MR. ARDMORE OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED
"She never did it; she never, never did!"
Mr. Ardmore, from a bench in the State House park, thus concluded a long reverie. It was late afternoon, and he had forgotten luncheon in his absorption. There was no manner of use in recurring again to that episode of the lonely siding. He had found the girl—(indubitably the girl)—but not the wink! Miss Jerry Dangerfield was not the winking sort; he was well satisfied on that point, and so thoroughly ashamed into the bargain that he resolved to lead a different life and be very heedful of the cry of the poor in the future. His emotions had never been taxed as to-day, and he hoped that he might never again suffer the torture he had experienced as he waited in the governor's drawing-room for Miss Dangerfield to appear. After that agony it had been a positive relief to be ordered out of the house. Her anger when she caught him lying about having met her father in New Orleans was superior to any simulated rage he had ever seen on the stage, and no girl with a winking eye would be capable of it. He was not clever; he knew that; but if he had had the brains of a monkey he would not have risked his foolish wits against those of a girl like Geraldine Dangerfield, who had led him into an ambush and then shot him to pieces.
"She threatened to have the servants throw me out!" he groaned. And her slight, tense figure rose before him, and her voice, still the voice of young girlhood, rang in his ears. As she read the threatening message from Kildare he had noted the fineness of her hands, the curve of her fair cheek, the wayward curls on her forehead, and he remembered all these things now, but more than anything else her wrath, the tiny fists, the flashing eyes as she confronted him. As he sat dejectedly on his park bench he was unaware that Miss Geraldine Dangerfield, walking hurriedly through the park on her way from the governor's mansion to the state house, passed directly behind him. His attitude was so eloquent of despair that it could not have failed to move a much harder heart than that of Miss Dangerfield, yet she made no sign; but a few minutes later the private secretary came out on the steps of the state house, and after a brief survey of the landscape crossed the lawn and called Ardmore by name.
"I beg your pardon, but Miss Dangerfield wished me to say that she'd like to see you for a minute. She's at the governor's office."
A prisoner, sentenced to death, and unexpectedly reprieved with the rope already on his neck, could not experience greater relief than that which brought Mr. Thomas Ardmore to his feet.
"You are sure of it—that there's no mistake?"
"Certainly not. Miss Dangerfield told me I was to bring you back."
Enthroned at the secretary's desk, a mass of papers before her, Miss Geraldine Dangerfield awaited him. He was ready to place his head on the block in sheer contrition for his conduct, but she herself took the initiative, and her tone was wholly amiable.
"This morning, Mr. Ardmore—"
"Oh, please forget this morning!" he pleaded.
"But I was rude to you; I threatened to have you thrown out of the house; and you had come to do us a favor."
"Miss Dangerfield, I can not lie to you. You are one of the most difficult persons to lie to that I have ever met. I didn't come to Raleigh just to warn your father that his life was threatened. I can't lie to you about that—"
"Then you are a spy?" and Miss Dangerfield started forward in her chair so suddenly that Ardmore dropped his hat.
"No! I am not a spy! I don't care anything about your father. I never heard of him until yesterday."
"Well, I like that!" ejaculated Miss Dangerfield.
"Oh, I mean that I wasn't interested in him—why should I be? I don't know anything about politics."
"Neither does father. That's why he's governor. If he were a politician he'd be a senator. But"—and she folded her hands and eyed him searchingly—"here's a lot of telegrams from the sheriff of Dilwell County about that jug. How on earth did you come to get it?"
"Lied, of course. I allowed them to think I was intimately associated in business with the governor, and they began passing me jugs. Then the man who gave the jug with that message in the cork got suspicious, and I dropped the buttermilk jug back to him."
"You traded buttermilk for moonshine?"
"I shouldn't exactly call it moonshine. It's more like dynamite than anything else. I've written a reply to the note and put it back in the cork, and I'm going to return it to Kildare."
"What answer did you make to that infamous effort to intimidate my father?" demanded Miss Dangerfield.
"I told the Appleweight gang that they are a lot of cowards, and that the governor will have them all in jail or hanged within ten days."
"Splendid! Perfectly splendid! Did you really say that?"
"What else could I do? I knew that that's what the governor would say—he'd have to say it—so I thought I'd save him the trouble."
"Where's the jug now, Mr. Ardmore?"
"In my room at the hotel. The gang must have somebody on guard here. A gentleman who seemed to be one of them called on me this morning, demanding the jug; and if he's the man I think he is, he's stolen the little brown jug from my room in the hotel by this time."
Miss Dangerfield had picked up a spool of red tape and was unwinding it slowly in her fingers and rewinding it. They were such nice little hands, and so peaceful in their aimless trifling with the tape that he was sure his eyes had betrayed him into imagining she had clenched them in the quiet drawing-room at the mansion. This office, now that its atmosphere enveloped him, was almost as domestic as the house in which she lived. The secretary had vanished, and a Sabbath quiet was on the place. The white inner shutters swung open, affording a charming prospect of the trees, the lawn and the monument in the park outside. And, pleasantest of all, and most soothing to his weary senses, she was tolerating him now; she had even expressed approval of something he had done, and he had never hoped for this. She had not even pressed him to disclose his real purpose in visiting Raleigh, and he prayed that she would not return to this subject, for he had utterly lost the conceit of his own lying gift. Miss Dangerfield threw down the spool of tape and bent toward him gravely.
"Mr. Ardmore, can you keep a secret?"
"Nobody ever tried me with one, but I think I can, Miss Dangerfield," he murmured humbly.
"Then please stand up."
And Ardmore rose, a little sheepishly, like a schoolboy who fears blame and praise alike. Miss Dangerfield lifted one of the adorable hands solemnly.
"I, acting governor of North Carolina, hereby appoint you my private secretary, and may God have mercy on your soul. You may now sit down, Mr. Secretary."
"But I thought there was a secretary already. And besides, I don't write a very good hand," Ardmore stammered.
"I am just sending Mr. Bassford to Atlanta to find papa. He's already gone, or will be pretty soon."
"But I thought your father would be home to-night."
Miss Dangerfield looked out of the open window upon the park, then into the silent outer hall, to be sure she was not overheard.
"Papa will not be at home to-night, or probably to-morrow night, or the night afterward. I'm not sure we'll wait next Christmas dinner for papa."
"But of course you know where he is! It isn't possible—" and Ardmore stared in astonishment into Miss Dangerfield's tranquil blue eyes.
"It is possible. Papa is ducking his official responsibilities. That's what's the matter with papa! And I guess they're enough to drive any man into the woods. Just look at all this!"
Miss Dangerfield rested one of those diminutive hands of hers on the pile of documents, letters and telegrams the secretary had left behind him; with a nod of the head she indicated the governor's desk in the inner room, and it, too, was piled high with documents.
"I supposed," faltered Ardmore, "that in the absence of the governor the lieutenant-governor would act. I think I read that once."
"You must have read it wrong, Mr. Ardmore. In North Carolina, in the absence of the governor, I am governor! Don't look so shocked; when I say I, I mean I—me! Do you understand what I said?"
"I heard what you said, Miss Dangerfield."
"I mean what I said, Mr. Ardmore. I have taken you into my confidence because I don't know you. I don't know anything about you. I don't want to know anything about you. I'd be ashamed to ask anybody I know to help me. The people of North Carolina must never know that the governor is absent during times of great public peril. And if you are afraid, Mr. Ardmore, you had better not accept the position."
"There's nothing I wouldn't do for you," blurted Ardmore.
"I'm not asking you—I would not ask you—to do anything for me. I am asking you to do it for the Old North State. Our relations, Mr. Ardmore, will not be social, but purely official. Do you accept the terms?"
"I do; and I warn you now that I shall never resign."
"I have heard papa say that life is short and the tenure of office uncertain. I can remove you at any time I please. Now do you understand that this is a serious business? There's likely to be a lot of trouble, and no time for asking questions, so when I say it's so it's so."
"It's so," repeated Ardmore docilely.
"Now, here's the sheriff at Kildare, on our side of the line, who writes to say that he is powerless to catch Appleweight. He's afraid of the dark, that man! You see, the grand jury in Dilwell County—that's Kildare, you know—has indicted Appleweight as a common outlaw, but the grand jurors were all friends of Appleweight and the indictment was only to satisfy law-and-order sentiment and appease the Woman's Civic League of Raleigh. Now, papa doesn't—I mean I don't want to offend those Appleweight people by meddling in this business. Papa wants Governor Osborne to arrest Appleweight in South Carolina; but I don't believe Governor Osborne will dare do anything about it. Now, Mr. Ardmore, I am not going to have papa called a coward by anybody, particularly by South Carolina people, after what Governor Osborne said of our state."
"Why, what did he say?"
"He said in a speech at Charleston last winter that no people who fry their meat can ever amount to anything, and he meant us! I can never forgive him for that; besides, his daughter is the stuck-upest thing! And I'd like Barbara Osborne to tell me how she got into the Colonial Dames, and what call she has to be inspector-general of the Granddaughters of the Mexican War; for I've heard my grandfather Dangerfield say many a time that old Colonel Osborne and his South Carolina regiment never did go outside of Charleston until the war was over and the American army had come back home."
One tiny fist this time! Ardmore was sure of it. Her indignation against the Osbornes was so sincere, the pouting petulance to which it diminished so like a child's, and the gravity of the offense so novel in his simple experiences, that Ardmore was bound in chains before her speech was finished. The little drawl with which she concluded gave heightened significance to her last three words, so that it seemed that all the veterans of the war with Mexico trudged by, bearing the flag of North Carolina and no other banner.
"Governor Osborne is a contemptible ruffian," declared Ardmore with deep feeling.
Miss Dangerfield nodded judicial approval, and settled back in her chair the better to contemplate her new secretary, and said:
"I'm a Daughter of the Confederacy and a Colonial Dame. What are you?"
"I suppose you'll never speak to me again; papa sent three expensive substitutes to the Civil War."
"Three! Horrible!"
"Two of them deserted, and one fell into the Potomac on his way south and was drowned. I guess they didn't do you folks much harm."
"We'll forgive you that; but what did your ancestors do in the Revolution?"
"I'm ashamed to say that my great-grandfather was a poor guesser. He died during Washington's second administration still believing the Revolution a failure."
"Do you speak of the war of 1861 as the Rebellion or as the war between the states? I advise you to be careful what you say," and Miss Jerry Dangerfield was severe.
"I don't believe I ever mentioned it either way, so I'm willing to take your word for it."
"The second form is correct, Mr. Ardmore. When well-bred Southern people say Rebellion they refer to the uprising of 1776 against the British oppressor."
"Good. I'm sure I shall never get them mixed. Now that you are the governor, what are you going to do first about Appleweight?"
"I've written—that is to say, papa wrote before he went away, a strong letter to Governor Osborne, complaining that Appleweight was hiding in South Carolina and running across the state line to rob and murder people in North Carolina. Papa told Governor Osborne that he must break up the Appleweight crowd or he would do something about it himself. It's a splendid letter; you would think that even a coward like Governor Osborne would do something after getting such a letter."
"Didn't he answer the letter?"
"Answer it? He never got it! Papa didn't send it; that's the reason! Papa's the kindest man in the world, and he must have been afraid of hurting Governor Osborne's feelings. He wrote the letter, expecting to send it, but when he went off to New Orleans he told Mr. Bassford to hold it till he got back. He had even signed it—you can read it if you like."
It was undoubtedly a vigorous epistle, and Ardmore felt the thrill of its rhetorical sentences as he read. The official letter paper on which it was typewritten, and the signature of William Dangerfield, governor of North Carolina, affixed in a bold hand, were sobering in themselves. The dignity and authority of one of the sovereign American states was represented here, and he handed the paper back to Miss Dangerfield as tenderly as though it had been the original draft of Magna Charta.
"It's a corker, all right."
"I don't much like the way it ends. It says, right here"—and she bent forward and pointed to the place under criticism—"it says, 'Trusting to your sense of equity, and relying upon a continuance of the traditional friendship between your state and mine, I am, sir, awaiting your reply, very respectfully, your obedient servant.' Now, I wouldn't trust to his sense of anything, and that traditional friendship business is just fluffy nonsense, and I wouldn't be anybody's obedient servant. I decided when I wasn't more than fifteen years old, with a lot of other girls in our school, that when we got married we'd never say obey, and we never have, though only three of our class are married yet, but we're all engaged."
"Engaged?"
"Of course; we're engaged. I'm engaged to Rutherford Gillingwater, the adjutant-general of this state. You couldn't be my private secretary if I wasn't engaged; it wouldn't be proper."
The earth was only a flying cinder on which he strove for a foothold. She had announced her engagement to be married with a cool finality that took his breath away; and not realizing the chaos into which she had flung him, she returned demurely to the matter of the letter.
"We can't change that letter, because it's signed close to the 'obedient servant' and there's no room. But I'm going to put it into the typewriter and add a postscript."
She sat down before the machine and inexpertly rolled the sheet into place; then, with Ardmore helping her to find the keys, she wrote:
I demand an imediate reply.
"Demand and immediate are both business words. Are you sure there's only one m in immediate? All right, if you know. I reckon a postscript like that doesn't need to be signed. I'll just put 'W. D.' there with papa's stub pen, so it will look really fierce. Now, you're the secretary; you copy it in the copying press and I'll address the envelope."
"Don't you have to put the state seal on it?" asked Ardmore.
"Of course not. You have to get that from the secretary of state, and I don't like him; he has such funny whiskers, and calls me little girl. Besides, you never put the seal on a letter; it's only necessary for official documents."
She bade him give the letter plenty of time to copy, and talked cheerfully while he waited. She spoke of her friends, as Southern people have a way of doing, as though every one must of course know them—a habit that is illuminative of that delightful Southern neighborliness that knits the elect of a commonwealth into a single family, that neither time and tide nor sword and brand can destroy. Ardmore's humility increased as the names of the great and good of North Carolina fell from her lips; for they were as strange to him as an Abysinnian dynasty. It was perfectly clear that he was not of her world, and that his own was insignificant and undistinguished compared with hers. His spirit was stayed somewhat by the knowledge that he, and not the execrable Gillingwater, had been chosen as her coadjutor in the present crisis. His very ignorance of the royal families of North Carolina, which she recited so glibly, and the fact that he was unknown at the capital, had won him official recognition, and it was for him now to prove his worth. The political plot into which he had been most willingly drawn pleased him greatly; it was superior to his fondest dream of adventure, and now, moreover, he had what he never had before, a definite purpose in life, which was to be equal to the task to which this intrepid girl assigned him.
"Well, that's done," said Miss Jerry, when the letter, still damp from the copy-press, had been carefully sealed and stamped. "Governor Osborne will get it in the morning. I think maybe we'd better telegraph him that it's coming."
"I don't see much use in that, when he'll get the letter first thing to-morrow," Ardmore suggested. "It costs money to telegraph and you must have an economical administration."
"The good of it would be to keep him worried and make him very angry. And if he told Barbara Osborne about it, it would make her angry, too, and maybe she wouldn't sleep any all night, the haughty thing! Hand me one of those telegraph blanks."
The message, slowly thumped out on the typewriter, and several times altered and copied, finally read:
RALEIGH, N. C.
The Honorable Charles Osborne,
Governor of South Carolina,
Columbia, S. C.:
Have written by to-night's mail in Appleweight matter. Your vacillating course not understood.
WILLIAM DANGERFIELD,
Governor of North Carolina.
"I reckon that will make him take notice;" and Miss Jerry viewed her work with approval. "And now, Mr. Ardmore, here's a telegram from Mr. Billings which I don't understand. See if you know what it means."
Ardmore chuckled delightedly as he read:
Can not understand your outrageous conduct in bond matter. If payment is not made June first your state's credit is ruined. Where is Foster? Answer to Atlanta.
GEORGE P. BILLINGS.
"I don't see what's so funny about that! Mr. Bassford was walking the floor with that message when I came to the office. He said papa and the state were both going to be ruined. There's a quarter of a million dollars to be paid on bonds that are coming due June first, and there isn't any money to pay them with. That's what he said. And Mr. Foster is the state treasurer, and he's gone fishing."
"Fishing?"
"He left word he had gone fishing. Mr. Foster and papa don't get along together, and Mr. Bassford says he's run off just to let those bonds default and bring disgrace on papa and the state."
Ardmore's grin broadened. The Appleweight case was insignificant compared with this new business with which he was confronted. He was vaguely conscious that bonds have a way of coming due, and that there is such a thing as credit in the world, and that it is something that must not be trifled with; but these considerations did not weigh heavily with him. For the first time in his uneventful life vengeance unsheathed her sword in his tranquil soul. Billings had always treated him with contempt, as a negligible factor in the Ardmore millions, and here at last was an opportunity to balance accounts.
"I will show you how to fix Billings. Just let me have one of those blanks."
And after much labor, and with occasional suggestions from Miss Jerry, the following message was presently ready for the wires:
Your infamous imputation upon my honor and that of the state shall meet with the treatment it deserves. I defy you to do your worst. If you come into North Carolina or bring legal proceedings for the collection of your bonds I will fill you so full of buckshot that forty men will not be strong enough to carry you to your grave.
"Isn't that perfectly grand!" murmured Jerry admiringly. "But I thought your family and the Bronx Loan and Trust Company were the same thing. That's what Rutherford Gillingwater told me once."
"You are quite right. Billings works for us. Before I came of age he used to make me ask his permission when I wanted to buy a new necktie, and when I was in college he was always fussing over my bills, and humiliating me when he could."
"But you mustn't make him so mad that he will cause papa trouble and bring disgrace on our administration."
"Don't you worry about Billings. He is used to having people get down on their knees to him, and the change will do him good. When he gets over his first stroke of apoplexy he will lock himself in a dark room and begin to think hard about what to do. He usually does all the bluffing, and I don't suppose anybody ever talked to him like this telegram in all his life. Where is this man Foster?"
"Just fishing; that's what Mr. Bassford said, but he didn't know where. Father was going to call a special session of the legislature to investigate him, and he was so angry that he ran off so that papa would have to look after those bonds himself. Then this Appleweight case came up, and that worried papa a great deal. Here's his call for the special session. He told Mr. Bassford to hold that, too, until he came back from New Orleans."
Ardmore read Governor Dangerfield's summons to the legislature with profound interest. It was signed, but the space for the date on which the law-makers were to assemble had been left blank.
"It looks to me as though you had the whole state in your hands, Miss Dangerfield. But I don't believe we ought to call the special session just yet. It would be sure to injure the state's credit, and it will be a lot more fun to catch Foster. I wonder if he took all the state money with him."
"Mr. Bassford said he didn't know and couldn't find out, for the clerks in the treasurer's office wouldn't tell him a single thing."
"One should never deal with subordinates," remarked Ardmore sagely. "Deal with the principals—I heard a banker say that once, and he was a man who knew everything. Besides, it will be more fun to attend to the bonds ourselves."
He seemed lost in reverie for several minutes, and she asked with some impatience what he was studying about.
"I was trying to think of a word they use when the government has war or any kind of trouble. It's something about a corpse, but I can't remember it."
"A corpse? How perfectly horrid! Can it be possible, Mr. Ardmore, that you mean the writ of habeas corpus?" The twinkle in his eye left her unable to determine whether his ignorance was real, or assumed for his own amusement.
"That's it," beamed Ardmore. "We've got to suspend it if worst comes to worst. Then you can put anybody you like into a dungeon, and nobody can get him out—not for a million years."
"I wonder where they keep it?" asked Jerry. "It must be here somewhere. Perhaps it's in the safe."
"I don't think it's a thing, like a lemon, or a photograph, or a bottle of ink; it's a document, like a Thanksgiving proclamation, and you order out the militia, and the soldiers have to leave their work and assemble at their armories, and it's all very serious, and somebody is likely to get shot."
"I don't think it would be nice to shoot people," said Jerry. "That would do the administration a terrible lot of harm."
"Of course we won't resort to extreme measures unless we are forced to it. And then, after we have exhausted all the means at our command, we can call on the president to send United States troops."
He was proud of his knowledge, which had lingered in his sub-consciousness from a review of the military power of the states which he had heard once from Griswold, who knew about such matters; but he was brought to earth promptly enough.
"Mr. Ardmore, how dare you suggest that we call United States troops into North Carolina! Don't you know that would be an insult to every loyal son of this state? I should have you know that the state of North Carolina is big enough to take care of herself, and if any president of the United States sends any troops down here while I'm running this office, he'll find that, while our people will gladly die, they never surrender."
"Oh, I didn't mean anything like that by what I said," pleaded Ardmore, frightened almost to tears. "Of course, we've got our own troops, and we'll get through all our business without calling for help. I shouldn't any more call on the president than I'd call on the czar of Russia."
She seemed satisfied with this disclaimer, and produced a diary in which Governor Dangerfield had noted his appointments far into the future.
"We'll have to break a lot of engagements for papa. Here's a speech he promised to make at Wilmington at the laying of the corner-stone of the new orphan asylum. That's to-morrow, and papa can't be there, so we'll send a telegram of congratulation to be read instead. Then he was to preside at a convention of the Old Fiddlers' Association at Goldsboro the next day, and he can't do that. I guess we'd better telegraph and say how sorry he is to be delayed by important official business. And here's—why, I had forgotten about the National Guard encampment, that's beginning now."
"Do you mean the state militia?" Ardmore inquired.
"Why, of course. They're having their annual encampment over in Azbell County at Camp Dangerfield—they always name the camp for the governor—and father was to visit the camp next Saturday for his annual inspection. That's near your county, where your farm is; didn't you know that?"
Ardmore was humble, as he always was when his ignorance was exposed, but his face brightened joyfully.
"You mustn't break that engagement. Those troops ought to be inspected. Inspecting his troops is one of the most important things a governor has to do. It's just like a king or an emperor. I've seen Emperor William and King Humbert inspect their soldiers, and they go galloping by like mad, with all the soldiers saluting, and it's perfectly bully. And then there have to be maneuvers, to see whether the troops know how to fight or not, and forced marches and sham battles."
"Papa always speaks to the men," suggested Jerry, a little abashed by the breadth and splendor of Ardmore's knowledge. His comparison of the North Carolina militia with the armies of Europe pleased her.
"I think the ladies of the royal family inspect the troops, too, sometimes," he continued. "The queens are always honorary colonels of regiments, and present them with flags, which is a graceful thing to do."
"Colonel Gillingwater never told me that, and he's the adjutant-general of the state and ought to know."
"What's he colonel of?" asked Ardmore gloomily.
"He was colonel in the Spanish War, or was going to be, but he got typhoid fever, and so he couldn't go to Cuba, and papa appointed him adjutant-general as a reward for his services; but everybody calls him Colonel just the same."
"It looks like a pretty easy way of getting a title," murmured Ardmore. "I had typhoid fever once, and nearly died, and all my hair came out."
"You oughtn't to speak that way of my fiancé. It's quite impertinent in a mere private secretary to talk so."
"I beg your pardon. I forgot that you were engaged. You'll have to go to Camp Dangerfield and inspect the troops yourself, and they would a lot rather have you inspect them than have your father do it."
"You mustn't say things like that! I thought I told you your appointment carried no social recognition. You mustn't talk to me as though I was a girl you really know—"
"But there's no use of making-believe such things when I do know you!"
"Not the least little tiny bit, you don't! Do you suppose, if you were a gentleman I knew and had been introduced to, I would be talking to you here in papa's office?"
"But I pretend to be a gentleman; you certainly wouldn't be talking to me if you thought me anything else."
"I can't even discuss the matter, Mr. Ardmore. A gentleman wouldn't lie to a lady."
"But if you know I'm a liar why are you telling me these secrets and asking me to help you play being governor?" and Ardmore, floundering hopelessly, marveled at her more and more.
"That's exactly the reason—because you came poking up to my house and told me that scandalous fib about meeting papa in New Orleans. Mr. Bassford is a beautiful liar; that's why he's papa's secretary; but you are a much more imaginative sort of liar than Mr. Bassford. He can only lie to callers about papa being engaged, or write encouraging letters to people who want appointments which papa never expects to make; but you lie because you can't help it. Now, if you're satisfied, you can take those telegrams down to the