The Firing Line by Robert W. Chambers

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He was absent a long time. Portlaw had terminated the table ceremony,
and now, ensconced among a dozen fat cushions by the fire, a plump cigar
burning fragrantly between his curiously clean-cut and sharply chiselled
lips, he sat enthroned, majestically digesting; and his face of a Greek
hero, marred by heavy flesh, had become almost somnolent in its
expression of well-being and corporeal contentment.

"I don't know what I'd do without Louis," he said sleepily. "He keeps my
men hustling, he answers for everything on the bally place, he's so
infernally clever that he amuses me and my guests, he's on the job every
minute. It would be devilishly unpleasant for me if I lost him.... And
I'm always afraid of it.... There are usually a lot of receptive girls
making large eyes at him.... My only safety is that they are so
many--and so easy.... If Cardross hadn't signed that telegram I'd bet my
_bottes-sauvage_ it concerned some entanglement."

Hamil lay back in his chair and studied the forest through the leaded
casement. Sometimes he thought of Portlaw's perverse determination to
spoil the magnificent simplicity of the place with exotic effects lugged
in by the ears; sometimes he wondered what Mr. Cardross could have to
say to Malcourt--what matter of such urgent importance could possibly
concern those two men.

And, thinking, he thought of Shiela--and of their last moments together;
thought of her as he had left her, crouched there on her knees beside
the bed, her face and head buried in her crossed arms.

Portlaw was nodding drowsily over his cigar; the April sunshine streamed
into the room through every leaded pane, inlaying the floor with glowing
diamonds; dogs barked from the distant kennels; cocks were crowing from
the farm. Outside the window he saw how the lilac's dully varnished buds
had swollen and where the prophecy of snow-drop and crocus under the
buckthorn hedge might be fulfilled on the morrow. Already over the
green-brown, soaking grass one or two pioneer grackle were walking
busily about; and somewhere in a near tree the first robin chirked and
chirped and fussed in its loud and familiar fashion, only partly pleased
to find himself in the gray thaw of the scarcely comfortable North once
more.

Portlaw looked up dully: "Those robins come up here and fatten on our
fruit, and a fool law forbids us to shoot 'em. Robin pie," he added, "is
not to be despised, but a sentimental legislature is the limit....
Sentiment always did bore me.... How do you feel after your luncheon?"

"All right," said Hamil, smiling. "I'd like to start out as soon as
Malcourt comes back."

"Oh, don't begin that sort of thing the moment you get here!" protested
Portlaw. "My heavens, man! there's no hurry. Can't you smoke a cigar and
play a card or two--"

"You know I've other commissions--"

"Oh, of course; but I hoped you'd have time to take it easy. I've
looked forward to having you here--so has Malcourt; he thinks you're
about right, you know. And he makes damn few friends among men--"

The door opened and Malcourt entered slowly, almost noiselessly. There
was not a vestige of colour in his face, nor of expression as he crossed
the room for a match and relighted his cigarette.

"Well?" inquired Portlaw, "did you get Cardross on the wire?"

"Yes."

Malcourt stood motionless, hands in his pockets, the cigarette smoke
curling up blue in the sunshine.

"I've got to go," he said.

"What for?" demanded Portlaw, then sulkily begged pardon and pouted his
dissatisfaction in silence.

"When do you go, Malcourt?" asked Hamil, still wondering.

"Now." He lifted his head but looked across at Portlaw. "I've telephoned
the stable, and called up Pride's Fall to flag the five-thirty express,"
he said.

Portlaw was growing madder and madder.

"Would you mind telling me when you expect to be back?" he inquired
ill-temperedly.

"I don't know yet."

"Don't know!" burst out Portlaw; "hell's bells!"

Malcourt shook his head.

Portlaw profanely requested information as to how the place was to be
kept going. Malcourt was patient with him to the verge of indifference.

"There's nothing to blow up about. Hastings is competent to manage
things--"

"That conceited pup!"

"Hastings understands," repeated Malcourt, in a listless voice. "I've
always counted on Alexander Hastings for any emergency. He knows things,
and he's capable.... Only don't be brusque. He doesn't understand you as
I do ... and he's fully your equal--fully--in every way--and then
some--" The weariness in his tone was close to a sneer; he dropped his
cigarette into the fire and began to roll another.

"Louis," said Portlaw, frightened.

"Well?"

"What the devil is the meaning of all this? You _are_ coming back,
aren't you?"

Malcourt continued to roll his cigarette, but after a while he spoiled
it and began to construct another.

"_Are_ you, Louis?"

"What?"

"Coming back here--soon?"

"If I--if it's the thing to do. I don't know yet. You mustn't press the
matter now."

"You think there's a chance that you won't come back at _all_!"
exclaimed Portlaw, aghast.

Malcourt's cigarette fell to pieces in his fingers.

"I'll come if I can, Billy. I tell you to let me alone.... I don't know
where I am coming out--yet."

"If it's money you need, you know perfectly well--"

But Malcourt shook his head. From the moment of his entrance he had kept
his face carefully averted from Hamil's view; had neither looked at him
nor spoken except in monosyllabic answer to a single question.

The rattle of the buckboard on the wet gravel drive brought Portlaw to
his feet. A servant appeared with Malcourt's suit-case and overcoat.

"There's a trunk to follow; Williams is to pack what I need....
Good-bye, Billy. I wouldn't go if I didn't have to."

Portlaw took his offered hand as though dazed.

"You'll come back, of course," he said, "in a couple of days--or a week
if you like--but you'll be back, of course. You know if there's anything
the matter with your salary just say so. I always meant you should feel
perfectly free to fix your salary to suit yourself. Only be sure to come
back in a week, won't you?"

"Good-bye," said Malcourt in a low voice. "I'd like to talk to Hamil--if
he can give me a few moments."

Bareheaded, Hamil stepped out into the clear, crisp, April sunshine
where the buckboard stood on the gravel.

The strong outdoor light emphasized Malcourt's excessive pallor, and the
hand he offered Hamil was icy. Then his nervous grasp relaxed; he drew
on his dog-pelt driving gloves and buttoned the fur coat to the throat.

"I want you--to--to remember--remember that I always liked you," he said
with an effort, in curious contrast to his habitual fluency. "You won't
believe it--some day. But it is true.... Perhaps I'll prove it, yet....
My father used to say that everything except death had been proven; and
there remained, therefore, only one event of any sporting interest to
the world.... He was a very interesting man--my father. He did not
believe in death.... And I do not.... This sloughing off of the material
integument seems to me purely a matter of the mechanical routine of
evolution, a natural process in further and inevitable development, not
a finality to individualism!... Fertilisation, gestation, the hatching,
growth, the episodic deliverance from encasing matter which is called
death, seem to me only the first few basic steps in the sequences of an
endless metamorphosis.... My father thought so. His was a very fine
mind--_is_ a finer mind still.... Will you understand me if I say that
we often communicate with each other--my father and I?"

"Communicate?" repeated Hamil.

"Often."

Hamil said slowly: "I don't think I understand."

Malcourt looked at him, the ever-latent mockery flickering in his eyes;
then, by degrees, his head bent forward in the old half-cunning,
half-wistful attitude as though listening. A vague smile touched the
pallor of his face, and he presently looked up with something of his old
debonair impudence.

"The truly good are always so interested in creating hell for the
wicked," he said, "that sometimes the good get into the pit themselves
just to see how hot it really is. And find the wicked have never been
there.... Hamil, the hopelessly wicked--and there are few of them who
are not mentally irresponsible--never go to hell because they wouldn't
mind it if they did. It's the good who are hell's architects and often
its tenants.... I'm speaking of all prisoners of conscience. The wicked
have none."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"There's always an exit from one of these temporary little pits of
torment," he said; "when one finds it too oppressive in the shade....
When one obtains a proper perspective, and retains one's sense of
humour, and enough of conscience to understand the crime of losing
time.... And when, in correct perspective, one realises the fictitious
value of that temporary phase called the human unit, and when one cuts
free from the absurd dogma concerning the dignity and the sanctity of
that human unit.... I'm keeping you from your cigar and arm-chair and
from Portlaw.... A good, kindly gossip, who fed my belly and filled my
purse and loved me for the cards I played. I'm a yellow pup to mock him.
I'm a pup anyhow.... But, Hamil, there is, in the worst pup, one streak
not all yellow. And the very worst are capable of one friendship. You
may not believe this some day. But it is true.... Good-bye."

"Is there anything, Malcourt--"

"Nothing you can do for me. Perhaps something I can do for you--" And,
laughing, "I'll consult my father; he's not very definite on that point
yet."

So Malcourt swung aboard the wagon, nodded again to Hamil, waved a
pleasant adieu to Portlaw at the window, and was gone in a shower of wet
gravel and mud.

And all that day Portlaw fussed and fumed and pouted about the house,
tormenting Hamil with questions and speculations concerning the going of
Malcourt, which for a while struck Hamil merely as selfish ebullitions;
but later it came to him by degrees that this rich, selfish, over-fed,
over-pampered, and revoltingly idle landowner, whose sole mental and
physical resources were confined to the dinner and card tables, had been
capable of a genuine friendship for Malcourt. Self-centred, cautious to
the verge of meanness in everything which did not directly concern his
own comfort and well-being, he, nevertheless, was totally dependent upon
his friends for a full enjoyment of his two amusements; for he hated to
dine alone and he loathed solitaire.

Therefore, in spending money to make his house and grounds attractive
to his friends, he was ministering, as always, to himself; and when he
first took Malcourt for his superintendent he did so from purely selfish
motives and at a beggarly stipend.

And now, in the two years of his official tenure, Malcourt already
completely dominated him, often bullied him, criticised him to his face,
betrayed no illusions concerning the absolute self-interest which
dictated Portlaw's policy in all things, coolly fixed and regulated all
salaries, including his own, and, in short, matched Portlaw's
undisguised selfishness with a cynicism so sparkling and so frankly
ruthless that Portlaw gradually formed for him a real attachment.

There was no indiscriminate generosity in that attachment; he never
voluntarily increased Malcourt's salary or decreased his
responsibilities; he got out of his superintendent every bit of labour
and every bit of amusement he could at the lowest price Malcourt would
take; yet, in spite of that he really cared for Malcourt; he secretly
admired his intellectual equipment; feared it, too; and the younger
man's capacity for dissipation made him an invaluable companion when
Portlaw emerged from his camp in November and waddled forth upon his
annual hunt for happiness.

Something of this Hamil learned through the indiscriminate volubility of
his host who, when his feelings had been injured, was amusingly naive
for such a self-centred person.

"That damn Louis," he confided to Hamil over their after-dinner cigars,
"has kept me guessing ever since he took command here. Half the time I
don't understand what he's talking about even when I know he's making
fun of me; but, Hamil, you have no idea how I miss him."

And on another occasion a week later, while laboriously poring over some
rough plans laid out for him by Hamil:

"Louis agrees with you about this improvement business. He's dead
against my building Rhine-castle ruins on the crags, and he had the
impudence to inform me that I had a cheap mind. By God, Hamil, I can't
see anything cheap in trying to spend a quarter of a million in
decorating this infernal monotony of trees; can you?"

And Hamil, for the first time in many a day, lay back in his arm-chair
and laughed with all his heart.

He had hard work in weaning Portlaw from his Rhine castles, for the
other invariably met his objections by quoting in awful German:

"Hast du das Schloss gesehen--
Das hohe Schloss am Meer?"

--pronounced precisely as though the words were English. Which laudable
effort toward intellectual and artistic uplift Hamil never laughed at;
and there ensued always the most astonishing _causerie_ concerning art
that two men in a wilderness ever engaged in.

Young Hastings, a Yale academic and forestry graduate, did fairly well
in Malcourt's place, and was doing better every day. For one thing he
knew much more about practical forestry and the fish and game problems
than did Malcourt, who was a better organiser than executive.

He began by dumping out into a worthless and landlocked bass-pond every
brown trout in the hatchery. He then drew off the water in the
brown-trout ponds, sent in men with seines and shotguns, and finally,
with dynamite, purged the free waters of the brown danger for good and
all.

"When Malcourt comes back," observed Portlaw, "you'll have to answer for
all this."

"I won't be questioned," said Hastings, smiling.

"Oh! And what do you propose to do next?"

"If I had the money you think of spending on ruined castles "--very
respectfully--"I'd build a wall in place of that mesh-wire fence."

"Why?" asked Portlaw.

"The wire deceives the grouse when they come driving headlong through
the woods. My men pick up dozens of dead grouse and woodcock along the
fence. If it were a wall they'd go over it. As it is, if I had my way,
I'd restock with Western ruffed-grouse; cut out that pheasantry
altogether, and try to breed our own native game-bird--"

"What! You can't breed ruffed-grouse in captivity!"

"I've done it, sir," said young Hastings modestly.

That night, over the plans, Portlaw voiced his distrust of Hastings and
mourned aloud for Malcourt.

"That infernal Louis," he complained, waving his fat cigar, "hasn't
written one line to me in a week! What the deuce is he doing down there
in town? I won't stand it! The ice is out and Wayward and Cuyp and
Vetchen are coming up for the fishing; and Mrs. Ascott, perhaps, is
coming, and Miss Palliser, and, I hope, Miss Suydam; that makes our
eight for Bridge, you see, with you and me. If Louis were here I'd have
three others--but I can't ask anybody else until I know."

"Perhaps you'll get a telegram when the buckboard returns from Pride's
Fall," said Hamil quietly. He, too, had been waiting for a letter that
had not come. Days were lengthening into weeks since his departure from
the South; and the letter he taught himself to expect had never come.

That she would write sooner or later he had dared believe at first; and
then, as day after day passed, belief faded into hope; and now the
colours of hope were fading into the gray tension of suspense.

He had written her every day, cheerful, amusing letters of current
commonplaces which now made up his life. In them was not one hint of
love--no echo of former intimacy, nothing of sadness, or regret, only a
friendly sequence of messages, of inquiries, of details recounting the
events of the days as they dawned and faded through the silvery promise
of spring in the chill of the Northern hills.

Every morning and evening the fleet little Morgans came tearing in from
Pride's Fall with the big leather mail-bag, which bore Portlaw's
initials in metal, bulging with letters, newspapers, magazines for
Portlaw; and now and then a slim envelope for him from his aunt, or
letters, bearing the Palm Beach post-mark, from contractors on the
Cardross estate, or from his own superintendent. But that was all.

His days were passed afoot in the forested hills, along lonely little
lakes, following dashing trout-brooks or studying the United States
Geological Survey maps which were not always accurate in minor details
of contour, and sometimes made a mockery of the lesser water-courses,
involving him and his surveyors in endless complications.

Sometimes, toward evening, if the weather was mild, he and Portlaw took
their rods for a cast on Painted Creek--a noble trout stream which took
its name from the dropping autumn glory of the sugar-bush where the
water passed close to the house. There lithe, wild trout struck
tigerishly at the flies and fought like demons, boring Portlaw
intensely, who preferred to haul in a prospective dinner without waste
of energy, and be about the matter of a new sauce with his cook.

CHAPTER XX

A NEW ENEMY

One evening in April, returning with a few brace of trout, they found
the mail-bag awaiting them on the hall table; and Portlaw distributed
the contents, proclaiming, as usual, his expectation of a letter from
Malcourt.

There was none. And, too peevish and disappointed to even open the
heterogeneous mass of letters and newspapers, he slumped sulkily in his
chair, feet on the fender, biting into his extinct cigar.

"That devilish Louis," he said, "has been away for several of the most
accursedly lonely weeks I ever spent.... No reflection on you,
Hamil--Oh, I beg your pardon; I didn't see you were busy--"

Hamil had not even heard him. He was busy--very busy with a
letter--dozens of sheets of a single letter, closely written, smeared in
places--the letter that had come at last!

In the fading light he bent low over the pages. Later a servant lighted
the lamps; later still Portlaw went into the library, drew out a book
bound in crushed levant, pushed an electric button, and sat down. The
book bound so admirably in crushed levant was a cook-book; the bell he
rang summoned his cook.

In the lamplit living-room the younger man bent over the letter that had
come at last. It was dated early in April; had been written at Palm
Beach, carried to New York, but had only been consigned to the mails
within thirty-six hours:

"I have had all your letters--but no courage to answer. Now you
will write no more.

"Dear--this, my first letter to you, is also my last. I know now
what the condemned feel who write in the hour of death.

"When you went away on Thursday I could not leave my room to say
good-bye to you. Gray came and knocked, but I was not fit to be
seen. If I hadn't looked so dreadfully I wouldn't have minded
being ill. You know that a little illness would not have kept me
from coming to say good-bye to you.

"So you went away, all alone with Gray. I remained in bed that
day with the room darkened. Mother and Cecile were troubled but
could not bring themselves to believe that my collapse was due to
your going. It was not logical, you know, as we all expected to
see you in a week or two in New York.

"So they had Dr. Vernam, and I took what he prescribed, and
nobody attached any undue importance to the matter. So I was left
to myself, and I lay and thought out what I had to do.

"Dear--I knew there was only one thing to do; I knew whither my
love--our love--was carrying me--faster and faster--spite of all
I'd said. _Said_! What are words beside such love as ours? What
would be my affection for dad and mother beside my love for you?
Would your loyalty and your dear self-denial continue to help me
when they only make me love you more intensely?

"There is only one thing clear in all this pitiful confusion;
I--whom they took and made their child--cannot sacrifice them!
And yet I _would_!--oh, Garry!--I would for you. There was no
safety for me at all as long as there was the slightest chance to
sacrifice everything--everybody--and give myself to you.

"Listen! On the second day after you left I was sitting with
mother and Cecile on the terrace. We were quietly discussing the
closing of the house and other harmless domestic matters. All at
once there swept over me such a terrible sense of desolation that
I think I lost my mind; for the next thing I knew I was standing
in my own room, dressed for travelling--with a hand-bag in my
hand.

"It was my maid knocking that brought me to my senses: I had been
going away to find you; that was all I could realise. And I sank
on my bed, trembling; and presently fell into the grief-stricken
lethargy which is all I know now of sleep.

"But when I woke to face the dreadful day again, I knew the time
had come. And I went to mother that evening and told her.

"But, Garry, there is never to be any escape from deception, it
seems; I had to make her think I _wanted_ to acknowledge and take
up life with my husband. My life is to be a living lie!...

"As I expected, mother was shocked and grieved beyond words--and,
dearest, they are bitterly disappointed; they all had hoped it
would be _you_.

"She says there must positively be another ceremony. I don't know
how dad will take it--but mother is so good, so certain of his
forgiving me.

"It wrings my heart--the silent astonishment of Cecile and
Gray--and their trying to make the best of it, and mother,
smiling for my sake, tender, forgiving, solicitous, and deep
under all bitterly disappointed. Oh, well--she can bear that
better than disgrace.

"I've been crying over this letter; that's what all this blotting
means.

"Now I can never see you again; never touch your hand, never look
into those brown eyes again--Garry! Garry!--never while life
lasts.

"I ask forgiveness for all the harm my love has done to you, for
all the pain it has caused you, for the unhappiness that, please
God, will not endure with you too long.

"I have tried to pray that the pain will not last too long for
you; I will try to pray that you may love another woman and
forget all this unhappiness.

"Think of me as one who died, loving you. I cling to this paper
as though it were your hand. But--

"Dearest--dearest--Good-by.

"SHIELA CARDROSS."

When Portlaw came in from his culinary conference he found Hamil
scattering the black ashes of a letter among the cinders.

"Well, we're going to try an old English receipt on those trout," he
began cheerfully--and stopped short at sight of Hamil's face.

"What's the matter?" he asked bluntly.

"Nothing."

Hamil returned to his chair and picked up a book; Portlaw looked at him
for a moment, then, perplexed, sorted his mail and began to open the
envelopes.

"Bills, bills," he muttered, "appeals for some confounded foundlings'
hospital--all the eternal junk my flesh is heir to--and a letter from a
lawyer--let them sue!--and a--a--hey! what the devil--what the--"

Portlaw was on his feet, startled eyes fairly protruding as he scanned
incredulously the engraved card between his pudgy fingers.

"O Lord!" he bellowed; "it's all up! The entire bally business has gone
up! That pup of a Louis!--Oh, there's no use!--Look here, Hamil! I tell
you I can't believe it, I can't, and I won't--_Look_ what that fool card
says!"

And Hamil's stunned gaze fell on the engraved card:

"Mr. and Mrs. Neville Cardross have the honour of announcing the
marriage of their daughter Shiela to Mr. Louis Malcourt."

The date and place followed.

Portlaw was making considerable noise over the matter, running about
distractedly with little, short, waddling steps. Occasionally he aimed a
kick at a stuffed arm-chair, which did not hurt his foot too much.

It was some time before he calmed enough to pout and fume and protest in
his usual manner, appealing alternately to Heaven as witness and to
Hamil for corroboration that he had been outrageously used.

"Now, who the devil could suspect him of such intention!" wailed poor
Portlaw. "God knows, he was casual with the sex. There have been dozens
of them, Hamil, literally dozens in every port!--from Mamie and Stella
up to Gladys and Ethelberta! Yes, he was Harry to some and Reginald to
others--high, low--and the game, Hamil--the game amused him; but so help
me kings and aces! I never looked for this--never so help me; and I
thought him as safe with the Vere-de-Veres as he was with the Pudding
Sisters, Farina and Tapioca! And now"--passionately displaying the
engraved card--"look who's here!... O pip! What's the use."

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