Seed on the Wind

XVI

Two hours after Lewis Kane left in his coupé that afternoon, with Pete Halliday incredibly seated beside him, having been informed by Panther that her mother had gone to Anne Leaver’s to stay the night, Lora got ready to go down and help Lillian put the dinner on the table. She was more vexed with herself than she had ever been in her life. Funk was the word for it, she said to herself, plain unmitigated funk. What had done it was the preposterous combination of those two men; Pete, alone, however unexpected, would have been a manageable apparition. That explained it, but assuredly did not excuse it. In her shame and vexation she would have given anything for the chance to do it over again. She was reminded of an occasion many years before when she had ignored the prolonged ringing of a doorbell and let the telephone go unanswered; she had felt somewhat the same today as on that distant day, and that astonished her and added to her vexation. It was an insane idea, since the two situations were in no respect similar. However, she had then, as again today, been not only cowardly, but stupid. She could not forgive herself.

The opportunity of re-establishing her self-esteem came that very evening. At the dinner table she withdrew her instructions to Roy regarding the telephone; and the meal had not long been over — she was coming downstairs again after telling Julian and Morris goodnight — when it rang. It was Lewis, talking from New York, She would have liked to see his face while she was explaining to him that she had been at home all day and had been in the next room while Panther was delivering the message regarding Anne Seaver. She offered no apologies, and his only reply was that he wished to see her at once and would start for Maidstone immediately; she could expect him in an hour and a half. She asked him, would the other man be with him? Yes, he said, he would.

Well, Lora thought after she had hung up, he certainly is in a terrible hurry about something.

She was no longer in a funk, but was nevertheless too disturbed and restless to read or even to help Roy and Panther with their lessons. She sent them upstairs earlier than usual, so as to have them out of the way; when she explained that Lewis was returning with the strange man who had come that afternoon they accepted the premature banishment without a murmur. Their mother’s remarkable conduct in the afternoon and something in her manner now evidently impressed the gravity of the situation upon them; Panther’s goodnight kiss was unusually prolonged, and Roy before turning to go assured her solemnly:

“They won’t hurt you.”

“Hurt me!” Lora laughed. “It’s Lewis, you silly.”

“That other man looked funny,” said Panther.

After they had gone, Lora, seated before the fire, waiting, found herself entertaining the echo of an old regret. She wished she had the wristwatch she had found on her pillow that day twelve years before. She had once spent a good deal of time, with the help of Max Kadish, trying to trace it, but it had long since been disposed of by the jeweler to whom she had sold it in the necessity created by Steve Adams’s departure, and the man who had bought it from him could not be found. The one she now wore, given to her by Lewis on Julian’s first anniversary, was an altogether different sort of affair — it was much smaller, with a platinum case, and was engraved with her initials. She had another one too, a large silver one, which she wore when working in the garden or generally out of doors. She had not thought of that old one for a long while, not for years; now she wished she had it, but frowned the wish away.

When finally around half-past nine she heard the car turn in at the driveway and pass the house on its way to the back yard, she did not move from her chair. She could not keep her heart from beating faster, but she could sit still. Her ears waited for the sound of the back door opening, but it did not come. Instead, after an interval there was the faint shuffle of footsteps on the flagstone terrace in front, and the doorbell rang. Ha, she thought, as she crossed to open the door, everything is to be proper tonight, one uses the front door and rings the bell; I should have had Lillian down, with a clean cap and apron, to let them in. Or Stan in a uniform — that would have been swell. She swung the door open.

Lewis stood back to let the other precede him. “Hello,” Lora said, with a smile, without any pretense of surprise, and gave her hand to Pete. Then she took Lewis in completely with a glance, as he took her hand in turn. They left their overcoats, and Lewis his hat, in the vestibule, and followed her into the living room. She had resumed her chair, and as they entered she invited them to two other chairs nearby, facing the fire. Lewis took the one nearest her; Pete stood close to the fire, warming his hands.

“I suppose I ought to get some gloves,” he said, “but I hate the damn things.” His eyes were on Lora. “You must be your own daughter,” he declared. “You can’t be a day over nineteen. That was it, wasn’t it? Nearly twenty; I remember you said you’d be twenty before — by a certain day.”

“You haven’t changed much yourself,” said Lora. “Yes, you have though, you’re a good deal older, but you look just the same.”

Lewis Kane had been silent since his first greeting. Now he looked at Lora and said briefly:

“You do know him then.”

Lora took hold of herself. Had she already made a misstep? There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing she had any reason to conceal, and yet... With men it was best to let them do the talking. Both of these men could be depended on for that. What did they think they were going to do to her? Bah, of course she knew Pete Halliday, why shouldn’t she say so? Did she know Pete Halliday!

She smiled not at Lewis, but at Pete.

“I think we’ve been introduced, haven’t we?”

“Never to my knowledge,” he replied promptly. “I forget who it was told me your name that night.”

“Stubby Mallinson.”

“Sure!” he grinned. “So it was. Thirteen years ago; I’ll bet he’s a stinking millionaire.” He nodded affably at Lewis, “No offense.”

“Not at all,” said Lewis drily. He turned to Lora. “You haven’t seen him for thirteen years?”

She nodded. “Thirteen... twelve...”

“I don’t suppose he had already entered the profession of blackmailer?”

Pete intervened. “Come, no use forgetting our manners,” he protested. “I’m here, ask me.” He bowed ironically, with so perfect a reproduction of the well-remembered blending of clumsiness and grace that Lora caught her breath. “At the time of my previous acquaintanceship with Miss Winter I was a student of philosophy; and having just discovered that all optimism comes from arrested development and all pessimism from a belly-ache, I was in the act of joining the Canadian army on the off chance that I might get a crack at a few descendants of Kant or Hegel or— Oh, you know.”

With a shrug of his shoulders Lewis turned to Lora:

“In a word, Mr. Halliday asks to be paid fifty thousand dollars to refrain from printing pictures of you and me and your children and your house and garden in a tabloid newspaper.”

Lora stared at him, and at Pete, and back again at Lewis. In her breast relief was rising. She had no idea what she had feared, but if this was all... Well. He wanted money. Nothing startling about that.

Pete had hunched up his shoulders and spread out his hands as if to say, there, that’s putting it neatly for you; but when he spoke it was to enter an objection:

“Really, that’s a little too bald, don’t you think? Oversimplification, let’s call it. I represent the press—”

“Bah!” Lewis interrupted scornfully. He went on to Lora. “Mr. Halliday calls himself a reporter. He came to my office on Monday morning and told me an ingenious and complicated story, consisting of lurid details of your past life, especially an intricate fairy tale regarding the past five years. He has an amusing theory, for instance, that one of your children is my son — oh, unquestionably he has imagination. I got rid of him; the whole thing was of course beneath discussion. That afternoon I called on the editor of the paper, with whom I am slightly acquainted; I was told that this investigation, as he called it, was entirely in Mr. Halliday’s hands. I was also told that his paper was interested solely in the disclosure of facts; the editor was aghast when he learned of Mr. Halliday’s offer to exchange silence for a sum of money. He declared indignantly that he would discharge Mr. Halliday at once, and it appears that this really was done a few hours later; apparently the offer of exchange was in fact Mr. Halliday’s own personal idea, for the editor assured me that his paper would not dream of entering into a conspiracy to suppress news; it would not be ethical. He courteously insisted that the story must be printed. I was driven to a recourse I very much disliked; I saw the owner of the paper, an old friend of mine, and succeeded in persuading him to my point of view. It appeared to be satisfactorily settled. But no; Mr. Halliday returned to see me this morning. He resented having been discharged from his job, and was politely truculent. He made another threat, this time openly on his own responsibility; he stated that there are four tabloid papers in New York equally intent on giving their readers important and interesting news, and that no one man can muzzle all of them. He proposes to peddle his fairy tale unless he is paid not to. His figure remains the same; it had occurred to him to double it, he said, but modestly he refrained.”

Pete bowed to Lora again. “You see, I’m not grasping.”

“For my part,” Lewis went on, “my inclination would be to turn him and his fairy tale over to the police. I think he’s pulling a bluff and I’d like to call it. But the chief concern is you and the children. This man claims to have known you intimately a long time ago. He states that there has been an extended investigation, financed by his paper, and he recites a long rigmarole which he calls facts. Granting that they’re lies, and are printed, and you sue for libel — even granting that you get a judgment — it would be quite a mess. It would be disgusting for you, and it might ruin the lives of your children. Obviously you had to be consulted. I could have paid this man without telling you anything about it, but I saw no means of providing against future additional demands; he might even be after you already; I didn’t know. Since you know him you are probably aware that he has unlimited effrontery and no discoverable vestige of scruple or decency.”

Lora was looking steadily at Pete, who had seated himself in the other chair and was gazing into the fire, apparently paying no attention to Lewis’s recital. His face was as expressionless as it was possible for it to get, with the sharp straight thrust of its disdainful inquisitive nose and equally sharp chin, the restless deep-set brown eyes, the startlingly white skin, the mouth always ready to twist itself into the smile she remembered so well. When Lewis paused she was looking across him at Pete, and said abruptly:

“Once you told me what decency was. Remember?”

“Did I?” He darted a glance at her. “Probably.”

“Yes. You knew all about it.”

“I still do.” He was looking again at the fire. “Decency, like all other moral concepts, is a weapon for the strong and a pitfall for the weak. It’s a grand tool for those who know how to use it.” He turned to Lewis. “Look here, don’t let’s get into a discussion of scruples and decency, or I’ll make you look silly. Do you know the only reason I’ll have any squeamishness about taking your damned money? Because I know how you got it. You’re a successful corporation lawyer; don’t you think I know what that means? I’m no Robin Hood either; that’s another species of blah; not interested. You talk as if I were going to spread Lora and her children all over a dirty tabloid and expose them to the sneers and persecution of a herd of swine. Not at all; that would be vulgar and unlovely and I should hate it. All I’m going to do is transfer a wad of money from your pocket to mine; by any realistic standard where is the indecency in that? It’s merely a matter of cash, which by the way you’ll never miss, since by the operations of your own special banditry you’ll make it up within a year. Extra, of course, over and above your normal depredations. So you take care of your own decency; I’ll attend to mine. Don’t worry about it.”

Lewis’s eyes were levelled on him. “I see. You admit it’s a bluff then.”

“Hell, no. I swear I don’t see how you lawyers get along, you’re so remarkably obtuse. Patiently I’ll explain. The technique of this transaction is the immediate and open threat. That is obviously the whole technique of life, with variations; there’s the delayed threat, the indirect threat, the removed threat, the covert threat — categories a mile long. The capitalist says to the laborer, work here and give me a big share of what you make, or you starve. Now it’s manifestly indecent for one man to force another man to starve; then why isn’t the capitalist indecent? Because he doesn’t force the laborer to starve; he merely threatens to. Pushed, would he let him starve? Wouldn’t he, though; it’s been done on occasion. Pushed, would I in this instance carry out my threat? Sure, I’d have to, to preserve my integrity. But thank heaven, I won’t have to; like the capitalist, I save myself from indecency by devising a threat that works. You’ll pay, just as the laborer does.”

“I may. And I may not.” Lewis’s eyes were still on him, speculatively. “I can see one thing, Mr. Halliday, I’ve done you an injustice. I thought you were a common blackmailer and thief. Quite the contrary, I see, you’re a dreamer, a radical, a socialist, a philosopher bent on evening things up. That you should begin with yourself is doubtless merely a matter of convenience.”

“Is that irony,” Pete demanded, “or are you really as dumb as that? The socialist part, I mean. I see; irony; forgive me. The socialist, of course, imagines he can remove the threat from life. I entertain no such illusion, I merely perceive its omnipresence, and am acute enough not to be deceived by any of its disguises, even the most subtle and elaborate. — But I repeat, you’ll pay; that is our present business.”

“I may not,” Lewis repeated. “The further I see into your intelligence, the more I’m inclined to tell you to go to the devil. You are fully aware of the danger you’re running, but let me emphasize it a little. First, every word you uttered in my office Monday, and again this morning, was taken down by a stenographer. Oh, don’t doubt it, I’ll be glad to show you a transcript. I need not point out that Miss Winter is with us this evening. I accept your terms, let us say, I hand you money; and suddenly concealed witnesses appear and the money is taken from you and identified by marks; a simple and ordinary arrangement often used on blackmailers, invariably with success. All it requires is a little courage on the part of the victim. Do you think it entirely safe, in the present instance, to assume that the courage is lacking?”

Pete was laughing. He had thrown his head back to release the explosive roar which, Lora saw, was another phenomenon on which the years had left no mark. She could have shut her eyes and, hearing that laugh, have imagined herself back in that furnished room...

“First decency, then courage!” Pete exclaimed when his roar was finished. “A regular catalogue of virtue! And having been instructed in threats you think you’ll try one of your own. Bah, get a better one.”

“I don’t bluff much myself,” Lewis said quietly.

“No? Me, I never do. As for your courage — well, courage is merely the absence of fear, and you may as well know that there I’m your master. I’m not afraid of death or prison or ignominy or any torture you could devise. I do not even fear the loss of my reputation — for a most excellent reason. No, I’m sorry, your little threat is so puny that I regret having taken the trouble to laugh at it.” Suddenly he frowned, and his mouth twisted. He went on in a different tone, “Look here, Mr. Kane, there’s no use cutting any deeper. Let’s get it over. You can’t scare me out. To be frank, I don’t know what the hell I’ll do with fifty thousand dollars, but I’ll take a chance on my ingenuity. You see, I didn’t start this affair. The paper I worked for, like its competitors, has an informal intelligence service which is constantly on the lookout for items of news that will further its efforts to educate the masses in the various aspects of modern life. But for this laudable enterprise the people would remain grossly ignorant of many salient points in the careers of prizefighters, chorus girls, bankers, politicians and pimps. A few weeks ago I was admitted to a discussion of a new and especially juicy item just dug up by one of our research workers, and naturally I was peculiarly interested when I learned the name of the woman chiefly concerned. I came out here to the charming village of Maidstone and unobtrusively established the identity. Like all investigations of this nature, we did it thoroughly. We learned the names of the fathers of the four children. We got dates and addresses, with hardly a gap. We took pictures of everyone involved, without their knowledge in all cases but one; Mr. Scher nearly smashed a camera in Washington Square last week. We sent an agent to the woman’s childhood home, where he secured items of great interest — among others the details of the father’s suicide the day after his daughter departed, many years ago, under peculiar and suspicious circumstances. He found her childhood chum in Chicago and interviewed her — a Mrs. Ogilvy, formerly Miss Cecelia Harper—”

He stopped abruptly, looking at Lora, who had half risen from her chair and then dropped back into it. She was staring at Pete with her mouth open; her face looked vacant and stupid, not like herself at all. Lewis, following Pete’s glance, was looking at her too.

“My father. You said...” she stammered.

“Sure. Shot himself the day after you left.” He leaned forward to peer at her, looking suddenly astonished and incredulous. “Good god, don’t tell me you didn’t know! Preposterous! You must have known. As long ago as that...”

Lora was leaning back in her chair again, her mouth closed, her lips pressed tight together. She shook her head with a faint sidewise movement, and kept on shaking it, saying nothing.

“That’s about enough, don’t you think?” said Lewis Kane.

Lora could see Pete grinning with his mouth crooked.

“My infallible luck,” he said. “What do you mean it’s about enough? I arranged it I suppose. Ha, there’s only one time it’s enough, when you quit breathing for good, then it’s plenty. Mr. Leroy Winter had enough apparently, but you and Lora and me, hell, we’ve no end of fun to look forward to. It makes me maudlin just to think of it. To continue: you understand that all this was the enterprise of my paper, admittedly a public servant, not mine. It was entrusted to my charge at my own request — my first major operation, for I’m a comparatively new hand. So it was within my power to convey to you an offer of personal cooperation; and by the way, you would have done well to accept it offhand. That might easily have aroused my admiration and sympathy; they’re on a hair-trigger as Lora will tell you; it would probably have saved you a lot of money. But you insulted my pride; you got me fired from my job; my dander rose; and there’s nothing doing. You know my terms, and I’m ready to close.”

Lewis had got up from his chair and was standing with his back to the fire, looking down at Lora. She did not return his gaze; she sat motionless with her eyes still on Pete.

“I’m sorry I brought him, Lora,” he said. “Forgive me. I thought you should be consulted...”

She turned her head to glance at him. “What?”

“I say, I thought you should be consulted.”

She nodded. “I suppose so. What are you going to do?”

“That’s what I’m asking you. What do you want me to do?”

“How can I decide?” she said. “I have no money to give him. I don’t care anyway. What about you? I don’t care.”

He turned to Pete. “Of course fifty thousand dollars is out of the question. Even if I had it. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll give you ten thousand in cash tomorrow morning if you can furnish satisfactory assurance that that will be the end of it.”

“I said nothing doing.”

“Take it or leave it.”

“This is painful,” Pete grimaced. “I loathe bargaining. You’ll pay my price. But I don’t see how I can furnish satisfactory assurance short of cutting off my head. You wouldn’t take my word for it? No. We’re in a fix. It looks as if you’re going to pay fifty thousand dollars for practically nothing.”

“Ten thousand and the assurance. That’s up to you.”

“I tell you I detest this!” Pete exploded. He got to his feet and stamped on the floor to shake his trouser legs down. “By god, I may have my faults, but I’m damned if I’ll haggle. You know perfectly well you’ll come to it. You wanted to consult Lora; all right, you’ve consulted her, let’s get out of here. I can invent an assurance, and you can make up your mind to the amputation, on the way back.”

Lora no longer heard them. It seemed to her petty and utterly inconsequential. The money was strictly Lewis’s affair, she considered; after all, the danger was chiefly his; for herself and the children she could manage no matter what happened. The men’s voices went on. She sat almost without consciousness. Her mind was not stunned, it was smothered rather, under a blanket of feeling which left it dull and dead and overwhelmed. Pete was in it, and her father who had killed himself, and this house in her name out of which she might be driven if Lewis forced Pete to make good his threat, and Roy and Panther and Morris and Julian who would be driven with her...

Their voices annoyed her. Why didn’t they go? Why had they come here to do their wrangling? But no, that was as it should be, that she should learn about her father like this from Pete. There were things she wanted to ask him; how could she manage it? There was something else too, something was happening to her...

At length the two men reached their impasse, and were silent. Lora became aware that Lewis was speaking to her; Pete, he said, would go back by train, he had no desire for his company on the ride to town. Whereupon Pete shrugged his shoulders and went to the vestibule for his coat, and Lora saw that Lewis meant to stay behind. She was aroused then to speak. She could not talk now, she said, not tonight, if he didn’t mind she would rather be alone. Not tonight. He might as well drive Pete to the railroad station.

Pete stuck his head in from the hall:

“Don’t bother, I’d rather walk. I hate the damn train, but I prefer it to listening to a stuck pig squeal. I’ll phone you tomorrow to arrange an appointment. You may have forty-eight hours to get the cash. Goodnight, Lora.”

The outer door banged behind him. Lewis went to the hall and returned in a moment with his coat on and his hat in his hand.

“I should have come alone,” he said. “But it seemed to be better — to tell the truth, from one or two things he said I thought it might help for him to see you. He’s right, of course, I shall probably have to pay up — I’ll sleep on it. I’ve got an idea — well, we’ll see. I wish I knew more about him.” He paused, and then went on, “About your father, that was unfortunate. I’m terribly sorry. I don’t make an exhibit of my feelings, but I feel very badly about it. If there’s anything I can do, anything you’d like to have me find out — a will, for instance, or anything of that sort—”

She shook her head. “Thank you, Lewis. A will? No.”

“You knew he was dead of course?”

“No. I didn’t know anything.”

“You don’t suppose this man had anything to do with it?”

“What? Oh. Pete? No, he didn’t.” She got up and stood straight, facing him. “If you don’t mind, Lewis, this is the one thing in the world I’d rather not talk about.”

“Yes. Of course.” He hesitated. “I just thought if it would help any... well, I’m sorry.” He went to the door, and there turned again: “Don’t worry about this business, I’ll attend to it. He’ll have to be gagged somehow. It will be all right.”

“I’m sure it will,” said Lora.

When he had gone she dropped into her chair again, and heard his car backing out and swinging into the road. What she had to do, at once, was to get her mind straightened out and find out what was going on. That seemed to present considerable difficulty, for it wouldn’t fasten on anything. After having successfully evaded complicated questions all her life, she suddenly found herself confronted by several all at once, each demanding immediate consideration, and she knew not where to begin or what direction to take. There was her father; or rather, there he wasn’t. That fact was of profound significance... and yet... it was of no significance at all. But he had always been dead! It was incredible. All those years, with Steve and Albert and Max and Lewis... even at the very first, as she lay on the hospital bed in New York, gathering unconsciously her forces for a struggle that would last as long as her breath lasted, he had been dead. Really dead. Gone. A ghost had lived in her... all that had been a ghost. Her mind darted back over the years, pouncing on this situation then that, feeling it and weighing it in the light of this amazing disembodiment. What would she have said here, how would she have acted there?

Rot, she said to herself of a sudden, impatiently; that was all poppycock, it would have mattered not at all. More to the point to consider what was going to happen now. But for some reason that consideration couldn’t be made to stick; it shied off from her intention like a wise old crow from a gun under cover. What was she going to do now? Well, nothing. What was there to do? Lewis would attend to Pete, she felt sure of that, it would be arranged somehow; there was nothing for her to worry about. But she could not rid herself of the feeling that she was immediately confronted by the necessity of making the most important decision of her life; that this was indeed the focus toward which all the radii of her character and of the past years were pointed, and that the direction they would take from this focal point into the future was put strictly up to her and the decision must be hers. Regarding this feeling about the future her common sense spoke as it did of her fancies about her suddenly dead father and the past. Rot; poppycock; where was the dilemma? For Lewis maybe it was difficult; poor dear Lewis, he would hate to give in to Pete, he would hate to give in to anybody, for he was accustomed to having his own way. Not so long ago he had said that he had to buy everything he got; well, it would be hard to pay the price this time, but he would pay. For his reputation, for his son, possibly even for something else — an extension of his privileges? Oh. That. No, decidedly not. She was sorry she had offered him hope in that direction. Decidedly not that...

The doorbell rang.

Startled, she glanced at her watch. She would have guessed that an hour or more had passed since Lewis had left, and was surprised to see that it had not been more than fifteen or twenty minutes; it was only a little past eleven. She went to the door and was minded to call out to ask who it was, but after a moment’s hesitation she opened it, pulling it wide with a sweep of her arm; and when she saw Pete Halliday standing there on the stone terrace in the shaft of light that shot out at him through the door, she knew what it was she had to decide.