The Lieutenant-Governor/Chapter X

Chapter X. A Question and an Answer
Much to Barclay’s satisfaction, Cavendish had obtained his appointment as a city reporter on the staff of the “Sentinel.” Even the first week of the new life thus entered upon had produced a vast change in his manner and appearance. Though the Lieutenant-Governor had seen him but once, when he came to repay the loan made him — in itself, of all signs of restoration to a normal attitude, the most significant — he found that his complexion had cleared and softened, and his eye perceptibly brightened. He was clean-shaven once more, and his dress, while of strict simplicity, was yet suggestive of the old days when he had been called the most fastidious man in Kenton City. He held himself straighter, too, with his shoulders thrown back and his head up; and Barclay had noted, with quiet gratification, that there was not a tremor about the hands which unfolded and smoothed the bills he had come to return. One evidence alone remained of the desperate ordeal through which he had passed. His voice, formerly firm and vibrant with a spirit that was half gayety, half arrogance, was now indescribably modulated, and touched with a melancholy which was not that of servility, still less of shame. Rather, it was an unspeakably appealing regret, a monotonous listlessness, a suggestion of hopeless surrender to something tragic and inevitable. Barclay was puzzled by it. It seemed illogical, and evaded him, like a melody with a dimly familiar motif which he was unable to place or even fully recall. It haunted him singularly, when Cavendish had left, and afterwards, in his leisure moments, came back to him, striving, as he fancied, to make itself understood. Intimately candid as their recent relation had been, here was something unexplained, which he could not come at, and which was yet eloquent of vitality, of the need of comprehension.

Since that time, three weeks before, the two men had not met. For this there were several reasons. Barclay knew from a brief note that Cavendish had taken a small room in a boarding-house, not far from the “Rockingham,” and that the pressure of his work for the “Sentinel” set him afoot so early, and sent him home at night so brain and body weary, that he had neither the strength nor the inclination for other things. Added to this, had been the Lieutenant-Governor’s absorption in his own duties, and, in particular, his absence from Kenton City, on his round of inspection of the state militia. But, just before the dinner hour, on the evening following that of the review, Cavendish called, as Barclay was in the act of dressing.

“I had a suspicion I’d catch you just about this time,” he said, dragging a chair to the door of the bedroom, where he could watch the Lieutenant-Governor struggling with a refractory white tie. “I’m getting on famously, and I wanted you to know it.”

“That’s right!” said Barclay, scowling into the mirror. “But then, I knew you would. Your pessimism didn’t produce much effect on me. I’ve heard men talk like that before. And, of course, when a chap gets into the condition you were in, back there, there’s no such thing as making him believe he can ever pull out. You talked like an ass, that first night, Spencer.”

“And acted like a blackguard! I suppose you will allow me to refer to that now?”

“Now less than ever, my good sir. As I’ve told you already, all that belongs to the past. You’re yourself again. What’s the use of dwelling on a time gone by, when you were in reality somebody else — or, rather, nobody at all? When are you going to call at the Rathbawnes’? The old man is pretty ill, I’m afraid, but I think the rest would like to see you again. They were speaking of you only the other day — that is, one of them was!”

“Not till this strike trouble is over, at all events; they have all they can attend to at present, without being bothered by reformed drunkards. And perhaps I sha’n’t call at all. I haven’t decided yet what would be best.”

Then, before Barclay had time to speak, he added: —

“By the way, I’m to take up the strike to-morrow, for the ‘Sentinel.’”

“Are you?” exclaimed the Lieutenant-Governor, in a tone of the liveliest interest. “That’s good news. It must be about the most important assignment they could give you, just now. Well, I wonder if you are destined to be the only conscientious reporter in Kenton City, or whether you will simply be like all the rest. Are you going to have the courage of your convictions — which I think I can surmise, though you haven’t as yet confided them to me — or are you going to wear the slave-chains of your fellows, and distort, and misrepresent, and truckle and kow-tow to the policy of the most venal press in America?”

“On fait çe qu’on peut,” said Cavendish, with a shrug. “Orders are orders, John. If the orders of the editor don’t go, the orders on the cashier don’t come. That’s about all there is to it. It would be rather futile to attempt the Don Quixote act, if only for the reason that one would never get into print. One can’t do more than follow instructions. The reporter’s best policy is his paper’s best honesty.”

“Honesty?” repeated the Lieutenant-Governor. “Where does the honesty come in? Of course I understand your position. In a way, it is identical with mine — subservience to a principle that you despise, acquiescence in methods that you know to be utterly false and wrong! How sick I am of it all! It’s the old experience, all over again, which I used to have as a child with the Tom Smith paper crackers. You are fascinated by the tinsel, and the colored paper, and the gaudy label. You think that when you’ve dissected one, and pulled it all to pieces, you’ll find a bugle and a gold crown inside — because that’s what it says on the box. But, the first thing you know, you’ll find yourself blowing on a tin whistle and wearing a fool’s cap of green paper! Lord! how the press of Kenton City needs a man — a man with the courage and the power to show up the scoundrels who are responsible for all this — McGrath and his associates, I mean. I’m sick and tired of reporters whose rascality is self-evident, of editors who are bought and sold like chattels, of a state of affairs, in general, so infamous as to surpass expression! You have my sympathy, Spencer — the sympathy of a fellow-victim. To be a reporter on a newspaper which dictates dishonesty; to be the lieutenant of a Governor who enjoins duplicity — it’s all just about one and the same thing!”

“It’s curious,” commented Cavendish, “that it wasn’t until about a week after — after that night, that I knew you were Lieutenant-Governor. Then, your name happened to be mentioned in the office, and somebody asked me if I knew you.”

“Whereupon,” said Barclay, conquering the tie at last, and turning from the mirror, “you had the inexpressible privilege of saying that you knew me intimately.”

“Whereupon,” repeated Cavendish, in that so singular tone which had lain heavy upon the other’s memory, “I had the inexpressible privilege of saying that I used to know you, but that we had quarreled, and were now — strangers.”

“Why?” demanded the Lieutenant-Governor, wheeling abruptly upon him. “What possessed you to say such a silly thing as that?”

Cavendish leaned forward in his chair, with his elbows on his knees, and his forehead against his interlaced fingers, staring at the floor.

“I’m glad, in a way, to have you ask that question,” he said slowly. “We are wary of mock heroics, or even real heroics, men like you and me. And yet there are things which must be explained, things not easy to explain, because they come so close at times to melodrama. I’ve always had a horror of emotional situations; and, from what I know of you, I’m sure you have, as well. I’d avoid this explanation, if I could — indeed, I’ve deliberately avoided it, thus far. Yet if I were a Romanist in the presence of my priest, I think I should feel more at liberty to evade confession than I do now. For both our sakes, I’ll try to be as brief, as simple, as lucid, as I can. And I’ll trust you to understand, as well as may be. Don’t think there’s any pose, any aim at effect, in what I’m going to say. You’ve asked me a question, and I’m going to answer it, that’s all! I don’t think, in my present frame of mind, I could bear to have you entertain the suspicion that the answer was affected or lacking in can door. Allons! Already I’m growing too verbose!”

He looked up with a wan smile.

“Let’s get down to facts. You ask me why I told my questioner that we no longer knew each other. Well, then, let’s have at it! It was because, John Barclay, there is likely — no, there is sure — to come a time when you won’t care to acknowledge me as your friend. Oh, wait!” he added, as the Lieutenant-Governor held up his hand in protest. “Hear me out. You say I talked like an ass, that first night. Perhaps. But the fact remains that I’ve been a drunkard — and that I’m bound to be one again! I’ve been fighting against temptation for several weeks. It hasn’t been very strong, for some reason, and so I’ve managed to ground it so far. But you remember the chap with whom old Hercules wrestled? Every time he touched earth his strength was multiplied. Well, that’s the way with drink. I can throw the temptation for a while, but every time I do so it rises, stronger many-fold. Sooner or later, I’m forced to give in. I know it, as I know I’m sitting here. I’m doing my best now, because, in the future, when the wrong that for a time you’ve righted goes wrong again, I want you to remember that I made the effort — for you — and for her — for the Fairy Princess. The end is as plain as day! It was born in me, this. I think I’ve never told you that my father died of it, but that’s the truth. And the next time I drop, it will be for good and all. I shall never make another effort to conquer the inevitable. If I can’t do it now, with the hope of redemption thus made plain, with a new start, and a fresh chance, and — thanks to you, John — the past wiped off the slate and a new sum set to solve, with the incentive of your friendship and confidence, and the interest, so undeserved, of the Fairy Princess, into the bargain, — if I can’t do it now, I say, why surely I can never do it. John, you can’t know what I’ve been through. You, who’ve never had the temptation, can’t conceive of what it means. It’s a living actuality, this lust for drink. When your nerves go wrong, even at the end of a day, or a week, or a year, during which you’ve kept straight, when you’re tired, discouraged, and, above all, alone! — then it comes at you like a live thing, — speaks — grips your arm — drags you wherever it wills! I’ve laughed at it, scoffed at it, in its absence, tried to make myself believe it a fragment of an otherwise forgotten dream, many and many and many a time. But it always came back! Oh, John Barclay, you others will never understand! A man has to have been through it, in order to know, and that not once, but, as I have, a hundred times.”

“I can well believe it to be a tremendous temptation,” said the Lieutenant-Governor gravely.

“Temptation? It’s more than that! A temptation gives you some chance, doesn’t it? You may yield to it, but, at least, you’ve had your fighting-chance. Well, in that sense, this is no temptation, though I’ve been using the word myself to describe it. Why, John, it’s madness, sheer insanity. You probably remember that I never used to touch alcohol at all. I promised my poor mother to let it alone until I reached my majority. Of course, I didn’t realize about the dear old man; he died when I was too young for that. But her one great fear, and naturally, was that the curse had descended to me — just as it had! Well, I stuck to my promise till I was twenty-one, and kept along in the same way for some time afterwards, just because there didn’t seem to be any particularly good reason for taking up something which I had managed to get along very well without, all my life. Then came that time, you know — three years ago — and out of mere recklessness, bravado, God knows what, I began to drink. John, I was a doomed man from the first swallow! That demon had been hiding in side me, without sound or movement or other hint of his presence, for twenty-eight years — just waiting his chance! You know the rest. The fight has been going on ever since, and the thing has beaten every time. I’ve resisted. I’ve struggled. I’ve even prayed. It’s all useless.”

He pointed significantly to the curtain which hung where the door of the wine-closet had been.

“As I did that night,” he continued, “I shall do again, and still again, until the end. It’s insanity, nothing more or less. It lurks at the back of my brain — always — always — and then, suddenly, when I am least expecting it, it comes forward with a rush, and I might as well try to check the north wind or the incoming tide. I feel it tingling in my fingers, scorching my throat, tearing at my reason. I swear I won’t give in, and, in the very act of so swearing, I get up and go out to meet it. I could break down iron doors to get at the drink when it calls to me. And, though I seem to be going straight enough now, the moment is coming when it will call and when I shall obey! Then you won’t want to think you’ve ever known me, John Barclay, still less to remember that the name of the Fairy Princess has passed between us. And, in the midst of my damnation, it will be a drop of cold water on my tongue to know that I’ve left you a loop-hole through which to escape the acknowledgment of these last few weeks. So far, no one but the ‘Rockingham’ people, and Payson, and — and the Fairy Princess — know that we’ve been together recently. The ‘Rockingham’ people don’t even know my name. Payson won’t speak. And she certainly won’t. So far, so good. Further, I’ve come to say good-by. Hereafter, we mustn’t see each other” —

“Stop — stop!” broke in the Lieutenant-Governor. “What is all this rot you’re talking? Chuck it, will you? Look here! If you go back on me — which is bad — and on your Fairy Princess — which is worse — and on yourself — which is the worst of all” —

“Yes, yes,” answered Cavendish, “that’s all true. But I’m not talking about if I go back, I’m talking about when I go back! As I said when I began, there’s no use trying to explain this thing to a man who doesn’t understand it, and no man can understand it except through his own experience. In this respect, if in no other, you and I talk different languages, belong on different planets. Could I expect you to comprehend with me that first give of self-control which lets the demon loose, and the meaning of the sight or smell of drink at that exact moment when the will is weakest — the first glass, hastily swallowed, as a brute, long thirsty, gulps down the water it has craved — the second and third, taken more slowly — and then, that slackening of every nerve, that jettisoning of all the moral cargo, that sudden love and appreciation of the sensuous side of life? Don’t you see? It’s another world, that, which you simply can’t understand, unless you travel to it by the road by which I have come — which God forbid!”

“In all this,” said Barclay, “I can see no reason why our present friendship should not continue, and should not be known.”

“Simply this,” answered Cavendish: “I’m — nothing! You’re the Lieutenant-Governor, — who is spoken of, if you care to know it, in the office of the ‘Sentinel’ as the only honest official in the state of Alleghenia. You mustn’t tie up to me, nor I to you. I’ve told you what my end is going to be. You don’t believe it, perhaps, but it’s none the less true. And yours — do you know that the law-abiding element looks up to you as a kind of Messiah? Do you know that you are the dawn of honor and integrity which lies behind the present black cloud of lawlessness? I tell you, John, the promise of your future is such as might nerve a beaten Napoleon to renewed endeavor. In your hands lies the salvation of the state.”

“I wish I could think so,” said the Lieutenant-Governor. “God knows I’d willingly cut one of them off, if I thought its loss could benefit the commonwealth. But, as I’ve had occasion to say to others, in the present emergency I’m as helpless as a babe unborn. You see how things are going — one might as well appeal, so far as any hope of success is concerned, to McGrath himself as to Governor Abbott. There’s no getting around it, Spencer. It’s a declaration of anarchy pure and simple, and with the official seal of Alleghenia at the bottom of the document. Iniquitous wrong is being done, not only to Mr. Rathbawne in refusing him the protection of the law to which he is entitled, but to the cause of the strikers themselves, if they can justly be said to have a cause. Nothing ever was or ever will be gained for the benefit of the many by the violence of the few. It can only end in one way: by the interposition of the federal troops. You know what happened at Chicago. It will be the same thing here; and before it is over we shall see people shot down like rats in the streets of Kenton City.”

“I hope it won’t come to that,” said Cavendish; “but even so, all’s well that ends well. Provided that order is finally restored” —

“But what credit is it,” broke in Barclay, “to the state of Alleghenia to have her law-breakers suppressed by the national government? Don’t you see that it would be only a final proof that she is too incompetent or too indifferent to do it herself? From the point of view of the state’s good name, I doubt which is worst, her present attitude or the interference of federal force.”

“Will it come to the latter in any event?”

“Undoubtedly. They’ve already tried to prevent the delivery of Mr. Rathbawne’s mail, both at the mills and at his house. You know what that means, don’t you? One carrier interfered with in the performance of his duty is sufficient excuse for mobilizing a brigade.”

“But the Governor” —

Barclay came forward, laid his hand on Cavendish’s shoulder, and looked down at him, slowly nodding his head.

“The Governor of Alleghenia is a dyed-in-the-wool scoundrel, my good sir,” he said. “It is his manifest duty to enforce the law rigidly and at once, and if the police of Kenton City cannot or will not assist him, to summon the militia to his aid. In that way only can the honor of Alleghenia be saved. And that is what Elijah Abbott will never do. There is anarchy open and flagrant in the streets of Kenton City — there is anarchy silent and sneering in the Governor’s chair. God save the state!”