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Donald Finkel, a noted American poet whose work teemed with curious juxtapositions, which in their unorthodoxy helped illuminate the function of poetry itself, died on Nov. 15 at his home in St. Louis. He was 79. The cause was complications of Alzheimers

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Gordon Keith written by Thomas Nelson Page

T >> Thomas Nelson Page >> Gordon Keith




"Yes."

Once, as Keith passed along down Broadway, just where some of the great
shops were at that time, before the tide had rolled so far up-town, a
handsome carriage and pair drew up in front of one of the big shops, and
a lady stepped from it just behind him. She was a very pretty young
woman, and richly dressed. A straight back and a well-set head, with a
perfect toilet, gave her distinction even among the handsomely appointed
women who thronged the street that sunny morning, and many a woman
turned and looked at her with approval or envy.

The years, that had wrought Keith from a plain country lad into a man of
affairs of such standing in New Leeds that a shrewd operator like Rawson
had selected him for his representative, had also wrought a great change
in Alice Lancaster. Alice had missed what she had once begun to expect,
romance and all that it meant; but she had filled with dignity the place
she had chosen. If Mr. Lancaster's absorption in serious concerns left
her life more sombre than she had expected, at least she let no one know
it. Association with a man like Mr. Lancaster had steadied and elevated
her. His high-mindedness had lifted her above the level of her worldly
mother and of many of those who constituted the set in which she lived.

He admired her immeasurably. He was constantly impressed by the
difference between her and her shallow-minded and silly mother, or even
between her and such a young woman as Mrs. Wentworth, who lived only for
show and extravagance, and appeared in danger of ruining her husband and
wrecking his happiness.

It was Mrs. Lancaster who descended from her carriage as Keith passed
by. Just as she was about to enter the shop, a well-knit figure with
square shoulders and springy step, swinging down the street, caught her
eye. She glanced that way and gave an exclamation. The door was being
held open for her by a blank-faced automaton in a many-buttoned uniform;
so she passed in, but pausing just inside, she glanced back through the
window. The next instant she left the shop and gazed down the street
again. But Keith had turned a corner, and so Alice Lancaster did not
see him, though she stood on tiptoe to try and distinguish him again in
the crowd.

"Well, I would have sworn that that was Gordon Keith," she said to
herself, as she turned away, "if he had not been so broad-shouldered and
good-looking." And wherever she moved the rest of the day her eyes
wandered up and down the street.

Once, as she was thus engaged, Ferdy Wickersham came up. He was dressed
in the tip of the fashion and looked very handsome.

"Who is the happy man?"

The question was so in keeping with her thought that she blushed
unexpectedly.

"No one."

"Ah, not me, then? But I know it was some one. No woman looks so
expectant and eager for 'no one.'"

"Do you think I am like you, perambulating streets trying to make
conquests?" she said, with a smile.

"You do not have to try," he answered lazily. "You do it simply by being
on the street. I am playing in great luck to-day."

"Have you seen Louise this morning?" she asked.

He looked her full in the face. "I see no one but you when you are
around."

She laughed lightly.

"Ferdy, you will begin to believe that after a while, if you do not stop
saying it so often."

"I shall never stop saying it, because it is true," he replied
imperturbably, turning his dark eyes on her, the lids a little closed.

"You have got so in the habit of saying it that you repeat it like my
parrot that I taught once, when I was younger and vainer, to say,
'Pretty Alice.' He says it all the time."

"Sensible bird," said Mr. Wickersham, calmly. "Come and drive me up to
the Park and let's have a stroll. I know such a beautiful walk. There
are so many people out to-day. I saw the lady of the 'cat-eyes and
cat-claws' go by just now, seeking some one whom she can turn again and
rend." It was the name she had given Mrs. Nailor.

"I do not care who is out. Are you going to the Wentworths' this
evening?" she asked irrelevantly.

"No; I rarely go there. Will you mention that to Mrs. Nailor? She
apparently has not that confidence in my word that I could have expected
in one so truthful as herself."

Mrs. Lancaster laughed.

"Ferdy--" she began, and then paused irresolute. "However--"

"Well, what is it? Say it."

"You ought not to go there so often as you do."

"Why?" His eyes were full of insolence.

"Good-by. Drive home," she said to the coachman, in a tone intentionally
loud enough for her friend to hear.

Ferdy Wickersham strolled on down the street, and a few minutes later
was leaning in at the door of Mrs. Wentworth's carriage, talking very
earnestly to the lady inside.

Mr. Wickersham's attentions to Louise Wentworth had begun to be the talk
of the town. Young Mrs. Wentworth was not a person to allow herself to
be shelved. She did not propose that the older lady who bore that name
should be known by it. She declared she would play second fiddle to no
one. But she discovered that the old lady who lived in the old mansion
on Washington Square was "Mrs. Wentworth," and that Mrs. Wentworth
occupied a position from which she was not to be moved. After a little
she herself was known as "Mrs. Norman." It was the first time Mrs.
Norman had ever had command of much money. Her mother had made a good
appearance and dressed her daughter handsomely, but to carry out her
plans she had had to stint and scrape to make both ends meet. Mrs.
Caldwell told one of her friends that her rings knew the way to the
pawnbroker's so well that if she threw them in the street they would
roll into his shop.

This struggle Louise had witnessed with that easy indifference which was
part her nature and part her youth. She had been brought up to believe
she was a beauty, and she did believe it. Now that she had the chance,
she determined to make the most of her triumph. She would show people
that she knew how to spend money; embellishment was the aim of her life,
and she did show them. Her toilets were the richest; her equipage was
the handsomest and best appointed. Her entertainments soon were among
the most splendid in the city.

Those who were accustomed to wealth and to parade wondered both at Mrs.
Norman's tastes and at her gratification of them.

All the town applauded. They had had no idea that the Wentworths, as
rich as they knew them to be, had so much money.

"She must have Aladdin's lamp," they said. Only old Mrs. Wentworth
looked grave and disapproving at the extravagance of her
daughter-in-law. Still she never said a word of it, and when the
grandson came she was too overjoyed to complain of anything.

It was only of late that people had begun to whisper of the frequency
with which Ferdy Wickersham was seen with Mrs. Norman. Certain it was
that he was with her a great deal.

That evening Alice Lancaster was dining with the Norman Wentworths. She
was equally good friends with them and with their children, who on their
part idolized her and considered her to be their especial property. Her
appearance was always the signal for a romp. Whenever she went to the
Wentworths' she always paid a visit to the nursery, from which she would
return breathless and dishevelled, with an expression of mingled
happiness and pain in her blue eyes. Louise Wentworth knew well why the
longing look was there, and though usually cold and statuesque, she
always softened to Alice Lancaster then more than she was wont to do.

"Alice pines for children," she said to Norman, who pinched her cheek
and, like a man, told her she thought every one as romantic and as
affectionate as herself. Had Mrs. Nailor heard this speech she would
have blinked her innocent eyes and have purred with silent thoughts on
the blindness of men.

This evening Mrs. Lancaster had come down from the nursery, where shouts
of childish merriment had told of her romps with the ringletted young
brigand who ruled there, and was sitting quite silent in the deep
arm-chair in an attitude of profound reflection, her head thrown back,
her white arms resting languidly on the arms of the chair, her face
unusually thoughtful, her eyes on the gilded ceiling.

Mrs. Wentworth watched her for a moment silently, and then said:

"You must not let the boy tyrannize over you so."

Mrs. Lancaster's reply was complete:

"I love it; I just love it!"

Presently Mrs. Wentworth spoke again.

"What is the matter with you this evening? You seem quite distraite."

"I saw a ghost to-day." She spoke without moving.

Mrs. Wentworth's face took on more interest.

"What do you mean? Who was it?"

"I mean I saw a ghost; I might say two ghosts, for I saw in imagination
also the ghost of myself as I was when a girl. I saw the man I was in
love with when I was seventeen."

"I thought you were in love with Ferdy then?"

"No; never." She spoke with sudden emphasis.

"How interesting! And you congratulated yourself on your escape? We
always do. I was violently in love with a little hotel clerk, with oily
hair, a snub-nose, and a waxed black moustache, in the Adirondacks when
I was that age."

Mrs. Lancaster made no reply to this, and her hostess looked at her
keenly.

"Where was it? How long before--?" She started to ask, how long before
she was married, but caught herself. "What did he look like? He must
have been good-looking, or you would not be so pensive."

"He looked like--a man."

"How old was he--I mean, when he fell in love with you?" said Mrs.
Wentworth, with a sort of gasp, as she recalled Mr. Lancaster's gray
hair and elderly appearance.

"Rather young. He was only a few years older than I was; a young--what's
his name?--Hercules, that brought me down a mountain in his arms the
second time I ever saw him."

"Alice Lancaster!"

"I had broken my leg--almost I had got a bad fall from a horse and could
not walk, and he happened to come along."

"Of course. How romantic! Was he a doctor? Did you do it on purpose?"
Mrs. Lancaster smiled.

"No; a young schoolmaster up in the mountains. He was not handsome--not
then. But he was fine-looking, eyes that looked straight at you and
straight through you; the whitest teeth you ever saw; and shoulders! He
could carry a sack of salt!" At the recollection a faint smile flickered
about her lips.

"Why didn't you marry him?"

"He had not a cent in the world. He was a poor young school-teacher, but
of a very distinguished family. However, mamma took fright, and whisked
me away as if he had been a pestilence."

"Oh, naturally!"

"And he was too much in love with me. But for that I think I should not
have given him up. I was dreadfully cut up for a little while. And he--"
She did not finish the sentence.

On this Mrs. Wentworth made no observation, though the expression about
her mouth changed.

"He made a reputation afterwards. I knew he would. He was bound to
succeed. I believed in him even then. He had ideals. Why don't men have
ideals now?"

"Some of them do," asserted Mrs. Wentworth.

"Yes; Norman has. I mean unmarried men. I heard he made a fortune, or
was making one--or something."

"Oh!"

"He knew more than any one I ever saw--and made you want to know. All I
ever read he set me to. And he is awfully good-looking. I had no idea he
would be so good-looking. But I tell you this: no woman that ever saw
him ever forgot him."

"Is he married?"

"I don't think so--no. If he had been I should have heard it. He really
believed in me."

Mrs. Wentworth glanced at her with interest.

"Where is he staying?"

"I do not know. I saw him through a shop-window."

"What! Did you not speak to him?"

"I did not get a chance. When I came out of the shop he was gone."

"That was sad. It would have been quite romantic, would it not? But,
perhaps, after all, he did not make his fortune?" Mrs. Wentworth looked
complacent.

"He did if he set his mind to it," declared Mrs. Lancaster.

"How about Ferdy Wickersham?" The least little light of malevolence
crept into Mrs. Wentworth's eyes.

Mrs. Lancaster gave a shrug of impatience, and pushed a photograph on a
small table farther away, as if it incommoded her.

"Oh, Ferdy Wickersham! Ferdy Wickersham to that man is a heated room to
the breath of hills and forests." She spoke with real warmth, and Mrs.
Wentworth gazed at her curiously for a few seconds.

"Still, I rather fancy for a constancy you'd prefer the heated rooms to
the coldness of the hills. Your gowns would not look so well in
the forest."

It was a moment before Mrs. Lancaster's face relaxed.

"I suppose I should," she said slowly, with something very like a sigh.
"He was the only man I ever knew who made me do what I did not want to
do and made me wish to be something better than I was," she
added absently.

Mrs. Wentworth glanced at her somewhat impatiently, but she went on:

"I was very romantic then; and you should have heard him read the
'Idylls of the King.' He had the most beautiful voice. He made you live
in Arthur's court, because he lived there himself."

Mrs. Wentworth burst into laughter, but it was not very merry.

"My dear Alice, you must have been romantic. How old were you, did you
say?"

"It was three years before I was married," said Mrs. Lancaster, firmly.

Her friend gazed at her with a puzzled expression on her face.

"Oh! Now, my dear Alice, don't let's have any more of this
sentimentalizing. I never indulge in it; it always gives me a headache.
One might think you were a school-girl."

At the word a wood in all the bravery of Spring sprang into Alice's
mind. A young girl was seated on the mossy ground, and outstretched at
her feet was a young man, fresh-faced and clear-eyed, quoting a poem of
youth and of love.

"Heaven knows I wish I were," said Mrs. Lancaster, soberly. "I might
then be something different from what I am!"

"Oh, nonsense! You do nothing of the kind. Here are you, a rich woman,
young, handsome, with a great establishment; perfectly free, with no one
to interfere with you in any way. Now, I--"

"That's just it," broke in Mrs. Lancaster, bitterly. "Free! Free from
what my heart aches for. Free to dress in sables and diamonds and die of
loneliness." She had sat up, and her eyes were glowing and her color
flashing in her cheeks in her energy.

Mrs. Wentworth looked at her with a curious expression in her eyes.

"I want what you have, Louise Caldwell. In that big house with only
ourselves and servants--sometimes I could wish I were dead. I envy every
woman I see on the street with her children. Yes, I am free--too free! I
married for respect, and I have it. But--I want devotion, sympathy. You
have it. You have a husband who adores you, and children to fill your
heart, cherish it." The light in her eyes was almost fierce as she
leaned forward, her hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles showed
white, and a strange look passed for a moment over Mrs.
Wentworth's face.

"You are enough to give one the blue-devils!" she exclaimed, with
impatience. "Let's have a liqueur." She touched a bell, but Mrs.
Lancaster rose.

"No; I will go."

"Oh, yes; just a glass." A servant appeared like an automaton at the
door.

"What will you have, Alice?" But Mrs. Lancaster was obdurate. She
declined the invitation, and declared that she must go, as she was going
to the opera; and the next moment the two ladies were taking leave of
each other with gracious words and the formal manner that obtains in
fashionable society, quite as if they had known each other just
fifteen minutes.

Mrs. Lancaster drove home, leaning very far back in her brougham.

Mrs. Wentworth, too, appeared rather fatigued after her guest departed,
and sat for fifteen minutes with the social column of a newspaper lying
in her lap unscanned.

"I thought she and Ferdy liked each other," she said to herself; "but he
must have told the truth. They cannot have cared for each other. I think
she must have been in love with that man."



CHAPTER XVII

KEITH MEETS NORMAN

The day after Keith's interview with Mr. Creamer he was walking up-town
more slowly than was his wont; for gloom was beginning to take the place
where disappointment had for some time been holding session. His
experience that day had been more than usually disheartening. These
people with all their shrewdness appeared to him to be in their way as
contracted as his mountaineers. They lived to amass wealth, yet went
like sheep in flocks, and were so blind that they could not recognize a
great opportunity when it was presented. They were mere machines that
ground through life as monotonously as the wheels in their factories,
turning out riches, riches, riches.

This morning Keith had come across an article in a newspaper which, in a
measure, explained his want of success. It was an article on New Leeds.
It praised, in florid sentences, the place and the people, gave a
reasonably true account of the rise of the town, set forth in a veiled
way a highly colored prospectus of the Wickersham properties, and
asserted explicitly that all the lands of value had been secured by this
company, and that such as were now being offered outside were those
which Wickersham had refused as valueless after a thorough and searching
examination. The falsity of the statements made Keith boil with rage.
Mr. J. Quincy Plume immediately flashed into his mind.

As he walked along, the newspaper clutched in his hand, a man brushed
against him. Keith's mind was far away on Quincy Plume and Ferdy
Wickersham; but instinctively, as his shoulder touched the
stranger's, he said:

"I beg your pardon."

At the words the other turned and glanced at him casually; then stopped,
turned and caught up with him, so as to take a good look at his face.
The next second a hand was on Keith's shoulder.

"Why, Gordon Keith!"

Keith glanced up in a maze at the vigorous-looking, well-dressed young
man who was holding out his gloved hand to him, his blue eyes full of a
very pleasant light. Keith's mind had been so far away that for a second
it did not return. Then a light broke over his face. He seized the
other's hand.

"Norman Wentworth!"

The greeting between the two was so cordial that men hurrying by turned
to look back at the pleasant faces, and their own set countenances
softened.

Norman demanded where Keith had just come from and how long he had been
in town, piling his questions one on the other with eager cordiality.

Keith looked sheepish, and began to explain in a rather shambling
fashion that he had been there some time and "intended to hunt him up,
of course"; but he had "been so taken up with business," etc., etc.

"I heard you were here on business. That was the way I came to know you
were in town," explained Norman, "and I have looked everywhere for you.
I hope you have been successful?" He was smiling. But Keith was still
sore from the treatment he had received in one or two offices
that morning.

"I have not been successful," he said, "and I felt sure that I should
be. I have discovered that people here are very much like people
elsewhere; they are very like sheep."

"And very suspicious, timid sheep at that," said Norman "They have
often gone for wool and got shorn. So every one has to be tested. An
unknown man has a hard time here. I suppose they would not look into
your plan?"

"They classed me with 'pedlers, book-agents, and beggars'--I saw the
signs up; looked as if they thought I was a thief. I am not used to
being treated like a swindler."

"The same old Keith! You must remember how many swindlers they have to
deal with, my boy. It is natural that they should require a guarantee--I
mean an introduction of some kind. You remember what one of them said
not long ago? 'A man spends one part of his life making a fortune and
the rest of it trying to keep others from stealing it from him.' You
ought to have come to me. You must come and dine with me this evening,
and we will talk it over. Perhaps, I can help you. I want to show you my
little home, and I have the finest boy in the world."

At the tone of cordial sincerity in his voice, Keith softened. He laid
his hand on the back of Norman's and closed it tightly.

"I knew I could always count on you, and I meant, of course, to come and
see you. The reason I have not come before I will explain to you
sometime. I was feeling a little sore over a matter--sheer lies that
some one has written." He shook the newspaper in his hand.

"Oh, don't mind that paper," said Norman. "The columns of that paper are
for hire. They belong at present to an old acquaintance of ours. They do
_me_ the honor to pay their compliments to my affairs now and then."

Keith walked up the street with a warm feeling about his heart. That
friendly face and kindly pressure of the hand had cheered him like
sunshine in a wintry day, and transformed the cold, cheerless city into
an abode of life and happiness. The crowds that thronged by him once
more took on interest for him. The faces once more softened into human
fellowship.

That evening, when Keith arrived at Norman Wentworth's, he found that
what he had termed his "little house" was, in fact, a very ample and
commodious mansion on one of the most fashionable avenues in the city.
Outside there was nothing to distinguish it particularly from the scores
of other handsome houses that stretched for blocks up and down the
street with ever-recurrent brown-stone monotony. They were as much alike
as so many box-stalls in a stable.

"If I had to live in one of these," thought Keith, as he was making his
way to keep his appointment, "I should have to begin and count my house
from the corner. No wonder the people are all so much alike!"

Inside, however, the personal taste of the owner counted for much more,
and when Keith was admitted by the velvety-stepped servant, he found
himself in a scene of luxury for which nothing that Norman had said had
prepared him.

A hall, rather contracted, but sumptuous in its furnishings, opened on a
series of drawing-rooms absolutely splendid with gilt and satin. One
room, all gold and yellow, led into another all blue satin, and that
into one where the light filtered through soft-tinted shades on
tapestries and rugs of deep crimson.

Keith could not help thinking what a fortunate man Norman was, and the
difference between his friend's situation in this bower of roses, and
his own in his square, bare little box on the windy mountain-side,
insensibly flashed over him. This was "an establishment"! How unequally
Fortune scattered her gifts! Just then, with a soft rustle of silk, the
portieres were parted, and Mrs. Wentworth appeared. She paused for a
second just under the arch, and the young man wondered if she knew how
effective she was. She was a vision of lace and loveliness. A figure
straight and sinuous, above the middle height, which would have been
quite perfect but for being slightly too full, and which struck one
before one looked at the face; coloring that was rich to brilliance;
abundant, beautiful hair with a glint of lustre on it; deep hazel eyes,
the least bit too close together, and features that were good and only
just missed being fine Keith had remembered her as beautiful, but as
Mrs. Wentworth stood beneath the azure portieres, her long, bare arms
outstretched, her lips parted in a half-smile of welcome, she was much
more striking-looking than Keith's memory had recorded. As he gazed on
her, the expression on his face testified his admiration.

She came forward with the same gratified smile on her face and greeted
him with formal words of welcome as Norman's old friend. Her thought
was, "What a strong-looking man he is! Like a picture I have seen
somewhere. Why doesn't Ferdy like him?"

As she sank into a soft divan, and with a sudden twist her train fell
about her feet, making an artistic drapery, Keith experienced a sense of
delight. He did not dream that Mrs. Wentworth knew much better than he
precisely the pose to show the curve of her white full throat and round
arm. The demands of notorious beauty were already beginning to tell on
her, and even while she spoke gracious words of her husband's friendship
for him, she from time to time added a touch here and a soft caress
there with her long white, hands to make the arrangement the more
complete. It was almost too perfect to be unconscious.

Suddenly Keith heard Norman's voice outside, apparently on the stair,
calling cheerily "Good-by" to some one, and the next second he came
hastily into the drawing-room. His hair was rumpled and his necktie a
trifle awry. As he seized and wrung Keith's hand with unfeigned
heartiness, Keith was suddenly conscious of a change in everything. This
was warmth, sincerity, and the beautiful room suddenly became a home.
Mrs. Wentworth appeared somewhat shocked at his appearance.

"Well, Norman, you are a sight! Just look at your necktie!"

"That ruffian!" he laughed, feeling at his throat and trying to adjust
the crooked tie.

"What will Mr. Keith think?"

"Oh, pshaw! Keith thinks all right. Keith is one of the men I don't have
to apologize to. But if I do"--he turned to Keith, smiling--"I'll show
you the apology. Come along." He seized Keith by the hand and started
toward the door.