Children of the Whirlwind, Leroy Scott [read full novel txt] 📗

Carlisle - is not her father."

"What's that?" exclaimed Larry.

"Not so loud. I said Jimmie Carlisle is not her father."

"Grandmother!"

"Her father is Joe Ellison."

"Grandmother!" He caught her hands. "Why - why - " But for a moment his utter dumbfoundment paralyzed his speech. "You're - you're sure of that?" he finally got out.

"Yes." She went on and told of how her suspicion had been aroused, of her interview with Joe Ellison which had transmuted suspicion into certainty, of her theory of the motives which had actuated Jimmie Carlisle in so perverting the directions of the man who had held Jimmie as his most trusted friend.

Larry was fairly stunned by this recital of what had been done. And he was further stunned as he realized the fullness of what now seemed to be the circumstances.

"God, think of it!" he breathed. "Maggie trying to be a great adventuress because she was brought up that way, because she thinks her father wants her to be that - and having never a guess of the truth! And Joe Ellison believing that his daughter is a nice, simple girl, happily ignorant of the life he tried to shield her from - and having never a guess of the truth! What a situation! And if they should ever find out - "

He broke off, appalled by the power and magnitude of what he vaguely saw. Presently he said in a numbed, awed voice:

"They should know the truth. But how are they to find out?"

"I'm leaving all that to you, Larry. Maggie and Joe Ellison are your affair. It's up to you to decide what you think best to do."

Larry was silent for several moments. "You've known this for some time, grandmother?"

"For several weeks."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I was afraid it might somehow bring you closer to Maggie, and I didn't want that," she answered honestly. "Now I think a little better of Maggie. And you've proved to me I can trust a great deal more to your judgment. Yes, I guess that's the chief reason I've come out here to tell you this: you've proved to me I've got to respect your judgment. And so whatever you may do - about Maggie or anything else - will be all right with me."

She did not wait for a response, but stood up. Her voice which had been shot through with emotion these last few minutes was now that flat, mechanical monotone to which the habitants of her little street were accustomed.

"I must be getting back to the city. Good-night."

He started to accompany her to her car, but she forbade him, saying that it would not help matters to have him seen and possibly recognized by the taxicab driver; and so she went out of the grounds alone. Within another hour and a half she was set down unobserved in a dim side street in Brooklyn. Thence she made her way on foot to the Subway and rode home. If the police had noticed her absence and should question her, she could refuse to answer, or say that she had been visiting late with a friend in Brooklyn.

Larry sat long out in the night after his grandmother had left him. What should he do with this amazing information placed at his disposal? Tell Joe Ellison? Or tell Maggie? Or tell both? Or himself try to meet Jimmie Carlisle and pay that traitor to Joe Ellison and that malformer of Maggie the coin he had earned?

But for hours the situation itself was still too bewildering in its many phases for Larry to give concentrated thought to what should be its attempted solution. Not until dawn was beginning to awaken dully, as with a protracted yawn, out of the shadowy Sound, was he able really to hold his mind with clearness upon the problem of what use he should make of these facts of which he had been appointed guardian. He decided against telling Joe Ellison - at least he would not tell him yet. He recalled the rumors of Joe Ellison's repressed volcano of a temper; if Joe Ellison should learn how he had been defrauded, all the man's vital forces would be instantly transformed into destructive, vengeful rage that would spare no one and count no cost. The result would doubtless be tragedy, with no one greatly served, and with Joe very likely back in prison. If he himself should go out to give Old Jimmie his deserts, his action would be just good powder wasted - it likewise would serve no constructive purpose. Larry realized that it is only human nature for a wronged man to wish for and attempt revenge; but that in the economy of life revenge has no value, serves no purpose; that it usually only makes a bad situation worse.

A tremendous wrong had been done here, a wrong which showed a malignant, cunning, patient mind. But as Larry finally saw the matter, the point for first consideration was not the valueless satisfaction of making the guilty man suffer, but was to try to restore to the victims some part of those precious things of which they had been unconsciously robbed.

And then Larry had what seemed to him an inspiration: his inspiration being only a sane thought, and what the Duchess, though she had not pointed the way to him, had thought he would do. Maggie was the important person in this situation! - Maggie whose life was just beginning, and whose nature he still believed to be plastic! Not Joe Ellison or Old Jimmie Carlisle, who had almost lived out their lives and whose natures were now settled into what they would be until the end. By playing upon the finer elements in Maggie's character he had all but succeeded in rousing to dominance that best nature which existed within her. He would privately tell Maggie the truth, and tell only her and leave the using of that knowledge to her alone. The shock of that knowledge, the effect of its revelations upon her, together with the responsibility of what she should do with this information, might be just the final forces necessary to make Maggie break away from all that she had been and swing over to all that he believed she might be.

Yes, that was the thing to do! And he would do it within the next twelve hours; for Dick had told him that Maggie was coming out again to Cedar Crest on the afternoon of the day which was now rousing from its sleep. That is, he would do it if the police or the allies of his one-time friends did not locate him before Maggie came. But of that he had no serious fear; he knew he had made a clean get-away from the Grantham, and that the shrewd Duchess had left no scent by which those bloodhounds of the Police Department could trail her.

Larry did not even try to sleep; he knew it would be of no avail. Back in his own room he sat going over the situation, and his decision. He tingled with the sense of the tremendous power which had been delivered into his hands. Yes, tremendous! But what were going to be Maggie's reactions the moment he told her? - just what would be her course after she knew the truth?


CHAPTER XXX


Larry undressed, had a bath, shaved, dressed again, and started to work. But that day the most Larry did was abstractedly going through the motions of work. He was completely filled with the situation and its many questions, and with the suspense of waiting for Maggie to come and of how he was going to manage to see her privately.

The meeting, however, proved no difficulty; for Maggie, who arrived at four, had come primarily on Larry's account and she herself maneuvered the encounter. While they were on the piazza, Dick having gone into the house for a fresh supply of cigarettes, and Miss Sherwood being in an animated discussion with Hunt, Maggie said:

"Miss Sherwood, I've never had a real look down at the Sound from the edge of your bluff. Do you mind if Mr. Brandon shows me?"

"Not at all. Tea won't be served for half an hour, so take your time. Have Mr. Brandon show you the view from just the other side of that old rose-bench; that's the best view."

They walked away chatting mechanically until they were in a garden seat behind the rose-bench. The rose-bench was a rather sorry affair, for it had been set out in this exposed place by a former gardener who had forgotten that the direct winds from the Sound are malgracious to roses. However, it screened the two, and was far enough removed so that ordinary tones would not carry to the house.

"Did your grandmother get you word about the police?" Maggie asked with suppressed excitement as soon as they were seated.

"Yes. She came out here about midnight."

"Then why, while you still had time, didn't you get farther away from New York than this?"

"If I'm to be caught, I'm to be caught; in the meantime, this is as safe a place as any other for me. Besides, I wanted to have at least one more talk with you - after something new grandmother told me about you."

"Something new about me?" echoed Maggie, startled by his grave tone. "What?"

"About your father," he said, watching closely for the effect upon her of his revelations.

"What about my father? What's he been doing that I don't know about?"

"You do not know a single thing that your father has done."

"What!"

"Because you do not know who your father is."

"What!" she gasped.

"Listen, Maggie. What I'm going to tell you may seem unbelievable, but you've got to believe it, because it's the truth. I can see that you have proofs if you want proofs. But you can accept what I tell you as absolute facts. You are by birth a very different person from what you believe yourself. Your father is not Jimmie Carlisle. And your mother - "

"Larry!" She tensely gripped his arm.

"Your mother was of a good family. I imagine something like Miss Sherwood's kind - though not so rich and not having such social standing. She died when you were born. She never knew what your father's business actually was; he passed for a country gentleman. He was about the smoothest and biggest crook of his time, and a straight crook if there is such a thing."

"Larry!" she breathed.

"He kept this gentleman-farmer side of his life and his marriage entirely hidden from his crook acquaintances; that is, from all except one whom he trusted as his most loyal friend. Before you were old enough to remember, he was tripped up and sent away on a twenty-year sentence."

"And he's - he's still in prison?" whispered Maggie.

Larry did not heed the interruption. "He had developed the highest kind of ambition for you. He wanted you to grow up a fine simple woman like your mother - something like Miss Sherwood. He did not want you ever to know the sort of life he had known; and he did not want you to be handicapped by the knowledge that you had a crook for a father. He still had intact your mother's fortune, a small one, but an honest one. So he put you and the money in the hands of his trusted friend, with the instructions that you were to be brought up