Read Ebook: Perch of the Devil by Atherton Gertrude Franklin Horn

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Ebook has 1822 lines and 117812 words, and 37 pages

y read far into the night, and she vaguely associated a large table with much erudition. Moreover, she prided herself upon her economy in fuel.

Mr. Whalen sat in one of the hard, upright chairs, his stick across his knee, his gloves laid smartly in the rolling brim of his hat, studying this new specimen and wondering if she could be made to do him credit. He was surprised to find her so beautiful, and not unrefined in style--if only she possessed the acumen to keep her ripe mouth shut. In fact he found her quite the prettiest woman he had seen in Butte, famous for pretty women; and--and--he searched conscientiously for the right word, and blushed as he found it--the most seductive. Ida was vain of the fact that she wore no corset, and that not the least of her attractions was a waist as flexible as an acrobat's. What flesh she had was very firm, her carriage was easy and graceful, the muscles of her back were strong, her lines long and flowing; she walked and moved at all times with an undulating movement usually associated with a warmer temperament. But nature often amuses herself bestowing the semblance and withholding the essence; Ida, calculating and contemptuous of the facile passions of men, amused herself with them, confident of her own immunity.

It was now some time since she had enjoyed the admiration of any man but her husband, and his grew more and more sporadic, was long since dry of novelty. Like most Western husbands, he would not have permitted her to make a friend of any other man, nor even to receive the casual admirer when he was not at home. Ida was full of vanity, although she would have expressed her sudden determination to captivate "little Whalen" merely as a desire to keep her hand in. He was the only man upon whom she was likely to practise at present , and vanity can thirst like a galled palate. She had "sized him up" as a "squirt" , but he was "a long sight better than nothing."

After they had exhausted the nipping weather, and the possibility of a Chinook arriving before night--there was a humming roar high overheard at the moment--she lowered her black eyelashes, lifted herself against the stiff back of her chair with the motion of a snake uncoiling, raised her thick white lids suddenly, and murmured:

"Well, so you're goin' to polish me off? Tell me all my faults! Fire away. I know you'll make a grand success of it. Lord knows , you're different enough from the other men in this jay town."

Mr. Whalen felt as if he were being drenched with honey dew, for he was the type of man whom women take no trouble to educate. But as that sweet unmodulated voice stole about his ear porches he drew himself up stiffly, conscious of a thrill of fear. To become enamoured of the wife of one of these forthright Westerners, who took the law into their own hands, was no part of his gentle programme; but he stared at her fascinated, never having felt anything resembling a thrill before. Moreover, like all people of weak passions, more particularly that type of American that hasn't any, he took pride in his powers of self-control. In a moment he threw off the baleful influence and replied drily.

"I think the lessons would better be oral for a time. Do--do I understand that I am to correct your individual method of expression?"

"That's it, I guess."

"And you won't be offended?" Mr. Whalen's upper teeth were hemispheric, but he had cultivated a paternal and not unpleasing smile. Even the pale blue orbs, fixed defiantly upon the siren, warmed a trifle.

"Well. I don't s'pose I'll like bein' corrected better'n the next, but that's what I'm payin' for. Now that my husband's studyin' for a profession, I guess I'll be in the top set before so very long. There's Mrs. Blake, for instance--her husband told Mr. Compton she'd call this week. Is she all that she's cracked up to be?"

Ida's eyes flashed wide open. "Why not, I'd like to know? Isn't it as good a name as yours?"

"Fire away," said Ida sullenly.

"Sign your own name--may I ask what it is?"

"My name was Ida Maria Hook before I married."

"Land's sake! We'd be laughed clean out of Montana."

"Yes, there is a fine primitive simplicity about many things in this region," replied Mr. Whalen, thinking of his spats and silk hat. "But you get my point?"

"I get you."

"Oh!--We'll have a little talk later about slang. And you mustn't begin your letters, particularly to an acquaintance, 'Dear friend.' This is an idealistic and--ah--bucolic custom, but hardly good form."

He was deeply annoyed at his lack of fluency, but Ida once more was deliberately "upsetting" him. She smiled indulgently.

"I guess I like your new-fangled notions. I'll write all that down while you're thinkin' up what to say next."

She leaned over the table and wrote slowly that he might have leisure to admire her figure in profile. But he gazed sternly out of the window until she swayed back to the perpendicular and demanded,

"What next? Do you want me to say b?th and c?n't?"

"Fine. I'll try it on Greg--Mr. Compton. If he laughs I'll know I'm too good, but if he only puckers his eyebrows and looks as if somethin' queer was floatin' round just out of sight, then I'll know I've struck the happy medium. I'll be a real high-brow in less than no time."

"Yes, yes, my dear Mrs. Compton. But, you know, one forgets so quickly. And then so many of you don't stay in school long enough. How old were you when you left?"

"Fifteen. Ma wouldn't let me go to the High."

"Oh, hang your old East! You make me feel downright patriotic."

Professor Whalen was conscious that it was a distinct pleasure to make those fine eyes flash. "One would think we were not all Americans," he said with a smile.

"Well, I guess you look upon America as East and West too. Loads of young surveyors and mining men come out here to make their pile, and at first Montana ain't good enough to black their boots, but it soon takes the starch out of 'em. No use puttin' on dog here. It don't work."

"Oh, I assure you it's merely a difference of manner--of--er tradition. We--and I in particular--find your West most interesting--and significant. I--ah--regard it as the great furnace under our civilization."

"And we are the stokers! I like your impudence!"

He had no desire to lose this remunerative pupil, whose crude mind worked more quickly than his own. She was now really angry and he made a mild dive in search of his admitted tact.

"Well, I guess not!" cried Ida, her easy good nature restored. "All-night restaurants, something new in the way of girls--'chickens' and 'squabs'--musical shows, watchin' the sun rise--that's their little old New York. They always come home shakin' themselves like a Newfoundland puppy, or purrin' like a cat full of cream, but talkin' about the Great Free West, God's Own Country, and the Big Western Heart. I've a friend who does manicurin', and she knows 'em like old shoes."

Ida walked to the gate with him. She was quite a head taller than he, but subtly made him feel that the advantage was his, as it enabled her to pour the light of her eyes downward. He picked his way up the uneven surface of East Granite Street, slippery with a recent fall of snow, not only disturbed, but filled with a new conceit; in other words thrilling with his first full sense of manhood.

Ida looked after him, smiling broadly. But the smile fled abruptly, her lips trembled, then contracted. Advancing down the street was Mrs. Mark Blake. Ida had known her enterprising young husband before he changed his name from Mike to Mark, but she knew his lady wife by sight only; Mrs. Blake had not patronized Madame O'Reilley. Ruby and Pearl pronounced her "all right", although a trifle "proud to look at." Ida assumed that she was to receive the promised call, and wished she could "get out of it." Not only did she long for her rocker, gum and magazine, after the intellectual strain of the past hour, but she had no desire to meet Mrs. Blake or any of "that crowd" until she could take her place as their equal. She had her full share of what is known as class-consciousness, and its peculiar form of snobbery. To be patronized by "swells", even to be asked to their parties, would give her none of that subtle joy peculiar to the climbing snob. When the inevitable moment came she would burst upon them, dazzle them, bulldoze and lead them, but she wanted none of their crumbs.

But she was "in for it." She hastily felt the back of her shirtwaist to ascertain if it still were properly adjusted, and sauntered towards the cottage humming a tune, pretending not to have seen the lady who stopped to have a word with Professor Whalen. "Anyhow, she's not a bonanzerine," thought Ida. "I guess she did considerable scrapin' at one time; and Mark, for all he could make shoe-blackin' look like molasses, ain't a millionaire yet."

She might indeed, further reflected Ida, watching the smartly tailored figure out of the corner of her eye, be pitied, for she had been "brought up rich, expecting to marry a duke, and then come down kaplunk before she'd much more'n a chance to grow up." Her father, Judge Stratton, a graduate of Columbia University, had been one of the most brilliant and unscrupulous lawyers of the Northwest. He had drawn enormous fees from railroads and corporations, and in the historic Clark-Daly duels for supremacy in the State of Montana, and in the more picturesque battle between F. Augustus Heinze and "Amalgamated" , when the number of estimable citizens bought and sold demonstrated the faint impress of time on original sin, his legal acumen and persuasive tongue, his vitriolic pen, ever had been at the disposal of the highest bidder.

He had been a distinguished resident of Butte but a few years when he built himself a spacious if hideous residence on the West Side. But this must have been out of pure loyalty to his adopted state, for it was seldom occupied, although furnished in the worst style of the late seventies and early eighties. Mrs. Stratton and her daughter spent the greater part of their time in Europe. As Judge Stratton disliked his wife, was intensely ambitious for his only child, and preferred the comforts of his smaller home on The Flat, he rarely recalled his legitimate family, and made them a lavish allowance. He died abruptly of apoplexy, and left nothing but a life insurance of five thousand dollars; he had neglected to take out any until his blood vessels were too brittle for a higher risk.

Mrs. Stratton promptly became an invalid, and Ora brought her home to Butte, hoping to save something from the wreck. There was nothing to save. As she had not known of the life insurance when they received the curt cablegram in Paris, she had sold all of her mother's jewels save a string of pearls, and, when what was left of this irrelative sum after the luxurious journey over sea and land, was added to the policy, the capital of these two still bewildered women represented little more than they had been accustomed to spend in six months. When Mark Blake, who had studied law in Judge Stratton's office after graduating from the High School, and now seemed to be in a fair way to inherit the business, besides being County Attorney at the moment, implored Ora to marry him, and manifested an almost equal devotion to her mother, whom he had ranked with the queens of history books since boyhood, she accepted him as the obvious solution of her problem.

She was lonely, disappointed, mortified, a bit frightened. She had lived the life of the average American princess, and although accomplished had specialised in nothing; nor given a thought to the future. As she had cared little for the society for which her mother lived, and much for books, music, and other arts, and had talked eagerly with the few highly specialised men she was fortunate enough to meet, she had assumed that she was clever. She also believed that when she had assuaged somewhat her appetite for the intellectual and artistic banquet the gifted of the ages had provided, she might develop a character and personality, possibly a gift of her own. But she was only twenty when her indulgent father died, and, still gorging herself, was barely interested in her capacities other than receptive, less still in the young men that sought her, unterrified by her reputation for brains. She fancied that she should marry when she was about twenty-eight, and have a salon somewhere; and the fact that love had played so little a part in her dreams made it easier to contemplate marriage with this old friend of her childhood. His mother had been Mrs. Stratton's seamstress, to be sure, but as he was a good boy,--he called for the frail little woman every evening to protect her from roughs on her long walk east to the cottage her husband had built shortly before he was blown to pieces somewhere inside of Butte--he had been permitted to hold the dainty Ora on his knee, or toss her, gurgling with delight, into the air until he puffed.

Mark had been a fat boy, and was now a fat young man with a round rosy face and a rolling lazy gait. He possessed an eye of remarkable shrewdness, however, was making money rapidly, never lost sight of the main chance, and was not in the least surprised when his marriage lifted him to the pinnacle of Butte society. In spite of his amiable weaknesses, he was honest if sharp, an inalienable friend, and he made a good husband according to his lights. Being a man's man, and naturally elated at his election to the exclusive Silver Bow Club soon after his marriage to the snow maiden of his youthful dreams, he formed the habit of dropping in for a game of billiards every afternoon on his way home, and returning for another after dinner. But within three years he was able to present the wife of whom he was inordinately proud with a comfortable home on the West Side, and he made her an allowance of ever increasing proportions.

Ora, who had her own idea of a bargain, had never complained of neglect nor intimated that she found anything in him that savoured of imperfection. She had accepted him as a provider, and as he filled this part of the contract brilliantly, she felt that to treat him to scenes whose only excuse was outraged love or jealousy, would be both unjust and absurd. Moreover, his growing passion for his club was an immense relief after his somewhat prolonged term of marital uxoriousness, and as her mother died almost coincidentally with the abridgment of Mr. Blake's home life, Ora returned to her studies, rode or walked for hours, and, after her double period of mourning was over, danced two or three times a week in the season, or sat out dances when she met a man that had cultivated his intellect. For women she cared little.

It never occurred to Mark to be jealous of his passionless wife, although he would have asserted his authority if she had received men alone in the afternoon. But Ora paid a scrupulous deference to his wishes in all respects. She even taught herself to keep house, and her servants manners as well as the elements of edible cooking. This she regarded as her proudest feat, for she frankly hated the domestic details of life; although after three years in a "Block",--a sublimated lodging house, peculiar to the Northwest--she enjoyed the space and privacy of her home. Mark told his friends that his wife was the most remarkable woman in Montana, rarely found fault, save in the purely mechanical fashion of the married male, and paid the bills without a murmur. Altogether it was a reasonably happy marriage.

"This is Mrs. Compton, I am sure," she said in her cool even voice, as she came up behind the elaborately unconscious and humming Ida. "I am Mrs. Blake."

"Pleased to meet you," said Ida formally, extending a limp hand. "Come on inside."

Mrs. Blake closed her eyes as she entered the parlour, but opened them before Ida had adjusted the blower to the grate, and exclaimed brightly:

"How clever of you to settle so quickly. I shouldn't have dared to call for another fortnight, but Mr. Compton told my husband yesterday that you were quite in order. It was three months before I dared open my doors."

"Well," drawled Ida, rocking herself, "I guess your friends are more critical than mine. And I guess you didn't rely wholly on Butte for your furniture. I had Ma's old junk, and the rest cost me just two hundred dollars."

"How very clever of you!" But although Mrs. Blake was doing her best to be spontaneous and impressed, Ida knew instantly that she had committed a solecism, and felt both angry and apprehensive. She was more afraid of this young woman than of her professor. Once more she wished that Mrs. Blake and the whole caboodle would leave her alone till she was good and ready.

Ora hastened on to a safer topic, local politics. Butte, tired of grafting politicians, was considering the experiment of permitting a Socialist of good standing to be elected mayor. Ida, like all women of the smaller Western towns, was interested in local politics, and, glad of the impersonal topic, gave her visitor intelligent encouragement, the while she examined her critically. She finally summed her up in the word "pasty", and at that stage of Ora Blake's development the description was not inapt. She took little or no interest in her looks, although she dressed well by instinct; and nature, supplemented by her mother, had given her style. But her hair was almost colourless and worn in a tight knot just above her neck, her complexion was weather-beaten, her lips rather pale, and her body very thin. But when men whose first glance had been casual turned suddenly, wondering at themselves, to examine that face so lacking in the potencies of colouring, they discovered that the eyes, deeply set and far apart, were of a deep dark blazing grey, that the nose was straight and fine, the ears small, the mouth mobile, with a slight downward droop at the corners; also that her hands and feet were very slender, with delicate wrists and ankles. Ida, too, noted these points, but wondered where her "charm" came from. She knew that Mrs. Blake possessed this vague but desirable quality, in spite of her dread reputation as a "high-brow", and her impersonal attitude toward men.

Ruby had informed her that the men agreed she had charm if she would only condescend to exert it. "And I can feel it too," she had added, "every time I do her nails--she never lets anyone do that hair of hers or give her a massage, which she needs, the Lord knows. But she's got fascination, magnetism, whatever you like to call it, for all she's so washed-out. Somehow, I always feel that if she'd wake up, get on to herself, she'd play the devil with men, maybe with herself."

Ida recalled the comments of the wise Miss Miller and frowned. This important feminine equipment she knew to be her very own, and although she would have been proud to admit the rivalry of a beautiful woman, she felt a sense of mortification in sharing that most subtle and fateful of all gifts, sex-magnetism, with one so colourless and plain. That the gifts possessed by this woman talking with such well-bred indifference of local affairs must be far more subtle than her own irritated her still more. It also filled her with a vague sense of menace, almost of helplessness. Later, when her brain was more accustomed to analysis, she knew that she had divined--her consciousness at that time too thick to formulate the promptings of instinct--that when man is taken unawares he is held more firmly captive.

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