the prime of life
and vigor. Hang it! He was sixty-nine.
A man was about done for at sixty-nine, all but ready
to turn into his grave. And he without son or
grandson. Lord! What a swindle life was anyway!
Well, there was no use sitting still
groaning. He would get up and take a little walk
until train time. Maybe it was his liver that
made him feel so confoundedly rotten and no count.
A little exercise would do him good.
Absentmindedly he noted, as he strolled
down the elm-shaded streets, the neatness of the lawns,
the gay flower beds, the hammocks and swings out under
the trees as if people really lived out of doors here.
There were animate evidences of the fact everywhere.
Children played here and there in shady spaces under
big trees. Pretty girls on wide, hospitable-looking
porches chatted and drank lemonade and knitted.
A lithe, red-haired lass in white played tennis on
a smooth dirt court with a tall, clean looking youth.
As Mr. Cressy passed the girl cried out, “Love
all” and the millionaire smiled. It occurred
to him it was not so hard to love all in a village
like this. It was only in cities that you hated
your neighbor and did him first lest you be done yourself.
He hadn’t been loose in a country
town like this for years. He had almost forgotten
what they were like when you didn’t shoot through
them in a motor car, rushing always to get somewhere
else. His casual saunter down the quiet street
was oddly soothing to his nerves, awoke happy, yet
half-sad memories.
He had met and loved Carlotta’s
mother in a country town. The lilacs had been
in bloom and the orioles had stood sponsor for his
first Sunday call. They had become engaged by
the time the asters were out. The next lilac
time they had been married. A third spring and
the little Carlotta had come. They had both been
disappointed at its not being a boy, but the little
girl was a wonder, with hair as gold as buttercups,
eyes like wood violets and a laugh that lilted and
gurgled like the little brook down in the meadow.
And then, two years later, the boy
had come, come and drifted off to some far place.
It had been a bitter blow to Rose as well as to Harrison
Cressy, especially as they said there never could be
any more children. Rose grew frail, did not rally
or regain her strength. They advised a sanitarium
in the Adirondacks for her. She had gone, but
it had been of no use. By the time they brought
in the first gentians Rose had drifted off after her
little son. Carlotta and her father were alone.
By this time Harrison Cressy had begun
to show the authentic Midas touch. Only the little
Carlotta stood between him and sheer, sordid money
grubbing. And even she was an excuse for the getting
of always more and more wealth. He told himself
Carlotta should be a veritable princess, should go
always clad in the finest, have of the best, be surrounded
always by the most beautiful. She should know
only joy and light and laughter.
Thinking these thoughts, Carlotta’s
father sighed. For now at last Carlotta wanted
something he could not give her, was learning after
twenty-two years of cloudless joy the bitter way of
tears. Why hadn’t that stubborn boy surrendered?
For that matter why didn’t Carlotta
surrender? This was a new idea to Harrison Cressy.
All the time he had been talking to Philip Lambert
he had been seeing Carlotta only in relation to Crest
House and the Beacon Street mansion. But just
now he had been recalling her mother under very different
associations. Rose had been content with a tiny
little cottage set in a green yard gay with bright
old fashioned flowers. He and Rose had nested
as happily as the orioles in the maples, especially
after the gold-haired baby came. Was Carlotta
so different from Rose? Was her happiness such
a different kind of thing? Were women not pretty
much alike at heart? Did they not want about
the same things?
Carlotta loved this lad of hers as
Rose had loved himself. Was it her own father
who was cheating her out of happiness because he had
taught her to believe that money and limousines and
great houses and many servants and silken robes are
happiness? If he had talked to her of other things,
told her about her mother and the happy old days among
the lilacs and orioles, with little but love to nest
with, couldn’t he have made her see things more
truly, shown her that love was the main thing, that
money could not buy happiness? One could not
buy much of anything that was worth buying Harrison
Cressy thought. One could purchase only the worthless.
That was the everlasting failure of money.
He remembered the boy’s, “I
love Carlotta. But I don’t love her enough
to let her or you buy me.” It was true.
Neither he nor his daughter had been able to purchase
the lad’s integrity, his good faith, his ideals.
And Harrison Cressy was thankful from the bottom of
his heart that it was so.
He turned his steps back to the village
and as he did so an oriole flashed out of the shrubbery
near him, and passed like a flame out of sight among
the trees. This was a good sign. Orioles
had nested every year in the maple tree by the little
white house where Carlotta had been born. Carlotta
herself had always loved them. “Pretty,
pretty, birdie!” she had been wont to call out.
“Come, daddy, let’s follow him and see
where he goes.”
He would go home and tell Carlotta
all this, make her see that her happiness was in her
own hands. No, it was the boy’s story.
If Carlotta would not follow the orioles and her own
heart for Philip Lambert she would not for any argument
of his.
By this time a distant puff of smoke
gave evidence that the Boston train was already on
its way, leaving Harrison Cressy in Dunbury. Not
that he cared. He had business still to transact
ere he departed, a new battle to fight. He walked
with the firm elastic step of a youth back to town.
What did it matter if you were sixty-nine when the
best things of life were still ahead of you?
Accordingly Phil was a second time
that day surprised by the unheralded arrival of Carlotta’s
father, a rather dusty, weary and limp-looking gentleman
this time, but exuding a sort of benignant serenity
that had not been there early in the day.
“Hello,” greeted the millionaire
blandly. “Missed my train got
to browsing round the town like an old billy goat.
Not sorry though. It is a nice little town.
Mind if I sit down? I’m a bit blown.”
And dropping on a stool Mr. Cressy fanned himself
with his panama and grinned at Philip, a grin the
young man could not quite fathom. What new trick
had the clever old financier at the bottom of his
mind? Phil hoped he had not got to go through
the thing again. Once had been quite enough for
one day.
“Let me send out for something
cool to drink, Mr. Cressy. You must be horribly
hot. It is warm in here, even with all the fans
going. Hi, there, Tommy!” Philip summoned
a freckled, red-haired youth from somewhere in the
background. “Run over to Greene’s
and get a lemonade for this gentleman, will you?”
“Right, Mr. Phil.”
The boy saluted an odd salute, Mr. Cressy
noted. It was rendered with the right hand, the
three middle fingers held up, the thumb bent over
touching the nail of the little finger. The saluter
stood very straight as he went through the ceremony
and looked very serious about it. “Queer!”
thought the onlooker. The messenger boys he knew
did not behave like that when you gave them an order.
Philip excused himself to attend to
a customer and in a moment the red-haired lad was
back with a tall glass of lemonade clinking delightfully
with ice. Mr. Cressy took it and set it down on
the counter while he fumbled for his wallet and produced
a dollar bill.
To his amazement the boy’s grin
faded, and he drew himself up with dignity.
“No, thank you, sir,”
he said to the proffered greenback. “I’m
a Scout and Scouts don’t take tips.”
“What!” gasped Harrison
Cressy. In all his life he did not recall meeting
a boy who ever refused money before. He began
to think there was something uncanny about this town
of Dunbury. First a young man who could not be
bought at any price. And now a boy who wouldn’t
take a tip for service rendered.
“I said I was a Scout,”
repeated the lad patiently. “And Scouts
don’t take tips. We are supposed to do
one good turn every day, anyway, and I hadn’t
gotten mine in before. I’m only a Tenderfoot
but I’m most ready for my second class tests.
Mr. Phil’s going to try me out in first aid as
soon as he gets time.”
“Mr. Phil! What’s
he got to do with it?” inquired Mr. Cressy, after
a long, satisfying swig of lemonade.
“He is our Scout-master and
a peach of a one too. He is going to take us
on a hike tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Tomorrow is
Sunday, young man.” The Methodist in Harrison
Cressy rose to the surface.
“I know. We all go to church
and Sunday school in the morning. Mr. Phil won’t
take us unless we do. But in the afternoon he
thinks it is all right to go on a hike. We don’t
practise signaling and things like that, but we get
in a lot of nature study. I can identify all my
ten trees now and a whole lot more besides, and I’ve
got a bird list of over sixty.”
“You don’t say so?”
Harrison Cressy was plainly impressed. “So
your Mr. Phil gives a good deal of time to that sort
of thing, does he?” he added, his eyes seeking
Philip Lambert in the distance.
“Should say he did. I guess
he gives about all the time he has outside of the
store. He’s a dandy Scout-master. What
he says goes, you betcher.”
Remembering the scene at the luncheon
table that day, Harrison Cressy thought it quite probable.
What Philip had said had gone “you betcher”
on that occasion with a vengeance. So young Lambert
gave his off hours to business of this sort.
Most of Carlotta’s male friends gave most of
theirs to polo, jazz, and chorus girls. He began
to covet Philip more than ever for a possible, and
he hoped probable, son-in-law.
It played into his purposes excellently
that Philip on returning invited him to supper on
the Hill that night. He wanted to meet the boy’s
people, especially the mother. Carlotta had told
him once that Philip’s mother was the most wonderful
person in the world.
Seated at the long table in the Lambert
dining-room Harrison Cressy enjoyed a meal such as
his chef-ridden soul had almost forgotten could exist a
meal so simple yet so delectable that he dreamed of
it for days afterward.
But the food, excellent as it was,
was only a small part of the significance of the occasion.
It was a revelation to the millionaire to know that
a family could gather around the board like this and
have such a thoroughly delightful time all round.
There was gay talk and ready laughter, a fine flavor
of old-fashioned courtesy and hospitality and good
will in everything that was said or done.
The Lambert girls the pretty
twins and the younger, slim slip of a lassie, Elinor were
charming, fresh, natural, unspoiled, very different
from and far more to his taste than most of the young
women who came to Crest House hot-house
products, over-sophisticated, cynical, too familiar
with rouge and cigarettes and the game of love and
lure, huntresses more or less, the whole pack of them.
It seemed girls could still be plain girls on this
enchanted Hill girls who would make wonderful
wives some day for some lucky men.
But the mother! She was the secret
of it all, quite as remarkable as Carlotta had said.
She was extraordinarily well read, talked well on a
dozen subjects as to which he was himself but vaguely
informed, and she was evidently even more extraordinarily
busy. There was talk of a Better Babies movement
in which she was interested, of a Red Cross Chapter
at which she had spent the afternoon, of a committee
meeting of the local Woman’s Club which was
bringing a noted English poet-lecturer to town.
There were Chatauqua plans in view, and a new children’s
reading room in the public library with a story-telling
hour of which Clare was to be in charge. A hundred
things indicated that Mrs. Lambert was by no means
confined to the four walls of her home for interests
and activities. Yet her home was exquisitely
kept and she was a mother first of all. One could
see that every moment. It was “Mums, this”
and “Mums, that” from them all. The
life of the home clearly pivoted about her.
Harrison Cressy found himself wishing
that Carlotta could have known a motherhood like that.
Rose had gone so soon. Carlotta had never known
what she missed. Perhaps Mr. Cressy himself had
not known until he saw Mrs. Lambert and realized what
a mother might be. Poor Carlotta! He had
given her a great deal. At least, until this,
afternoon, he had thought he had. But he had
never given her anything at all comparable to what
this quiet village store-keeper and his wife had given
to their son and daughters. He hadn’t had
it to give. He had been poor, after all, all
along. Though he hadn’t suspected it until
now.
After supper Stuart Lambert had slipped
quickly away, bidding his son stay up on the Hill
a little longer with their guest. Phil had demurred,
but had been quietly overruled and had acquiesced perforce.
Poor Dad! There had not been a moment all day
to relieve his mind about Mr. Cressy’s offer.
Not once had the father and son been alone. Phil
was afraid his father was taking the thing a good
deal to heart, and it worried him. He had counted
on talking it over together as they went back to the
store but his father had willed otherwise.
It was with Carlotta’s father
instead of his own that Philip talked first after
all.
“See here, Philip,” began
Mr. Cressy as they descended the Hill in “Lizzie.”
“I went at this all wrong. So did Carlotta.
I understand better now. I’ve been back
in the past this afternoon, remembering what it means
to live in the country and love and mate there in the
good old-fashioned way as Carlotta’s mother
and I did. It is what I want her to do with you.
Do you get that, boy? I want her to come to Dunbury.
I want her to have a piece of your mother. Carlotta
never knew what it was to have a mother. It is
mostly my fault she doesn’t see any clearer.
You mustn’t blame her, lad.”
“I don’t,” said Phil. “I
love her.”
“I know you do. And she
loves you. Go to her. Make her see.
Make her marry you and be happy.”
Phil was silent, not because he was
not moved by the older man’s plea but because
he was almost too moved to speak. It rather took
his breath away to have Harrison Cressy on his side
like this. It was almost too incredible, and
yet there was no mistaking the sincerity in the other’s
words or on his face. Carlotta’s father
did want Carlotta to come to him on his Hill.
But would Carlotta want it? That
was the question. For himself he sought no higher
road to follow than the one where his father and mother
had blazed the trail through fair weather and stormy
these many years. But would Carlotta be content
to travel so with him? He did not know.
At any rate he could ask her, try once more to make
her see, as her father put it.
He turned to his companion with a
sober smile at this point in his reflections.
“Thank you, Mr. Cressy.
I will try again and I know it is going to make a
great deal of difference to Carlotta and
to me to have you on my side. Perhaps
she will see it differently this time. I hope
so.”
“Lord, boy, so do I!”
groaned Mr. Cressy. “You will come back
to Crest House tomorrow with me?”
Phil hesitated, considered, shook his head.
“I’ll come next Saturday. I can’t
get away tomorrow,” he said.
“Why not? For the Lord’s sake, boy,
get it over!”
Phil smiled but shook his head.
He too wanted to get it over. He could hardly
wait to get to Carlotta, would have started that moment
if he could have done so. But there were clear-cut
reasons why he could not go tomorrow, obligations
that held him fast in Dunbury.
“I can’t go tomorrow because
I have promised my boys a hike,” he explained.
Harrison Cressy nearly exploded.
“Heavens, man! What does
a parcel of kids amount to when it comes to getting
you a wife? You can call off your hike, can’t
you?”
“I could, but it would be hard
on a good many of them. They count on it a good
deal. Some of them have given up other pleasures
they might have had on account of it. Tommy has,
for instance. His uncle asked him to go to Worcester
with him in his car, and he refused because of his
date with me. They are all bribed to church and
Sunday School by the means. One of the things
Scouting stands for is sticking to your job and your
word. I don’t think it is exactly up to
the Scoutmaster to dodge his responsibilities when
he preaches the other kind of thing. Of course,
if it were a life and death matter, it would be different.
It isn’t. I have waited a good many weeks
to see Carlotta. I can wait one more.”
Harrison Cressy grunted. He hardly
knew whether to fly into a rage with this extraordinary
young man or to clap him on the back and tell him he
liked him better and better every minute. He contented
himself by repeating a remark he had made earlier
in the day.
“You are a darn fool, young
man.” Then he added, half against his will,
“But I like your darnfoolness, hang me if I don’t!”
Phil had a strenuous two hours in
the store with never a minute to get at his father.
It was not until the last customer had departed, the
last clerk fled away and the clock striking eleven
that the father and son were alone.
Philip came over to where the older
man stood. His heart smote him when he saw how
utterly worn and weary the other looked, as if he had
suddenly added a full ten years to his age since morning.
His characteristic buoyancy seemed to have deserted
him for once.
“Dad, I’ve not had a minute
alone with you all day. I am sorry Mr. Cressy
bothered you about that blue sky proposition of his.
I never would have let him if I had known. Of
course there was nothing in it. I didn’t
consider it for a minute.”
Stuart Lambert smiled wearily and
sat down on the counter.
“I am afraid you have given
up more than we realized, Philip, in coming into the
store. Mr. Cressy gave me a glimpse into things
that I knew nothing about. You should have told
us.”
“There was nothing to tell.
I’ve given up nothing that was mine. I told
Carlotta all along she would have to come to me.
I couldn’t come to her. My whole life is
here with you. It is what I have wanted ever since
I had the sense to want anything but to enjoy my fool
self. But even then I didn’t appreciate
what it would be like to be here with you. I couldn’t,
till I had tried it and found out first hand what kind
of a man my dad was. I am absolutely satisfied.
If Mr. Cressy had offered me a million a year I wouldn’t
have taken it. It wouldn’t have been the
slightest temptation even ” he smiled
a little sadly “even with Carlotta
thrown in. I don’t want to get Carlotta
that way.”
“You say you are satisfied,
Philip. Maybe that is so. But you are not
happy.”
“I wasn’t, just at first.
I was a fool. I let the thing swamp me for awhile.
Mums helped pull me out of the slough and since then
I’ve been finding out that happiness is well,
a kind of by-product. Like the kingdom of heaven
it doesn’t come for observation. I have
had about as much happiness here with you, and with
Mums and the girls at home, and with my Scouts in
the woods, as I deserve, maybe more. I’m
going to try to get Carlotta. I haven’t
given up hope. I’m going down to Sea View
next week to ask her again and maybe things will be
different this time. Her father is on my side
now, which is a great help. He has got the Holiday
Hill viewpoint all at once. He wants Carlotta
to come to me us. So do I, with all
my heart. But whether she does or doesn’t,
I am here with you as long as you want me, first last
and all the time and glad to be. Please believe
that, Dad, always.”
Stuart Lambert rose.
“Philip, you don’t know
what it means to me to hear you say this.”
There was a little break in the older man’s
voice, the suggestion of pent emotion. “It
nearly killed me to think I ought to give you up.
You are sure you are not making too much of a sacrifice?”
“Dad! Please don’t
say that word to me. There isn’t any sacrifice.
It is what I want. I haven’t been a very
good son always. Even this summer I am afraid
I haven’t come up to all you expected of me,
especially just at first when I was wrapped up in
myself and my own concerns too much to see that doing
a good job in the store was only a small part of what
I was here in Dunbury to do. But anyway I am
prouder than I can tell you to be your son and I am
going to try my darndest to live up to the sign if
you will let me stay on being the minor part of it.”
He held out his hand and his father
took it. There were tears in the older man’s
eyes. A moment later the store was dark as the
two passed out shoulder to shoulder beneath the sign
of STUART LAMBERT AND SON.