Bender

“ Mr. Bender indeed, formidably advancing, scarce had use for this assistance. “Happy to meet you—especially in your beautiful home, Lord Theign.” To which he added while the master of Dedborough stood good-humouredly passive to his approach: “I’ve been round, by your kind permission and the light of nature, and haven’t required support; though if I had there’s a gentleman there who seemed prepared to allow me any amount.” Mr. Bender, out of his abundance, evoked as by a suggestive hand this contributory figure. “A young, spare, nervous gentleman with eye-glasses—I guess he’s an author. ”

“ Bender asked, “is Lord John?”
Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of a large hat surmounted with big black bows and feathers. Her eyes had vaguely questioned those of her elder, who at once replied to the gentleman forming the subject of their inquiry: “Lady Grace must know.” ”

“ Black care rode home with him; and as that night the thunder split over his cabin, he saw Jenny's eyes mirrored on the wet, black pane, and it was borne dimly upon him that something besides overwork was responsible for their haunting.
Bender had a friend, a man of his own ilk, with whom he had hit camp and log-drive for these last ten years. At birth it is supposable that the friend inherited a name, but in the camps he was known only as the "Cougar." A silent man, broad, deep-lunged, fierce-eyed, nature had laid his lines for great height, then bent him in a perpetual crouch. ”

“ Bender is that he wants to give millions.”
Lord Theign sounded this abyss with a smile. “Well, there would be no difficulty about that, I think!”
“Ah,” said his guest, “you know the basis, sir, on which I’m ready to pay.”
“On the basis then of the Sir Joshua,” Lord John inquired, “how far would you go?”
Mr. Bender indicated by a gesture that on a question reduced to a moiety by its conditional form he could give but semi-satisfaction. “Well, I’d go all the way.”
“He wants, you see,” Lord John elucidated, “an ideally expensive thing.” ”

“ Mr. Bender couldn’t doubt of that. “Oh, if he gives us a bigger thing we won’t complain. Only, how long will it take him to get there? I want him to start right away.”
“Well, as I’m sure he’ll be deeply interested——”
“We may”—Mr. Bender took it straight up—“get news next week?”
Hugh addressed his reply to Lord Theign; it was already a little too much as if he and the American between them were snatching the case from that possessor’s hands. “The day I hear from Pappendick you shall have a full report. And,” he conscientiously added, “if I’m proved to have been unfortunately wrong——!” ”

“ Mr. Bender showed more keenness for this richer implication. “In other words it’s I who may remove the picture?”
“Well—if you’ll take it on my estimate.”
“But what, Lord Theign, all this time,” Mr. Bender almost pathetically pleaded, “is your estimate?”
The parting guest had another pause, which prolonged itself, after he had reached the door, in a deep solicitation of their hostess’s conscious eyes. This brief passage apparently inspired his answer. “Lady Sandgate will tell you.” The door closed behind him. ”

“ Bender impartially inquired, “a very wonderful thing?”
“Well, as a Lawrence, it has quite bowled me over”—Hugh spoke as for the strictly aesthetic awkwardness of that. “But you know I take my pictures hard.” He gave a punch to his hat, pressed for time in this connection as he was glad truly to appear to his friend. “I must make my little rapport.” Yet before it he did seek briefly to explain. “We’re a band of young men who care—and we watch the great things. Also—for I must give you the real truth about myself—we watch the great people.” ”

“ Lord John discriminated, “he doesn’t ‘talk’ so much himself—there’s really nothing blatant or crude about poor Bender. It’s the rate at which—by the very way he’s ‘fixed’: an awful way indeed, I grant you!—a perfect army of reporter-wretches, close at his heels, are always talking for him and of him.”
Lord Theign spoke hereupon at last with the air as of an impulse that had been slowly gathering force. “You talk for him, my dear chap, pretty well. You urge his case, my honour, quite as if you were assured of a commission on the job—on a fine ascending scale! ”

“ Lord Theign coldly laughed,—“of course I trace the connection!”
Mr. Benders acceptance of responsibility clearly cost him no shade of a pang. “Why, I haven’t for quite a while talked of a blessed other thing—and I’m capable of growing more profane over my not getting her than I guess any one would dare to be if I did.”
“Well, you’ll certainly not ‘get’ her, Mr. Bender,” Lady Sandgate, as for reasons of her own, bravely trumpeted; “and even if there were a chance of it don’t you see that your way wouldn’t be publicly to abuse our noble friend?” ”

“ Lady Grace, however, was so far from fear that she could even afford pity. “Poor baffled Mr. Bender!”
“Oh, rich and confident Mr. Bender!” Crimble cried. “Once given his money, his confidence is a horrid engine in itself—there’s the rub! I dare say”—the young man saw it all—“he has brought his poisonous cheque.” ”

“ Mr. Bender conceded, “it develops independently of all encouragement.”
Lord John communicated again as in a particular sense with Lord Theign. “He thinks I really mean to offer him something!”
Lord Theign, who seemed to wish to advertise a degree of detachment from the issue, or from any other such, strolled off, in his restlessness, toward the door that opened to the terrace, only stopping on his way to light a cigarette from a matchbox on a small table. It was but after doing so that he made the remark: “Ah, Mr. Bender may easily be too much for you!” ”

“ Bender sighed again. "It's surprising what them small things kin do to you. Say, there's a good feller. You take it in?"
But Carter sternly refused, and five minutes later Bender might have been seen, stern and rigid from the desperate nature of his enterprise, sitting on one of Helen's soap-boxes. In the hour he talked with Morrill, he never once relaxed a death-grip on his hat. His eye never once strayed towards Helen, and it was late that evening when she found the kerchief under his box. ”

“ Bender was delighted, declared there was nothing like faithful training to keep a man in proper shape, body and mind, unless he was fool enough to fall in love, and concluded that he had suspected Rivers unjustly on that score. ”

“ Bender sensed the sadness in his tone, and the big heart of him was troubled. These months past he had seen Carter pile task on task, seeking an anodyne for unhappiness in ceaseless toil. Every night the office lights burned unholy hours. Waking this particular night, long after twelve, Bender saw that Carter was still at his desk.
"Time you hired a book-keeper," he remonstrated. "Trail you are travelling ends in the 'sylum." ”

“ Hugh caught the allusion, it would have seemed, but after a moment. “News of the Moretto? No, Mr. Bender, I haven’t news yet.” But he added as with high candour for the visitor’s motion of disappointment: “I think I warned you, you know, that it would take three or four weeks.”
“Well, in my country,” Mr. Bender returned with disgust, “it would take three or four minutes! Can’t you make ‘em step more lively?” ”

“ And pardon me, Bender—though it’s so near—if I just bag your car.”
“That’s, that’s it, take his car!”—Lady Sandgate almost swept him away.
“You may use my car all right,” Mr. Bender contributed—“but what I want to know is what the man’s after.”
“The man? what man?” his friend scarce paused to ask.
“The Prince then—if you allow he is a man! Is he after my picture?”
Lord John vividly disclaimed authority. “If you’ll wait, my dear fellow, you’ll see.” ”

“ You wouldn’t have been sure that his lordship didn’t pronounce the word for the first time in his life.
“There have been supposed to be only seven real examples about the world; so that if by an extraordinary chance you find yourself the possessor of a magnificent eighth——”
But Lord John had already broken in. “Why, there you are, Mr. Bender!”
“Oh, Mr. Bender, with whom I’ve made acquaintance,” Hugh returned, “was there as it began to work in me—”
“That your Moretto, Lord Theign”—Mr. Bender took their informant up—“isn’t, after all, a Moretto at all.” ”

“ Bender board here?”
386“Yes, sar, go up two pair ob stairs, an’ knock at de fust door yer see, an’ he’ll come.”
Peek did as he was directed. “J. Bender, Consulting Medium,” appeared and asked him in. A young and not ill-looking man, in shabby-genteel attire. Shirt dirty, but the bosom ornamented with gold studs. Vest of silk worked with sprigs of flowers in all the colors of the rainbow. His coat had been thrown off. His pantaloons were of the light-blue material which the war was making fashionable. He was smoking a cigar, and his breath exhaled a suspicion of whiskey. ”

“ Bender—want?”
Lord Theign plainly felt the challenge. “‘My’ American? He’s none of mine!”
“Well then Lord John’s.”
“He’s none of his either—more, I mean, than any one else’s. He’s every one’s American, literally—to all appearance; and I’ve not to tell you, surely, with the freedom of your own visitors, how people stalk in and out here.”
“No, father—certainly,” she said. “You’re splendidly generous.”
His eyes seemed rather sharply to ask her then how he could improve on that; but he added as if it were enough: “What the man must by this time want more than anything else is his car.” ”

“ Bender took refuge in easy humour. “Well, I’m a large man—so when I want to feel so much I look out for something good. But what, if he suffers from the blot on his ermine—ain’t that what you wear?—does our friend propose to do about it?”
Lord John had a demur, which was immediately followed by the apprehension of support in his uncertainty. Lady Sandgate was before them, having reached them through the other room, and to her he at once referred the question. “What will Theign propose, do you think, Lady Sandgate, to do about it?” ”

“ Mr. Bender massively mused, “will kick up a row.”
“Of course it will kick up a row!”—Hugh thoroughly guaranteed that. “You’ll be, for the month, the best-abused man in England—if you venture to remain here at all; except, naturally, poor Lord Theign.”
“Whom it won’t be my interest, at the same time, to worry into backing down.”
“But whom it will be exceedingly mine to practise on”—and Hugh laughed as at the fun before them—“if I may entertain the sweet hope of success. ”

“ Every thought of our lives is probably photographed on our brains, never to be obliterated. Let me study, then, to multiply my good thoughts. But in whatever way Bender got the name, whether from my mind or from a spirit, the fact is interesting and important in either case.
“The effect upon Clara (for so we now all call her) of this singular event was such as to convince her instantaneously that 367the name was right, and that she is the child of Henry Berwick. As soon as the medium had gone, she asked me if I could not find out who Mr. Berwick was. ”

“ Had not Bender considered his success in this intrigue as nearly certain as any human project can be rendered before its fulfillment, nothing would have induced him to run the hazard of a personal exposure. But, notwithstanding his certainty, he had still done all that he could do, to be prepared for what he considered the very remote contingency of a mistake. He had landed thirty men, under command of Wiley, and concealed them at the edge of a wood, about a third of a mile distant; it being impossible to bring them into the village without instant detection. ”

“ Mr. Bender was, quite clearly, all genial and all sincere; he intended no irony and used, consciously, no great freedom. Lord Theign, not less evidently, saw this, and it permitted him amusement. “As rich man to poor man is how I’m to understand it? For me to meet you,” he added, “I should have to be tempted—and I’m not even temptable. So there we are,” he blandly smiled.
His blandness appeared even for a moment to set an example to Lord John. “‘The Beautiful Duchess of Waterbridge,’ Mr. ”

“ Why, you will conquer anything."
"That is all nonsense," declared Bender. "Every man on that crew will pull his best, anyway, don't you be afraid about that; but his best won't amount to much if he spends all his time worrying about some pink and white girl. I think I know the symptoms of the disease now, and what is more I think Charlie Rivers has it. Thank goodness he sticks to his beef yet, and seems to pull as strong an oar as ever; but there is something wrong. He used to be the jolliest old cock in college, and bright and quick as a steel trap. ”

“ However, sir, there’s no harm in him that I can see.”
Anthony told him that he had broken the bread before him, thinking he was the landlord. The real landlord smiled broadly.
“Thank God, I am somewhat more of a man than that,” for the sailor was lean and sun-dried. Then once more Mr. Bender went to the door to call the servants in.
“Why, the man’s gone,” he said, and disappeared. Then they heard his voice again. “But he’s left his groat behind him for his drink, so all’s well” ”