CHAPTER XII
THE LAND OF THE DRUM
Alan went with Wassaquam into the front library, after the Indian hadshown Spearman out.
"This was the man, Judah, who came for Mr. Corvet that night I washurt?"
"Yes, Alan," Wassaquam said.
"He was the man, then, who came here twice a year, at least, to see Mr.Corvet."
"Yes."
"I was sure of it," Alan said. Wassaquam had made no demonstration ofany sort since he had snatched at Spearman's wrist to hold him backwhen Alan had bent to the drawer. Alan could define no real change nowin the Indian's manner; but he knew that, since Wassaquam had found himquarreling with Spearman, the Indian somehow had "placed" him moresatisfactorily. The reserve, bordering upon distrust, with whichWassaquam had observed Alan, certainly was lessened. It was inrecognition of this that Alan now asked, "Can you tell me now why hecame here, Judah?"
"I have told you I do not know," Wassaquam replied. "Ben always sawhim; Ben gave him money. I do not know why."
Alan had been holding his hand over the papers which he had thrust intohis pocket; he went back into the smaller library and spread them underthe reading lamp to examine them. Sherrill had assumed that Corvet hadleft in the house a record which would fully explain what had thwartedhis life, and would shed light upon what had happened to Corvet, andwhy he had disappeared; Alan had accepted this assumption. The carefuland secret manner in which these pages had been kept, and theimportance which Wassaquam plainly had attached to them--and which musthave been a result of his knowing that Corvet regarded them of theutmost importance--made Alan certain that he had found the record whichSherrill had believed must be there. Spearman's manner, at the momentof discovery, showed too that this had been what he had been searchingfor in his secret visit to the house.
But, as Alan looked the pages over now, he felt a chill ofdisappointment and chagrin. They did not contain any narrativeconcerning Benjamin Corvet's life; they did not even relate to a singleevent. They were no narrative at all. They were--in his firstexamination of them, he could not tell what they were.
They consisted in all of some dozen sheets of irregular size, some ofwhich had been kept much longer than others, a few of which evenappeared fresh and new. The three pages which Alan thought, from theiryellowed and worn look, must be the oldest, and which must have beenkept for many years, contained only a list of names and addresses.Having assured himself that there was nothing else on them, he laidthem aside. The remaining pages, which he counted as ten in number,contained nearly a hundred brief clippings from newspapers; theclippings had been very carefully cut out, they had been pasted withpainful regularity on the sheets, and each had been dated across itsface--dates made with many different pens and with many different inks,but all in the same irregular handwriting as the letter which Alan hadreceived from Benjamin Corvet.
Alan, his fingers numb in his disappointment, turned and examined allthese pages; but they contained nothing else. He read one of theclippings, which was dated "Feb. 1912."
The passing away of one of the oldest residents of Emmet countyoccurred at the poor farm on Thursday of last week. Mr. Fred Westhousewas one of four brothers brought by their parents into Emmet county in1846. He established himself here as a farmer and was well known amongour people for many years. He was nearly the last of his family, whichwas quite well off at one time, Mr. Westhouse's three brothers and hisfather having perished in various disasters upon the lake. His wifedied two years ago. He is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Arthur Pearl,of Flint.
He read another:
Hallford-Spens. On Tuesday last Miss Audrey Hallford, daughter of Mr.and Mrs. Bert Hallford, of this place, was united in the bonds of holymatrimony to Mr. Robert Spens, of Escanaba. Miss Audrey is one of ourmost popular young ladies and was valedictorian of her class at thehigh school graduation last year. All wish the young couple well.
He read another:
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Hal French, a daughter, Saturday afternoon last.Miss Vera Arabella French, at her arrival weighed seven and one-halfpounds.
This clipping was dated, in Benjamin Corvet's hand, "Sturgeon Bay,Wis., Aug. 1914." Alan put it aside in bewilderment and amaze and tookup again the sheets he first had looked at. The names and addresses onthese oldest, yellowed pages had been first written, it was plain, allat the same time and with the same pen and ink, and each sheet in thebeginning had contained seven or eight names. Some of these originalnames and even the addresses had been left unchanged, but most of themhad been scratched out and altered many times--other and quitedifferent names had been substituted; the pages had become finallyalmost illegible, crowded scrawls, rewritten again and again inCorvet's cramped hand. Alan strained forward, holding the first sheetto the light.
list of names and addresses]
Alan seized the clippings he had looked at before and compared themswiftly with the page he had just read; two of the names--Westhouse andFrench--were the same as those upon this list. Suddenly he grasped theother pages of the list and looked them through for his own name; butit was not there. He dropped the sheets upon the table and got up andbegan to stride about the room.
He felt that in this list and in these clippings there must be,somehow, some one general meaning--they must relate in some way to onething; they must have deeply, intensely concerned Benjamin Corvet'sdisappearance and his present fate, whatever that might be, and theymust concern Alan's fate as well. But in their disconnection, theirincoherence, he could discern no common thread. What conceivable bondcould there have been uniting Benjamin Corvet at once with an old mandying upon a poor farm in Emmet County, wherever that might be, andwith a baby girl, now some two years old, in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin?He bent suddenly and swept the pages into the drawer of the table andreclosed the drawer, as he heard the doorbell ring and Wassaquam wentto answer it. It was the police, Wassaquam came to tell him, who hadcome for Luke's body.
Alan went out into the hall to meet them. The coroner's man either hadcome with them or had arrived at the same time; he introduced himselfto Alan, and his inquiries made plain that the young doctor whom Alanhad called for Luke had fully carried out his offer to look after thesethings, for the coroner was already supplied with an account of whathad taken place. A sailor formerly employed on the Corvet ships, thecoroner's office had been told, had come to the Corvet house, ill andseeking aid; Mr. Corvet not being at home, the people of the house hadtaken the man in and called the doctor; but the man had been alreadybeyond doctors' help and had died in a few hours of pneumonia andalcoholism; in Mr. Corvet's absence it had been impossible to learn thesailor's full name.
Alan left corroboration of this story mostly to Wassaquam, theservant's position in the house being more easily explicable than hisown; but he found that his right there was not questioned, and that thepolice accepted him as a member of the household. He suspected thatthey did not think it necessary to push inquiry very actively in such ahome as this.
After the police had gone, he called Wassaquam into the library andbrought the lists and clippings out again.
"Do you know at all what these are, Judah?" he asked.
"No, Alan. I have seen Ben have them, and take them out and put themback. That is all I know."
"My father never spoke to you about them?"
"Once he spoke to me; he said I was not to tell or speak of them to anyone, or even to him."
"Do you know any of these people?"
He gave the lists to Wassaquam, who studied them through attentively,holding them to the lamp.
"No, Alan."
"Have you ever heard any of their names before?"
"That may be. I do not know. They are common names."
"Do you know the places?"
"Yes--the places. They are lake ports or little villages on the lakes.I have been in most of them, Alan. Emmet County, Alan, I came fromthere. Henry comes from there too."
"Henry Spearman?"
"
Yes."
"Then that is where they hear the Drum."
"Yes, Alan."
"My father took newspapers from those places, did he not?"
Wassaquam looked over the addresses again. "Yes; from all. He tookthem for the shipping news, he said. And sometimes he cut pieces outof them--these pieces, I see now; and afterward I burned the papers; hewould not let me only throw them away."
"That's all you know about them, Judah?"
"Yes, Alan; that is all."
Alan dismissed the Indian, who, stolidly methodical in the midst ofthese events, went down-stairs and commenced to prepare a dinner whichAlan knew he could not eat. Alan got up and moved about the rooms; hewent back and looked over the lists and clippings once more; then hemoved about again. How strange a picture of his father did thesethings call up to him! When he had thought of Benjamin Corvet before,it had been as Sherrill had described him, pursued by some thought hecould not conquer, seeking relief in study, in correspondence withscientific societies, in anything which could engross him and shut outmemory. But now he must think of him, not merely as one trying toforget; what had thwarted Corvet's life was not only in the past; itwas something still going on. It had amazed Sherrill to learn thatCorvet, for twenty years, had kept trace of Alan; but Corvet had kepttrace in the same way and with the same secrecy of many otherpeople--of about a score of people. When Alan thought of Corvet, alonehere in his silent house, he must think of him as solicitous aboutthese people; as seeking for their names in the newspapers which hetook for that purpose, and as recording the changes in their lives.The deaths, the births, the marriages among these people had been ofthe intensest interest to Corvet.
It was possible that none of these people knew about Corvet; Alan hadnot known about him in Kansas, but had known only that some unknownperson had sent money for his support. But he appreciated that it didnot matter whether they knew about him or not; for at some point commonto all of them, the lives of these people must have touched Corvet'slife. When Alan knew what had been that point of contact, he wouldknow about Corvet; he would know about himself.
Alan had seen among Corvet's books a set of charts of the Great Lakes.He went and got that now and an atlas. Opening them upon the table, helooked up the addresses given on Corvet's list. They were most ofthem, he found, towns about the northern end of the lake; a very fewwere upon other lakes--Superior and Huron--but most were upon or veryclose to Lake Michigan. These people lived by means of the lake; theygot their sustenance from it, as Corvet had lived, and as Corvet hadgot his wealth. Alan was feeling like one who, bound, has beensuddenly unloosed. From the time when, coming to see Corvet, he hadfound Corvet gone until now, he had felt the impossibility ofexplaining from anything he knew or seemed likely to learn the mysterywhich had surrounded himself and which had surrounded Corvet. Butthese names and addresses! They indeed offered something to go upon,though Luke now was forever still, and his pockets had told Alannothing.
He found Emmet County on the map and put his finger on it. Spearman,Wassaquam had said came from there. "The Land of the Drum!" he saidaloud. Deep and sudden feeling stirred in him as he traced out thisland on the chart--the little towns and villages, the islands andheadlands, their lights and their uneven shores. A feeling of "home"had come to him, a feeling he had not had on coming to Chicago. Therewere Indian names and French up there about the meetings of the greatwaters. Beaver Island! He thought of Michabou and the raft. Thesense that he was of these lakes, that surge of feeling which he hadfelt first in conversation with Constance Sherrill was strengthened anhundredfold; he found himself humming a tune. He did not know where hehad heard it; indeed, it was not the sort of tune which one knows fromhaving heard; it was the sort which one just knows. A rhyme fitteditself to the hum,
"Seagull, seagull sit on the sand, It's never fair weather when you're on the land."
He gazed down at the lists of names which Benjamin Corvet had kept socarefully and so secretly; these were his father's people too; theseragged shores and the islands studding the channels were the landswhere his father had spent the most active part of his life. There,then--these lists now made it certain--that event had happened by whichthat life had been blighted. Chicago and this house here had been forhis father only the abode of memory and retribution. North, there bythe meeting of the waters, was the region of the wrong which was done.
"That's where I must go!" he said aloud. "That's where I must go!"
Constance Sherrill, on the following afternoon, received a telephonecall from her father; he was coming home earlier than usual, he said;if she had planned to go out, would she wait until after he got there?She had, indeed, just come in and had been intending to go out again atonce; but she took off her wraps and waited for him. The afternoon'smail was upon a stand in the hall. She turned it over, looking throughit--invitations, social notes. She picked from among them an envelopeaddressed to herself in a firm, clear hand, which, unfamiliar to her,still queerly startled her, and tore it open.
Dear Miss Sherrill, she read,
I am closing for the time being, the house which, for default of otherownership, I must call mine. The possibility that what has occurredhere would cause you and your father anxiety about me in case I wentaway without telling you of my intention is the reason for this note.But it is not the only reason. I could not go away without telling youhow deeply I appreciate the generosity and delicacy you and your fatherhave shown to me in spite of my position here and of the fact that Ihad no claim at all upon you. I shall not forget those even thoughwhat happened here last night makes it impossible for me to try to seeyou again or even to write to you.
ALAN CONRAD.
She heard her father's motor enter the drive and ran to him with theletter in her hand.
"He's written to you then," he said, at sight of it.
"Yes."
"I had a note from him this afternoon at the office, asking me to holdin abeyance for the time being the trust that Ben had left me andreturning the key of the house to me for safekeeping."
"Has he already gone?"
"I suppose so; I don't know."
"We must find out." She caught up her wraps and began to put them on.Sherrill hesitated, then assented; and they went round the blocktogether to the Corvet house. The shades, Constance saw as theyapproached, were drawn; their rings at the doorbell brought noresponse. Sherrill, after a few instants' hesitation, took the keyfrom his pocket and unlocked the door and they went in. The rooms, shesaw, were all in perfect order; summer covers had been put upon thefurniture; protecting cloths had been spread over the beds up-stairs.Her father tried the water and the gas, and found they had been turnedoff. After their inspection, they came out again at the front door,and her father closed it with a snapping of the spring lock.
Constance, as they walked away, turned and looked back at the oldhouse, gloomy and dark among its newer, fresher-looking neighbors; andsuddenly she choked, and her eyes grew wet. That feeling was not forUncle Benny; the drain of days past had exhausted such a surge offeeling for him. That which she could not wink away was for the boywho had come to that house a few weeks ago and for the man who just nowhad gone.