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The Firing Line by Robert W. Chambers

R >> Robert W. Chambers >> The Firing Line




Hamil walked toward the door, stopping on the threshold to say: "Well,
I'll tell you one thing, Malcourt; I've often disliked you at times; but
I don't now. And I don't exactly know why."

"I do."

"Why?"

"Oh, because you've forgiven me. Also--you think I've a better side."

"Haven't you?"

"My son," said Malcourt, "if somebody'll prove it to me I might sleep
better. Just at present I'm ready for anything truly criminal. There was
a killing at the Club all right. I assumed the role of the defunct. Now
I haven't any money; I've overdrawn my balance and my salary; Portlaw is
bilious, peevish, unapproachable. If I asked you for a loan I'd only
fall a victim again to my insatiable scientific curiosity. So I'll just
lie here and browse on cigarettes and grape-fruit until something
happens--"

"If you need any money--"

"I told you that we are more or less alike," nodded Malcourt. "Your
offer is partly traditional, partly impulsive, altogether
ill-considered, and does your intelligence no credit!"

Hamil laughed.

"All the same it's an offer," he said, "and it stands. I'm glad I know
you better, Malcourt. I'll be sorry instead of complacently disgusted if
you never pan out; but I'll bet you do, some time."

Malcourt looked up.

"I'm ass enough to be much obliged," he said. "And now, before you go,
what the devil did you shoot in the woods?"

"Miss Cardross got a gobbler--about the biggest bird I ever saw. Eudo
Stent skinned it and Mr. Cardross is going to have it set up in New
York. It's a wonderful--"

"Didn't _you_ shoot anything?"

"Oh, I assassinated a few harmless birds," said Hamil absently; and
walked out into the corridor. "I've got to go over a lot of accumulated
letters and things," he called back. "See you later, Malcourt."

There was a mass of mail, bills, plans, and office reports for him lying
on the hall table. He gathered these up and hastened down the stairway.

On the terrace below he found Mrs. Cardross, and stopped to tell her
what a splendid trip they had, and how beautifully Shiela had shot.

"You did rather well yourself," drawled Mrs. Cardross, with a bland
smile. "Shiela says so."

"Oh, yes, but my shooting doesn't compare with Shiela's. I never knew
such a girl; I never believed they existed--"

"They are rare," nodded the matron. "I am glad everybody finds my little
daughter so admirable in the field."

"Beyond comparison in the field and everywhere," said Hamil, with a
cordiality so laboriously frank that Mrs. Cardross raised her eyes--an
instant only--then continued sorting the skeins of silk in her
voluminous lap.

Shiela appeared in sight among the roses across the lawn; and, as Mr.
Cardross came out on the terrace to light his after-breakfast cigar,
Hamil disappeared in the direction of the garden where Shiela now stood
under the bougainvillia, leisurely biting into a sapodilla.

Mrs. Cardross nodded to her white-linen-clad husband, who looked very
handsome with the silvered hair at his temples accentuating the clear,
deep tan of his face.

"You are burnt, Neville. Did you and the children have a good time?"

"A good time! Well, just about the best in my life--except when I'm with
you. Too bad you couldn't have been there. Shiela shoots like a demon.
You ought to have seen her among the quail, and later, in the saw-grass,
pulling down mallard and duskies from the sky-high overhead range! I
tell you, Amy, she's the cleverest, sweetest, cleanest sportsman I ever
saw afield. Gray, of course, stopped his birds very well. He has a lot
of butterflies to show you, and--'longicorns,' I believe he calls those
beetles with enormous feelers. Little Tiger is a treasure; Eudo and the
others did well--"

"And Mr. Hamil?" drawled his wife.

"I _like_ him. It's a verdict, dear. You were quite right; he _is_ a
nice boy--rather a lovable boy. I've discovered no cloven hoof about
him. He doesn't shoot particularly well, but his field manners are
faultless."

His wife, always elaborately upholstered, sat in her wide reclining
chair, plump, jewelled fingers busy with a silk necktie for Hamil, her
pretty blue eyes raised at intervals to scan her husband's animated
features.

"Does Gray like him as much as ever, Neville?"

"O Lord, Gray adores him, and I like him, and you knit neckties for him,
and Jessie doses him, and Cecile quotes him--"

"And Shiela?"

"Oh, Shiela seems to like him," said Cardross genially. His wife raised
her eyes, then calmly scrutinized her knitting.

"And Mr. Hamil?"

"What about him, dear?"

"Does he seem to like Shiela?"

Her husband glanced musingly out over the lawn where, in their white
flannels, Shiela and Hamil were now seated together under a brilliant
Japanese lawn umbrella, examining the pile of plans, reports and
blue-prints which had accumulated in Hamil's office since his absence.

"He--seems to like her," nodded Cardross, "I'm sure he does. Why not?"

"They were together a good deal, you said last night."

"Yes; but either Gray or I or one of the guides--"

"Of course. Then you don't think--"

Cardross waited and finally looked up. "What, dear?"

"That there is anything more than a sensible friendship--"

"Between Shiela and Garret Hamil?"

"Yes; we were not discussing the Emperor of China."

Cardross laughed and glanced sideways at the lawn umbrella.

"I--don't--know."

His wife raised her brows but not her head.

"Why, Neville?"

"Why what?"

"Your apparent doubt as to the significance of their friendship."

"Dear--I don't know much about those things."

His wife waited.

"Hamil is so nice to everybody; and I've not noticed how he is with
other young girls," continued her husband restlessly. "He does seem to
tag after Shiela.... Once or twice I thought--or it seemed to me--or
rather--"

His wife waited.

"Well, he seemed rather impressed by her field qualities," concluded
Cardross weakly.

His wife waited.

Her husband lit a cigar very carefully: "That's all I noticed, dear."

Mrs. Cardross laid the narrow bit of woven blue silk on her knee and
smoothed it reflectively.

"Neville!"

"Yes, dear."

"I wonder whether Mr. Hamil has heard."

Her husband did not misunderstand. "I think it likely. That old
harridan--"

"_Please_, Neville!"

"Well, then, Mrs. Van Dieman has talked ever since you and Shiela sat on
the aspirations of her impossible son."

"You think Mr. Hamil knows?"

"Why not? Everybody does, thanks to that venomous old lady and her limit
of an offspring."

"And in spite of that you think Mr. Hamil might be seriously impressed?"

"Why not?" repeated Cardross. "She's the sweetest, cleanest-cut
sportsman--"

[Illustration: "Examining the pile of plans, reports, and
blue-prints."]

"Dear, a field-trial is not what we are discussing."

"No, of course. But those things count with a man. And besides,
admitting that the story is all over Palm Beach and New York by this
time, is there a more popular girl here than our little Shiela? Look at
the men--troops of 'em! Alex Anan knew when he tried his luck. You had
to tell Mr. Cuyp, but Shiela was obliged to turn him down after all. It
certainly has not intimidated anybody. Do you remember two years ago how
persistent Louis Malcourt was until you squelched him?"

"Yes; but he didn't know the truth then. He acts sometimes as though he
knew it now. I don't think he would ask Shiela again. And, Neville, if
Mr. Hamil does not know, and if you think there is the slightest chance
of Shiela becoming interested in him, he ought to be told--indirectly.
Unhappiness for both might lie in his ignorance."

"Shiela would tell him before he--"

"Of course. But--it might then be too late for her--if he prove less of
a man than we think him! He comes from a family whose connections have
always thought a great deal of themselves--in the narrower sense; a
family not immune from prejudice. His aunt, Miss Palliser, is very
amiable; but, dear, we must not make the mistake that she could consider
Shiela good enough for her nephew. One need not be a snob to hesitate
under the pitiful circumstances."

"If I know Hamil, he'll ask little advice from his relatives--"

"But he will receive plenty, Neville."

Cardross shrugged. "Then it's up to him, Amy."

"Exactly. But do you wish to have our little Shiela in a position where
her declared lover hesitates? And so I say, Neville, that it is better
for her that Mr. Hamil should know the truth in ample time to reconsider
any sentiment before he utters it. It is only fair to him and to Shiela.
That is all."

"Why do you say all this now, dearest? Have you thought--"

"Yes, a little. The child is fond of him. I did think she once cared for
Louis--as a young girl cares for a boy. But we couldn't permit her to
take any chances, poor fellow!--his family record is sadly against him.
No; we did right, Neville. And now, at the first sign, we must do right
again between Shiela and this very lovable boy who is making your park
for you."

"Of course," said Cardross absently, "but the man who hesitates because
of what he learns about Shiela isn't worth enlightening." He looked out
across the lawn. "I hope it happens," he said. "And, by the way, dear,
I've got to go to town."

"O Neville!"

"Don't worry; I'm not going to contract pneumonia--"

"When are you going?"

"To-morrow, I think."

"Is it anything that bothers you?"

"No, nothing in particular. I have a letter from Acton. There seems to
be some uncertainty developing in one or two business quarters. I
thought I'd see for myself."

"Are you worrying?"

"About what?"

"About the Shoshone Securities Company?"

"Not exactly worrying."

She shook her head, but said nothing more.

During February the work on the Cardross estate developed sufficiently
to become intensely interesting to the family. A vast circular sunken
garden, bewitchingly formal, and flanked by a beautiful terrace and
balus trade of coquina, was approaching completion between the house and
an arm of the lagoon. The stone bridge over the water remained
unfinished, but already, across it, miles of the wide forest avenue
stretched straight away, set at intervals by carrefours centred with
fountain basins from which already tall sparkling columns of water
tumbled up into the sunshine.

But still the steam jets puffed up above the green tree-tops; and the
sickening whine of the saw-mill, and the rumble of traction engines over
rough new roads of shell, and the far racket of chisel and hammer on
wood and stone continued from daylight till dark.

Every day brought to Hamil new questions, new delays, vexations of
lighting, problems of piping and drainage. Contractors and
sub-contractors beset him; draughtsmen fairly buried him under tons of
drawings and blue-prints. All of which was as nothing compared to the
labour squabbles and endless petty entanglements which arose from
personal jealousy or political vindictiveness, peppered with dark hints
of peonage, threats, demands, and whispers of graft.

The leasing of convict labour for the more distant road work also
worried him, but the sheriffs of Dade and Volusia were pillars of
strength and comfort to him in perplexity--lean, soft-spoken, hawk-faced
gentlemen, gentle and incorruptible, who settled scuffles with a glance,
and local riots with a deadly drawl of warning which carried conviction
like a bullet to the "bad" nigger of the blue-gum variety, as well as to
the brutish white autocrat of the turpentine camps.

That the work progressed so swiftly was wonderful, even with the
unlimited means of Neville Cardross to back his demands for haste. And
it might have been impossible to produce any such results in so short a
period had there not been contractors in the vicinity who were
accustomed to handle vast enterprises on short notice. Some of these
men, fortunately for Hamil, had been temporarily released from sections
of the great Key West Line construction; and these contractors with
their men and materials were immediately available for the labour in
hand.

So all though February work was rushed forward; and March found the
sunken garden in bloom, stone-edged pools full of lotus and lilies,
orange trees blossoming in a magnificent sweep around the balustrade of
the terrace, and, beyond, the graceful stone bridge, passable but not
quite completed. Neither were the great systems of pools, fountains,
tanks, and lakes completed by any means, but here and there foaming jets
trembled and glittered in the sunlight, and here and there placid
reaches, crystal clear, reflected the blue above.

As for Palm Beach, visitors and natives had watched with liveliest
interest the development of the great Cardross park. In the height of
the season visits to the scene of operations were made functions;
tourists and residents gathered in swarms and took tea and luncheon
under the magnificent live-oaks of the hammock.

Mrs. Cardross herself gave a number of lawn fetes with the kindly
intention of doing practical good to Hamil, the success of whose
profession was so vitally dependent upon the approval and personal
interest of wealth and fashion and idleness.

Shiela constantly tormented him about these functions for his benefit,
suggesting that he attire himself in a sloppy velvet jacket and let his
hair grow and his necktie flow. She pretended to prepare placards
advertising Hamil's popular parks for poor people at cut rates,
including wooden horses and a barrel-organ.

"An idea of mine," she suggested, glancing up from the writing-pad on
her knees, "is to trim a dozen alligators with electric lights and turn
them loose in our lake. There's current enough in the canal to keep the
lights going, isn't there, Mr. Hamil? Incandescent alligators would make
Luna Park look like a bog full of fireflies--"

"O Shiela, let him alone," protested Mrs. Carrick. "For all you know Mr.
Hamil may be dreadfully sensitive."

"I'll let him alone if he'll let his beard grow horrid and silky and
permit us to address him as Cher maitre--"

"I won't insist on that if you'll call me by my first name," said Hamil
mischievously.

"I never will," returned the girl. Always when he suggested it, the
faint pink of annoyed embarrassment tinted Shiela's cheeks. And now
everybody in the family rallied her on the subject, for they all had
come to call him Garry by this time.

"Don't I always say 'Shiela' to you?" he insisted.

"Yes, you do and nobody was consulted. I informed my mother, but she
doesn't seem to resent it. So I am obliged to. Besides I don't like your
first name."

Mrs. Cardross laughed gently over her embroidery; Malcourt, who was
reading the stock column in the _News_, turned and looked curiously at
Hamil, then at Shiela. Then catching Mrs. Carrick's eye:

"Portlaw is rather worried over the market," he said. "I think he's
going North in a day or two."

"Why, Louis!" exclaimed Mrs. Cardross; "then you will be going, too, I
suppose."

"His ways are my ways," nodded Malcourt. "I've been here too long
anyway," he added in a lower voice, folding the paper absently across
his knees. He glanced once more at Shiela, but she had returned to her
letter writing.

Everybody spoke of his going in tones of civil regret--everybody except
Shiela, who had not even looked at him. Cecile's observations were
plainly perfunctory, but she made them nevertheless, for she had begun
to take the same feminine interest in Malcourt that everybody was now
taking in view of his very pronounced attentions to Virginia Suydam.

All the world may not love a lover, but all the world watches him. And a
great many pairs of bright eyes and many more pairs of faded ones were
curiously following the manoeuvres of Louis Malcourt and Virginia
Suydam.

Very little of what these two people did escaped the social Argus at
Palm Beach--their promenades on the verandas of the two great hotels,
their appearance on the links and tennis-courts together, their daily
encounter at the bathing-hour, their inevitable meeting and pairing on
lawn, in ballroom, afloat, ashore, wherever young people gathered under
the whip of light social obligations or in pursuit of pleasure.

And they were discussed. She being older than he, and very wealthy, the
veranda discussions were not always amiable; but nobody said anything
very bitter because Virginia was in a position to be socially respected
and the majority of people rather liked Malcourt. Besides there was
just enough whispering concerning his performances at the Club and the
company he kept there to pique the friendly curiosity of a number of
fashionable young matrons who are always prepossessed in favour of a man
at whom convention might possibly one day glance askance.

So everybody at Palm Beach was at least aware of the affair. Hamil had
heard of it from his pretty aunt, and had been thoroughly questioned. It
was very evident that Miss Palliser viewed the proceedings with dismay
for she also consulted Wayward, and finally, during the confidential
retiring-hour, chose the right moment to extract something definite from
Virginia.

But that pale and pretty spinster was too fluently responsive, admitting
that perhaps she had been seeing a little too much of Malcourt,
protesting it to be accidental, agreeing with Constance Palliser that
more discretion should be exercised, and promising it with a short,
flushed laugh.

And the next morning she rode to the Inlet with Malcourt, swam with him
to the raft, and danced with him until dawn at "The Breakers."

* * * * *

Mrs. Cardross and Jessie Carrick bent over their embroidery; Shiela
continued her letter writing with Gray's stylographic pen; Hamil, booted
and spurred, both pockets stuffed with plans, paced the terrace waiting
for his horse to be brought around; Malcourt had carried himself and his
newspaper to the farther end of the terrace, and now stood leaning over
the balustrade, an unlighted cigarette between his lips.

"I suppose you'll go to Luckless Lake," observed Hamil, pausing beside
Malcourt in his walk.

"Yes. There's plenty to do. We stripped ten thousand trout in October,
and we're putting in German boar this spring."

"I should think your occupation would be fascinating."

"Yes? It's lonely, too, until Portlaw's camp parties begin. I get an
overdose of nature at times. There's nobody of my own ilk there except
our Yale and Cornell foresters. In winter it's deadly, Hamil, deadly! I
don't shoot, you know; it's deathly enough as it is."

"I don't believe I'd find it so."

"You think not, but you would. That white solitude may be good medicine
for some, but it makes me furious after a while, and I often wish that
the woods and the deer and the fish and I myself and the whole devilish
outfit were under the North Pole and frozen solid! But I can't afford to
pick and choose. If I looked about for something else to do I don't
believe anybody would want me. Portlaw pays me more than I'm worth as a
Harvard post-graduate. And if that is an asset it's my only one."

Hamil, surprised at his bitterness, looked at him with troubled eyes.
Then his eyes wandered to Shiela, who had now taken up her embroidery.

"I can't help it," said Malcourt impatiently; "I like cities and people.
I always liked people. I never had enough of people. I never had any
society as a boy; and, Hamil, you can't imagine how I longed for it. It
would have been well for me to have had it. There was never any in my
own home; there was never anything in my home life but painful memories
of domestic trouble and financial stress. I was for a while asked to the
homes of schoolmates, but could offer no hospitality in return.
Sensitiveness and humiliation have strained the better qualities out of
me. I've been bruised dry."

He leaned on his elbows, hands clasped, looking out into the sunlight
where myriads of brilliant butterflies were fluttering over the carpet
of white phlox.

"Hamil," he said, "whatever is harsh, aggressive, cynical, mean,
sneering, selfish in me has been externally acquired. You scrape even a
spineless mollusc too long with a pin, and the irritation produces a
defensive crust. I began boy-like by being so damned credulous and
impulsive and affectionate and tender-hearted that even my kid sister
laughed at me; and she was only three years older than I. Then followed
that period of social loneliness, the longing for the companionship of
boys and girls--girls particularly, in spite of agonies of shyness and
the awakening terrors of shame when the domestic troubles ended in an
earthquake which gave me to my father and Helen to my mother, and a
scandal to the newspapers.... O hell! I'm talking like an autobiography!
Don't go, if you can stand it for a moment longer; I'm never likely to
do it again."

Hamil, silent and uncomfortable, stood stiffly upright, gloved hands
resting on the balustrade behind him. Malcourt continued to stare at the
orange-and-yellow butterflies dancing over the snowy beds of blossoms.

"In college it was the same," he said. "I had few friends--and no home
to return to after--my father-died." He hesitated as though listening.
Whenever he spoke of his father, which was seldom, he seemed to assume
that curious listening attitude; as though the man, dead by his own
hand, could hear him....

"Wayward saw me through. I've paid him back what he spent on me. You
know his story; everybody does. I like him and sponge on him. We
irritate each other; I'm a beast to resent his sharpness. But he's not
right when he says I never had any illusions.... I had--and have.... I
do beastly things, too.... Some men will do anything to crush out the
last quiver of pride in them.... And the worst is that, mangled, torn,
mine still palpitates--like one of your wretched, bloody quail gaping on
its back! By God! At least, I couldn't do _that_!--_Kill_ for
pleasure!--as better men than I do. And better women, too!... What am I
talking about? I've done worse than that on impulse--meaning well, like
other fools."

Malcourt's face had become drawn, sallow, almost sneering; but in the
slow gaze he turned on Hamil was that blank hopelessness which no man
can encounter and remember unmoved.

"Malcourt," he said, "you're morbid. Men like you; women like you--So do
I--now--"

"It's too late. I needed that sort of thing when I was younger. Kindness
arouses my suspicion now. Toleration is what it really is. I have no
money, no social position here--or abroad; only a thoroughly discredited
name in two hemispheres. It took several generations for the Malcourts
to go to the devil; but I fancy we'll all arrive on time. What a
reunion! I hate the idea of family parties, even in hell."

He straightened up gracefully and lighted his cigarette; then the easy
smile twitched his dry lips again and he nodded mockingly at Hamil:

"Count on my friendship, Hamil; it's so valuable. It has already quite
ruined one person's life, and will no doubt damage others before I
flicker out."

"What do you mean, Malcourt?"

"What I say, old fellow. With the best intentions toward self-sacrifice
I usually do irreparable damage to the objects of my regard. Beware my
friendship, Hamil. There's no luck in it or me.... But I do like you."

He laughed and sauntered off into the house as Hamil's horse was brought
around; and Hamil, traversing the terrace, mounted under a running fire
of badinage from Shiela and Cecile who had just come from the
tennis-courts to attempt some hated embroidery for the charity fair then
impending.

So he rode away to his duties in the forest, leaving a placid
sewing-circle on the terrace. From which circle, presently, Shiela
silently detached herself, arms encumbered with her writing materials
and silks. Strolling aimlessly along the balustrade for a while,
watching the bees scrambling in the scarlet trumpet-flowers, she
wandered into the house and through to the cool patio.

For some days, now, after Hamil's daily departure, it had happened that
an almost unendurable restlessness akin to suspense took possession of
her; a distaste and impatience of people and their voices, and the
routine of the commonplace.

To occupy herself in idleness was an effort; she had no desire to. She
had recently acquired the hammock habit, lying for hours in the coolness
of the patio, making no effort to think, listening to the splash of the
fountain, her book or magazine open across her breast. When people came
she picked up the book and scanned its pages; sometimes she made
pretence of sleeping.

But that morning, Malcourt, errant, found her reading in her hammock.
Expecting him to pass his way as usual, she nodded with civil
indifference, and continued her reading.

"I want to ask you something," he said, "if I may interrupt you."

"What is it, Louis?"

"May I draw up a chair?"

"Why--if you wish. Is there anything I can do for you? "--closing her
book.

"Is there anything I can do for _you_, Shiela?"

A tinge of colour came into her cheeks.

"Thank you," she said in curt negation.

"Are you quite sure?"

"Quite. What do you mean?"

"There is one thing I might do for your sake," he smiled--"blow my bally
brains out."

Copyright (c) 2007. bestextbooks.com. All rights reserved.

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892"

George William Curtis - "Trumps"

Edward A. Rand - "The Knights of the White Shield"

Various - "Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892"

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