Felix paused in his walk and gazed down at the priest. “I don't know,” he answered slowly. “My head is not clear enough to think it out. Mrs. Cleary might help unravel it. She saw her and will remember. Shall I sound her when I go home—not to excite her suspicions, of course, but so as to find out whether her visitor were large or small—details like that?”
“No, I will ask her, and in a way not to make her suspect. She will think I am hunting for one of my own people. It is wiser that she should not know yet what you have told me. I would rather wait for the time when this poor creature, whoever she is, needs a sister's tenderness. She will get it there, for no finer woman lives than Kitty Cleary.”
A sigh of intense relief escaped Felix. “And now tell me where you will begin your hunt?” he asked, one of his old search-light glances flashing from beneath his brows.
“Nowhere in particular. On the East Side, perhaps, where I have means of knowing what strangers come and go. Then among my own people here. I shall know within twenty-four hours whether she has been in the habit of attending evening service—that is, within the last six months. A woman of the poorer class would be difficult to locate, but there should not be the slightest trouble in picking out one who, less than a year ago, occupied your wife's social position—no matter how badly she were dressed.”
Felix stood musing. He had reached the limit of the help he had come for.
“And what can I do to assist?”
“Nothing. Go home, and when I need you I will send word. Good night.”
Had Felix continued his visits to Stephen Carlin's shop, he might have escaped many sleepless hours and saved himself many weary steps.
Fate had doubtless dealt him one of those unlucky cards which we so often find in our hands when the game of life is being played. If, for instance, the book to the right, holding the lost will, had been opened instead of the book to the left; or if we had caught the wrecked train by a minute or less; or had our penny come up heads instead of coming up tails: how many of the ills of life would have been avoided? And so I say that had Felix continued his visits to Stephen as he should have done, he would, one December afternoon, have found the ship-chandler standing in the door, spectacles on his nose, checking off a wagon-load of manila rope which had just been discharged on his pavement, stopping only to nod to the postman who had brought him a letter. The delay in breaking the seal was due entirely to the fact that a coil of light cordage, used aboard the yachts he was accustomed to fit out, had just been reported as missing, and so the unopened letter was tossed on top a barrel of sperm-oil to await his convenience. But it was when Stephen caught sight of the small cramped writing scrawled over the cheap yellow envelope, the stamp askew, his own name and address crowded in the lower left-hand corner, that the supreme moment really arrived, for at that instant—had Felix been there—he would have seen Carlin slit the covering with his thumb-nail, lay aside his invoice, and drop on the first seat within reach, to steady himself.
Indeed, had Felix on this same December afternoon surprised him even an hour later, say at six o'clock, which he could very well have done, for Carlin did not close his shop until seven, he would have come upon him with the same letter in his hand, his whole mind absorbed in its contents, especially the last paragraph: “Be here at seven o'clock, sharp; don't ring the bell below, just rap twice and I shall know it is you. I have to be very careful who I let in.”
It had been several weeks since Carlin had heard from his sister. She had called at the store on her return from Canada, where she had spent the summer, and he had helped her find a small suite of rooms on a side street off St. Mark's Place, which she subsequently occupied, but since then she had never crossed his threshold. At first she had kept him advised of her nursing engagements—the days when her work carried her out of town, or the addresses of those who needed her in the city. These brief communications having entirely ceased, he had decided in his anxiety to look her up and, strange to say, on that very night. That his hand trembled and his rough, weather-browned face became tinged with color as he read her letter to the end, turning the page and reading the whole a second time, would have surprised anybody who knew the stern, silent old sailor. His clerk, a thin, long-necked young man wearing a paper collar and green necktie, noticed his agitation and guessed wrong—Carlin being a confirmed old bachelor. And so did the driver of the wagon, who had to wait for his receipt and who, wondering at Stephen's emotion, would have asked what the letter was all about had not the ship-chandler, after consulting his watch, crammed the envelope into his side pocket, jumped to his feet, and shouted to the Paper Collar to “roll the stuff off that sidewalk and get everything stowed away, as he was going up to St. Mark's Place.”
Here and there in the whir of the great city a restful breathing-spot is found, its stretch of grass dotted with moss-covered tombs grouped around a low-pitched church. At certain hours the sound of bells is heard and the low rhythm of the organ throbbing through the aisles. Then lines of quietly dressed worshippers stroll along the bordered walks, the children's hands fast in their mothers' the arched vestibule-door closing upon them.
Most of these oases, like Trinity, St. Paul's, and St. Mark's, differ but little—the same low-pitched church, the same slender spire, the same stretch of green with its scattered gravestones. And, outside, the same old demon of hurry, defied and hurled back by a lifted hand armed with the cross.
Of these three breathing-spaces, St. Mark's is, perhaps, a little greener in the early spring, less dusty in the summer heat, less bare and uninviting in the winter snow. It is more restful, too, than the others, a place in which to sit and muse—even to read. Out from its shade and sunshine run queer side streets, with still queerer houses, rising two stories and an attic, each with a dormer and huge chimney. Dried-up old aristocrats, these, living on the smallest of pensions, taking toll of notaries public, shyster lawyers, peddlers of steel pens, die-cutters, and dismal real-estate agents in dismal offices boasting a desk, two chairs, and a map.
Stephen's course lay in the direction of one of these relics of better days—a wide-eyed house with a pieced-out roof, flattened like an old woman's wig over a sloping forehead, the eyebrows of eaves shading two blinking windows. A most respectable old dowager of a building, no doubt, in its time, with the best of Madeira and the choicest of cuts going down two steps into its welcoming basement. That was before the iron railings were covered with rust and before the three brownstone steps leading to the front door were worn into scoops by heavy shoes; before the polished mahogany doors were replaced by pine and painted a dull, dirty green; before the banisters with their mahogany rail were as full of cavities as a garden fence with half its palings gone; and before—long before—some vulgar Paul Pry had cut a skylight in the hipped roof, through which he could peer, taking note of whatever went on inside the gloomy interior: each of these several calamities but so much additional testimony to its once grand estate, and every one of them but so many steps in its downward career.
For it had become anything but a happy house—this old dowager dwelling of the long ago. Indeed, it was a very mournful and most depressing house, and so were its tenants. In the basement was a barber who spent half his time lounging about inside the small door, without his white jacket, waiting for customers. On the first-floor-back there was a music-teacher whose pupils were so few and far between that only the shortest of lessons at the longest of intervals were recited on her piano; on the second-floor-front was a wood-engraver who took to photography to pay his rent. On the second-floor-back was a dressmaker who could not collect her bills; while in the rear was a laundress who washed for the tenants. Lastly, there was Mrs. Martha Munger, Stephen Carlin's sister, who occupied the third floor both front and back, over the laundress's quarters, the one chimney serving them both.
While the evil eye of the skylight, despite its dishonorable calling, might have been put to some good use during the day, it can be safely said that it was of no earthly, and for that matter of no heavenly, use during the night. Nor did anything else in the way of illumination take its place. My Lady Dowager's patrons were too poor or too stingy to furnish even a single burner up and down the three flights. The excuse was that the rays of the arc-light, blazing away on the opposite side of the street, were not only powerful enough to shine through the weather-beaten hall door covering the entrance but, still further, to illuminate the rickety staircase—the very staircase up which Stephen Carlin was now groping in answer to Martha's letter.
She had heard his heavy tread on the creaky steps, and was watching for him with the door ajar—an inch at first, and then wide open, her kerosene lamp held over the railing to give him light.
“Oh, but I'm glad you've come, Stephen. I was getting worried. I was afraid maybe you didn't get the letter. It's black dark outside, isn't it?” and she glanced at the cheap clock on the mantel behind her. “Come in, the kettle was boiling over when I heard you. I'll talk to you in a minute.”
He followed with only a pressure of her hand, and, without a word of greeting, seated himself near a table. In the same quiet, silent way he watched her as she busied herself about the apartment, lifting the kettle from the stove, adjusting the wick of the lamp which had begun to smoke from the draft of the open door, taking from a shelf two cups and saucers and from a tin bread box a loaf and some crackers.
When, in one of her journeys to and fro, she passed where the light of the lamp fell full upon her round face, framed in its white cap and long strings, he gave a slight start. There were dark circles below her eyes and heavy lines near the corners of her mouth—signs he had not seen since the month she had spent in the Marine Hospital when the plague was stamped out. He noticed, too, that her robust figure, with its broad shoulders and capacious bosom, restful pillow to many a new-born baby, seemed shrunken—not in weight, but in its spring, as if all her alertness (she was under fifty) had oozed out. It was only when she had completed her labors and taken a chair beside him, her soft, nursing hand covering his own, that his mind reverted to the tragedy which had brought him to her side. Even then, although she sat with her face turned toward his, her eyes reading his own, some moments passed before either of them spoke. At last, in a wondering, dazed way, she exclaimed: “Have you, in all your life, Stephen, ever heard anything like it?”
Carlin shook his head. The letter had given him the facts, and no additional details could alter the situation. It was as if a dead body were lying in the next room awaiting interment; when the time came he would step in and look at it, ask the hour of burial, and step out again.
“I came as soon as I'd read your letter,” he said slowly examining one by one his rough fingers bunched together in his lap. “We got chuck-a-block on Second Avenue or I'd have been here before. Why didn't you let me know sooner?” As he spoke he shifted his gaze to the wrinkles in her throat—a new anxiety rising as he noticed how many more had gathered since he saw her last.
“She wouldn't have it, and I want to tell you that you've got to be careful, as it is. And mind you don't speak too sudden to her.”
In answer he craned his head as if to see around the jamb of the door leading into the smaller room and, lowering his voice, whispered: “Is she here now?”
“No, but she will be in a few minutes; she's often late, she waits until it's dark.”
“How long has she been here with you?”
“About two weeks.”
“Two weeks! You didn't tell me that.”
“She wouldn't let me. She is having trouble enough and I have to do pretty much as she wants.”
He ruminated for a moment, this time scrutinizing the palms of his hands, seemingly interested in some callous spots near the thumb-joint, and then asked: “How did she find you?”
“By God's mercy and nothing else. I was sitting in a Third Avenue car and there she was opposite. I couldn't believe my eyes, she was that changed! She would have been off the dock, I believe, if she hadn't found me. She has run away from Dalton now, and is so scared of him she trembles every time some one comes up the stairs. That's why I wrote you not to ring. He has nothing left. He kept a-hounding her to write to her father and nigh drove her crazy; so she left him.”
“Does she know Mr. Felix is here?” He had finished with the callous spots and was cracking every horny knuckle in his fingers as he spoke, as if their loosening might help solve the problem that vexed him.
“No, I haven't dared tell her. She would be off the dock for sure then. She is more afraid of him than she is of Dalton.”
“Mr. Felix won't hurt her,” he rejoined sharply.
“Yes, but she knows she'd hurt HIM if he finds out how bad she's off. She'd rather he'd think she's living like she used to do. Oh, Stephen—Stephen, but it's a bad, bad business! I'm beat out wondering what ought to be done.”
She pushed back her chair, and began walking up and down the room like one whose suffering can find no other relief, pausing now and then to speak to him as she passed. “I tried to get her to listen. I told her Mr. Felix might be coming over from London. I had to put it to her that way, but she nearly went out of her mind, stiffened up, and began to put on such a wild look that I had to stop. Have you heard from him lately?”
“No, I wrote and wrote and could get no answer. Then I went up to where he boarded, and the woman told me he'd been gone some months—she didn't know where. He left no word, and she forgot to get the name of the express that came for his trunk. He is down with sickness somewheres, or he'd have showed up. He was not himself at all when I last saw him—that's long before you got back from Canada. He's done nothing but walk the streets since he come ashore.”
Stephen stopped, as if it were too painful for him to continue, looked around the room, noting its bareness, and asked, with a break in his voice: “Where do you put her?”
“In the little room. She wouldn't take mine and she won't let me help her. She got work at first on 14th Street, in that big store near the Square, and worked there for a while, that was when she was with Dalton. But Dalton drove her out. And when she was near dead, with nothing to eat, some people picked her up and she stayed with them all night—she never told me where. That was last spring. She stood it for some months living from hand to mouth, she working her fingers to the bone for him, until she was afraid of her life and left him again. She was going she didn't know where when I looked at her 'cross the car and she saw me.
“'Martha!' she cried, and was on the seat next me, my two arms about her. She was sobbing like a lost child who has found its mother again. There were two other women in the car, and they wanted to help, but I told them it was only my baby back again. We were near 10th Street at the time and I got her out and brought her here and put her to bed—Listen! Keep still a moment! That's her step! Yes, thank God, she's alone! I'm always scared lest he should come with her. Get in there behind the curtain!”
Martha had lifted the lamp again as she spoke, and was holding it over the banister, one hand down-stretched toward a woman whose small white fingers were clutching the mahogany rail, pulling herself up one step at a time.
“Don't hurry, my child. It's a hard climb, I know. Give me the box. I began to get worried. Are you tired?”
“A little. It has been a long day.” She sighed as she passed into the room, the nurse following with a large pasteboard box.
“It's good to get back to you,” she continued, sinking into a chair near the mantel and unfastening her cloak. “The stairs seem to grow steeper every time I come up. Thank you. Just hang it behind the door. And now my hat, please.” She lifted the cheap black straw from her head, freeing a fluff of light-golden hair, and with her fingers combed it back from her forehead.
“And please bring me my slippers. I have walked all the way home, and my poor feet ache.”
The nurse stooped for the hat, patted the thin shoulders, and went into the adjacent room for the slippers, whispering to Carlin on her way back to keep hidden until she called. He was still standing concealed by the folds of the calico curtain dividing the apartment, a choke in his throat as he watched the frail woman, her sharpened knees outlined under the folds of the black dress and, below it, the edge of a white petticoat bespattered with mud, the whole figure drooping as if there were not strength enough along its length to hold the body upright. What shocked him even more were the deep-sunken eyes and the hollows in the cheeks and about the brows. All the laugh and sparkle of the once joyous, beautiful girl he had known were gone. Only the gentle voice was left.
Martha was now back, kneeling on the floor, untying the shabby shoes, rubbing the small, delicately shaped feet in her plump hands to rest and warm them. “There, my lamb, that's better,” he heard her say, as she drew on the heelless slippers. “I'll have tea in a minute. The kettle's been boiling this hour.” Then, as though it were an afterthought: “Stephen wants to see you, so I told him maybe you would let him. Shall I tell him to come?”
“Your brother, you mean? The one who lives here in New York?” she asked listlessly.
“Yes, he's never forgotten you. And—”
“Some day I will see him, Martha. I shall be better soon, and then—”
She stopped and stared at Carlin, who misunderstanding Martha's words, had drawn aside the calico curtain and was advancing toward her, bowing as he walked, the choke still in his throat. “I hope your ladyship is not offended,” he ventured. “It was all one family once, if I may say so, and there is only Martha and me.”
She had straightened as she saw him coming and then, remembering that she was in Martha's room, and he Martha's brother, she held out her hand. “No, Stephen, I am very glad. I was only a little startled. It is a long time since I saw you, but I remember you quite well, and you have not changed. A little grayer perhaps. When was it?”
“When I came back from Calcutta, your ladyship, and the Rover was wrecked. Your father ordered the crew home. I was first mate, your ladyship remembers, and had to look after them. Some six years agone, I take it.”
“Yes, it all comes back to me now,” she answered dreamily “six years—is it not more than that?”
“No, your ladyship. Just about six.”
She paused, rested her head on her hand, and looked at him intently from beneath the wave of hair that had dropped again about her brow, and asked: “Why do you still call me 'your ladyship' Stephen?”
“Well, I don't know, your ladyship. Mebbe it's because I've always been used to it. But I won't if your ladyship doesn't want me to.”
“Never mind, it does not matter. It has been so long since I have heard it that it sounded odd, that was all.” She roused herself with an effort and added, in a brighter tone, changing the topic: “It was very good of you to come to see Martha. She has me to look after now, and I am afraid she gets unhappy at times. You cannot think how good she is to me—so good—so good! I often wake in the night dreaming I am a child again and stretch out my hand to her, just as I used to do years ago when she slept beside me. She often speaks of you. I am glad you came to-day.”
Carlin had been standing over her all the time, his rough pea-jacket buttoned across his broad chest, his ruddy sailor's face with its fringe of gray whiskers, bushy eyebrows, and clear, steady gaze in vivid contrast to her own shrinking weakness.
“It ain't altogether Martha,” he exclaimed in tones suddenly grown deliberate. “It's you, your ladyship, that I particular came to see. You ain't fit to take care of yourself, and there ain't nobody but me and Martha that I can lay hands on now to help—nobody but just us two. I'm not here to judge nobody. I know what's happened and what you're going through, and you've got to let me lend a hand. If I lived to be a hundred I could never forget his lordship's kindness to me, and things can't go on as they are with you. There is a way out of it if you only knew it.”
She threw back her head quickly. “Not my Father?”
“No, not your father. Although his lordship would haul down his colors mighty quick if once he saw you as I do now. But there are others who would be glad to take a hand at the wheel and help you steer out of all this misery. You ain't accustomed to it and you don't deserve it, and I'm going to put a stop to it if I can.” This last came with still greater emphasis—the first mate was speaking now.
“Thank you, Stephen. You and Martha are very much alike. She has the loyalty of an old servant, and you have the loyalty of an old friend. But we must all pay for our mistakes—” she halted, drew in her breath, and added, picking at her dress, “—and our sins. Everybody condemns us but God. He is the only one who forgets, when we are sorry.”
“Not so many remember as you may think, your ladyship. Some of 'em have forgotten—forgotten everything—and are standing by ready to catch a line or man a boat.”
“Yes, there are always kind people in the world.”
“Well, there mayn't be such an awful lot of 'em as you think, but I know one. There's Mr. Felix, for instance, who—”
She sprang to her feet, her hands held out as a barrier, and stood trembling, staring wildly at him, all the blood gone from her cheeks. “Stop, Stephen! Not another word. You must not mention that name to me. I cannot and will not permit it. I have listened too long already. I am very grateful for your kindness and for your offers to me, but you must not touch on my private affairs. I am earning my own living, and I shall continue to do so. And now I would like to be alone.”
“But, your ladyship, I've got something to tell you which—”
Martha stepped between them. “I think, Stephen, you'd better not talk to her ladyship any more. You might come some other night when she's more rested. You see she's had a very bad day and—”
Stephen's voice rang out clear. “Not say anything more, when—”
Martha dug her fingers into his arm. “Hush!” she whispered hoarsely, her lips close against his hairy cheek. “She'll be on the floor in a dead faint in a minute. Didn't I tell you not to mention his name?”
She stepped quickly to the side of her charge, who had walked falteringly toward the window and now stood peering into the darkness through the panes of the dormer.
“It's only Stephen's way, child, and you mustn't mind him. He doesn't mean anything. He hasn't seen much of women, living aboard ship half his life. It's only his way of trying to be kind. And you see he's known you from a baby, same as me—and that's why he lets out.”
She had folded the pitiful figure in her arms, her hand patting the bent shoulders. “But we'll get on together, my lamb—you and me. And we'll have supper right away—And I must ask you, Stephen, to go, now, because her ladyship is worn out and I'm going to put her to bed.”
Carlin picked up his hat and stood fingering the rim, trying to make up his mind whether he should force the truth upon her then or obey orders and wait. The training of long years told.
“Well, just as you say, your ladyship, I won't stay if you don't want me, but don't forget I'm within call, not more than a half-hour away. All Martha's got to do is to send a postal card and I'm here. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. God knows I didn't mean to! Martha knows what I wanted to tell you. You'll have to come to it sooner or later. Good night. I hope your ladyship will be rested in the morning. Good night, Martha. You know you can write when you want me. Good night again, your ladyship.”
He opened the door softly, closed it behind him without a sound, placed his hat on his head, and, reaching out for the hand-rail, felt his way in the dark down the rickety stairs and out onto the sidewalk.
Once there, he looked up and down the street as if undecided, turned sharply, and bent his steps toward Second Avenue, muttering to himself over and over again as he walked: “I got to find Mr. Felix. I got to find Mr. Felix.”
Felix O'Day's runaway wife, despite the many quiet hours spent in Martha's room, near St. Mark's Place, had not told her old nurse all her story. She had wept her heart out on the dear woman's shoulder and had cuddled close in her arms, giving her scraps and bits of her unfortunate history, with side-lights here and there on a misery so abject and so terrifying that the dear nurse had hugged the frail figure all the tighter, seeing only the wound and knowing nothing of the steps that had led up to the final blow or the anger that hastened it.
Martha had known, of course, that there had been bankruptcy and ruin; that Oakdale, the ancestral estate of the O'Days—theirs for two centuries, with all its priceless old furniture, tapestries, pictures, and porcelains—had, after the owner's death, been sold at public auction; that Fernlodge, Mr. Felix's own home, had gone in the same way; that Lady Barbara, for some reason, had returned to her father, Lord Carnavon; that the girl baby had died; and that “Mr. Felix,” as she always called him, had gone to London where he had taken up his abode at his club. Lady Barbara herself had given these details in a letter written a couple of weeks after the death of the child, Martha being in Toronto at the time.
Martha had also learned, through a letter from the head gardener's wife, that after a few months' stay, Lady Barbara had left her father's house because of a fierce scene with Lord Carnavon, who had sent for his carriage, conducted her into it, and given directions to his coachman either to set his daughter down on the main road, outside his gates, or to take her to the nearest public house.
She had learned, too, that her former charge, after having eloped with Dalton, had dropped entirely out of sight and, so far as her own knowledge was concerned, had never come to light again until, with a cry of joy, Lady Barbara sank sobbing on her shoulder in that Third Avenue car.
Much of this information had been gathered from newspaper clippings that her old uncle, living in London, had mailed to her. More particulars had come in a letter from James Muldoon, one of the grooms at Oakdale, who gave a most pitiful and graphic account of the way the London dealers crowded about the old porcelains in the ebony cabinets, and of the prices paid by the Earl of Brinsmore, who bought most of the pictures, half of the old Spanish furniture, as well as the largest but one of the great tapestries, to enrich the new mansion he was then building in London and in which James Muldoon was happy to say he had been promised a place.
In still other letters, open references had also been made to a much discussed speculation, entangling many of those whom Martha had formerly known, followed by a grand financial explosion in which some of the same people had been badly injured. In connection with these disasters mention was likewise made of a certain Mr. Dalton, who had disappeared shortly after, leaving rather a bad name behind him, altogether undeserved, according to many of the papers, he always having been a “financier of the highest standing.” This last ball of gossip was rolled Martha's way by her nephew, who was a clerk in a solicitor's office off the Strand and who had mailed an editorial on the matter to his uncle, who promptly forwarded it to Martha. She had read it carefully to the end and had put it in her drawer without at first grasping the full meaning of the fact that, but for the activities of this same Mr. Dalton, her dear mistress and her dear mistress's husband, Felix O'Day, and her dear mistress's father-in-law, the late Sir Carroll O'Day, would still be in possession of their ancestral estates and in undisturbed enjoyment of whatever happiness they, individually and collectively, could get out of life.
What the dear woman never knew, and it was just as well that she did not, were the special happenings which ended in the overwhelming catastrophe.
It really began with a tea basket, holding enough for two, which was opened one lovely afternoon under the big willows skirting that little strip of land bordering the backwater at Cookham-on-Thames. My lady at the time was wearing a wide leghorn hat with blue ribbons that matched her eyes and set off the roses in her fair English cheeks. Her companion was in white flannels—a muscular, well-set-up young man of thirty, fifteen years younger than her husband and with twice his charm—one of those delightful companions who possess the rare quality of making an hour seem but five minutes. A gay party had dropped down the river in her father's launch, which had been tied up at Ferry Inn, and Dalton had insisted on taking my lady for just a half-hour's poling in a punt, Felix and the others preferring to take their tea at the Inn—plans readily agreed to and carried out, except that the half-hour prolonged itself into two whole ones.
Then there had come a week-end at Glenmore Castle and a garden party outside London, and then five-o'clock teas at half a dozen private houses, including one or two meetings a trifle more secluded. And all quite as it should be, for a most desirable and valuable guest was this same Mr. Guy Dalton, a man received everywhere with open arms, as “one of the rising men of the time, my dear sir,” a financier of distinction, indeed, and a promoter of such skill that he had only to issue a prospectus, or wink knowingly on the street, or take you aside at the club and whisper confidentially to you, when everything he had issued, winked at, or whispered about would go up with a rush, and countless men and women—a goodly number were women—would be hundreds, nay, thousands of pounds the richer before the week was out.
That his own buoyant imagination, as well as that of those who followed his lead, should have been stretched to the utmost was quite within the possibilities when one recollects that the basis of all this wealth was crude rubber, a substance of pronounced elasticity. This, too, accounts for the vim and suddenness of the final recoil attending the final collapse—a recoil which smashed everything and everybody within its reach.
There were “words,” of course, between Dalton and some of his victims. There always are “words” when the ball bounces back and you catch it full in the eye. And for salves and soothing plasters there were the customary explanations regarding the state of the market, the tightness of money, the non-arrival of important details, the delaying of despatches owing to a break in the cable, together with offers of heavy discounts, and increased allotments of stock for renewed subscriptions. But the end came, just as it always does.
And so did the aftermath, as was shown by the advertisements in the auction columns of the daily papers and the motley mob of hungry, perspiring dealers, pawing over the household gods; and, more disastrous still, because of its rarity, Felix's brave fight to save his father's name, the whole struggle ending in his own ruin.
As for the very pretty young woman who had been wearing the hat with blue ribbons, it may be as well to remark that when the milk in the heart of a woman has become slightly curdled, it is to be expected that, under certain exciting influences, the whole will turn sour. When to this curdling process is added the loss of her child and her fortune, calamities made all the more insupportable by reason of an interview lasting an hour in which her two hot hands were held in those of a sympathetic man of thirty, her cheeks within an inch of his lips, the quickest—in fact, the only way—yes, really the only way, to prevent any further calamity is to put your best gown in your best dressing-case, catch up your jewels, and exchange your husband's roof for that of your father's. And this is precisely what my lady did do, and there in her father's house she stayed, despite the entreaties of her own and her father's friends.
“And why not?” she had argued, with flashing eyes: “I am without a shilling of my own, owing to the Quixotic ideas of my husband, who, without thinking of me, has beggared himself to pay his father's debts. And that, too, just when I need to be comforted most. He does not care how I suffer; and now that my father has offered me a home, I will lead my own life, surrounded by the few friends who have loved me for myself alone.”
That the eminent financier—it might be better perhaps to say the LATE eminent financier—was one of those same unselfish beings who had “loved her for herself alone,” and that he had, at once and without the delay of an hour, flown to her side followed as a matter of course, as did the gossip, men and women in and about the clubs and drawing-rooms nodding meaningly or hinting behind their hands.
“Rather rough on O'Day,” the men had agreed. “That comes of marrying a woman young enough to be your daughter.” “She ought to have known better,” was the verdict of the women. “So many other ways of getting what you want without making a scandal,” this from a duchess from behind her fan to a divorcee. But few words of sympathy for the deserted husband escaped any of them and, except from his old servants, Felix allowed himself to receive none.
He had made no move to win her back. To him she was, at the worst, only the same wilful and spoiled child she had always been, while he was over twenty years her senior. What he hoped for was that her common sense, her breeding, and her pride would come to the rescue, and that after her pique had spent itself, she would become once more the loving wife.
And it is quite possible that this hope might have been realized had it not been for one of those unfortunate and greatly to be regretted concurrences which so often precede if they do not precipitate many of life's catastrophes.
One of Lord Carnavon's grooms was the unfortunate match that caused this explosion. He had been sent down to Dorsetshire for a horse and, in an out-of-the-way inn in one corner of the county, had stumbled—early the next morning—into a cosey little sitting-room. When he came to his senses—he never recovered the whole of them until he was safe once more inside his lordship's stables—he told, with bulging eyes and bated breath, what he had seen. Whereupon the head coachman forthwith informed his wife, who at once poured it into the ears of the housekeeper, who, being jealous of my lady, fearing her dominance, lost no time in amplifying the details to Lord Carnavon. That gentleman had walked his library the rest of the night and, on my lady's return from Scotland, two mornings later (she had “spent the night with her aunt”), had denounced her in tones so shrill that every word was heard at the end of the long gallery; the tirade, to his lordship's amazement, being cut short by his daughter's defiant answer: “And why not, if I love him?”
All of which accounts for the infamous order roared five minutes later by the distinguished nobleman to his coachman, who, having known her ladyship from a child and loved her accordingly, had not set her down on the main road, but had taken her to a cottage on an adjoining estate—her second change of roofs—from whence Dalton carried her off next day to Ostend, a refuge she had herself selected, the season there being then at its height.
Had either of them kept a diary, it is safe to say that the delirious hours which filled that first week at Ostend would have been checked off in gold letters. Neither of them had ever been so blissfully happy, nor so passionately enamoured of the other, nor so overjoyed that the dreary past, with all its misunderstandings, calumnies, and injustice, had been wiped out forever.
There had, of course, been a few colorless moments. On a certain Saturday, for instance, the eminent ex-financier, having lost his head after the manner of some born gamblers, had, at the Casino, played the wrong number—a series of wrong numbers, in fact—an error which resulted in his pushing a crisp bundle of Bank of England notes—almost all he had with him—toward the spidery hands of a suave gentleman with rat eyes and bloodless face, who gathered them up with a furtive, deadly smile.
The gold Letters might have been omitted here, and, in their stead, my lady could have made a common pinhole to remind her, if she ever cared to remember, that it was on that very night that her passionately enamoured lover had helped her unfasten from her throat a string of pearls which O'Day had given her, and which, strange to say, for a woman so injured, so maligned, and so misunderstood, she, with Dalton's advice, had carried off when she deserted both her husband and her husband's bed and board. And she might have inserted just below the pinhole the illuminating note that, after unfastening the string, Dalton had forgotten to return it.
And then there had come an August morning—the following Monday, to be exact—when, his coffee untasted, he had sat staring at a paragraph in the financial column of a London paper, not daring to lay it down for fear she would pick it up. It gave a full and detailed account of the discovery of a series of certificates bearing duplicate numbers, said duplicates claiming to be the genuine shares of the Bawhadder Rubber Co., Ltd. It also hinted at a searching investigation about to be made by a financial committee of the highest standing at its next regular meeting, but a few days off. More important still was a crisp editorial, charging the directors of the aforesaid company, and particularly its promoter—name withheld—with irregularities of the gravest import.
And it was on this same Monday morning—another pinhole, made with a big black pin would serve best here—before the stone-cold coffee and the dry, uneaten toast had been sent away, that there had arrived a most important telegram (that is, Dalton had SAID it had arrived) ordering him back to London on business of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE. So urgent were the summons that he was forced to leave at once—so he explained to the manager of the hotel—and as madame wished to avoid the night journey by way of Ostend—the channel being almost always rough, even in summer, and she easily disturbed—he had decided to take the shorter and more comfortable route, and would the urbane and obliging gentleman please secure two tickets to London by way of Calais and Dover? This would give them a day in Paris at the house of a friend, and the next morning would see them safely landed in London, in ample time for the business in question.
The pins can be dispensed with now; so can the pencil and so can any special entries. Henceforth life for these two exiles was to be one long toboggan slide, with every post they passed marking a lower level. The sled with its occupants made no stop at Paris nor did it go by way of Calais nor did it reach Dover. It swooped on down to Havre, the steamer sailing an hour after the train arrived, crossed the ocean at full speed, and dumped its two passengers one hot August night in front of a cheap and inconspicuous hotel on the East Side, New York, where Mr. and Mrs. Stanton, from Toronto, Canada, would he at home, should anybody call—which, it is quite safe to say, nobody ever did.
No, nothing of all this did the heart-broken woman tell the tender old nurse, who had carried her in her arms many a night, and who was now willing to sacrifice everything she possessed to give her mistress one hour of peace.
Nor did she tell of the shock which she, a woman of quality, had received when she entered the two cheaply furnished rooms, her only shelter for months, and which, to a woman accustomed from babyhood to a luxurious home and the care of attentive and loyal servants, had affected her more keenly than anything that had yet happened.
Neither did she confide into the willing ears of the sympathetic woman the details of her gradual awakening from Dalton's spell as his irritability, cowardice, and selfishness became more and more apparent. Nor yet of her growing anxiety as their resources declined; an anxiety which had so weighed upon her mind that she could neither sleep nor rest, despite his continued promises of daily remittances that never came and his rose-colored schemes for raising money which never materialized.
Neither did she uncover the secret places of her own heart, and tell the old nurse of the fight she had made in those earlier days when she had faced the situation without flinching; nor of her stubborn determination to still fight on to the end. She had even at one time sought to defend him against herself. All men had their weaknesses, she had reasoned; Guy had his. Moreover, the crash had been none of his doing. He had been deceived by false reports instigated by his enemies, including her own father-in-law and—yes, her husband as well, who could have avoided the catastrophe had he followed Guy's advice, and persuaded Sir Carroll O'Day to hold on to his shares. How, then, could she desert him, poor as he was and with the world against him? She had been untrue to everything else. Could she not redeem herself by being at least true to her sin?
What she did tell Martha, and there was the old ring in her voice as she spoke, was of her refusal to yield to Dalton's presistent entreaties to write to her father for sufficient money to start him in a new enterprise which, with “even his limited means”—thus ran the letter she was to copy and sign—“was already exceeding his most sanguine expectations, and which, with a few thousand pounds of additional capital, would yield enormous returns.” And she might have added that so emphatic had been her refusal that, for the first time in all their intercourse, Dalton's eyes had been opened to something he had never realized in her before, the quality of the blood that runs in some Englishwomen's veins—this time the blood of the Carnavons, who for two centuries had been noted for their indomitable will.
Her defiance had seemed all the more remarkable to him because as he well knew their combined resources were dwindling. She had, in fact, only a few finger-rings left, together with some cheap trinkets; among them a pair of sleeve-buttons then in her cuff's, a pair which she had given Felix and which she found in her jewel-box the day after she left him, and which she had determined to return until she realized how small was their value.
The rest of her sad story came by fits and starts.
With her head on Martha's shoulder she told of the horror of that rainy April night when, with agonized hands against her hot cheeks, she had heard him stumbling up the narrow stairs staggering drunk, lunging through the door, and falling headlong at her feet. Of the deadly fear born in her, for the first time in her life, she, helpless and alone, without a human being to whom she could appeal, not daring to disclose her own identity lest graver results might follow; he, prostrate before her, naked to his inmost bone, with all his perfidy exposed. Of his cursing her conscientious scruples and family pride, her milk-and-water principles, demanding again that she should write her father and that very night, ending his entreaties with a blow of his fiat hand on her cheek which sent her reeling toward her narrow bed.
She had watched her chance, caught up her hat and cloak, and had slipped down-stairs, avoiding the crowd about the side-door, and had then fled as if for her life, to be found an hour later by an expressman's wife, who had put her to bed with a kindness and tenderness she had not known since she left her husband's roof.
Then there had followed a long, weary day's search for work, ending at last in defeat when, disheartened and footsore, she had dragged herself once more up the hotel stairs, with another tightening of her resolution to fight it out to the end.
Greatly to her surprise, Dalton had received her with marked politeness. He had begged her forgiveness, pleading that his nerves had been upset by his financial troubles. With his arm around her, he had told her how young and pretty she still was, and how sad it made him when he thought he had ruined her life and brought her all these weary miles from home, his contrition being apparently so genuine, that she had determined to trust him once more, and would have told him so had she not gone into her room to change her dress, only to find that he had pawned the few remaining trinkets and articles of wearing-apparel she possessed, in order to try his luck in a neighboring pool-room.
She had realized, then, where she stood. There was but one thing for her to do and that was to hunt again for work. She had been an expert needlewoman in her better days and this knowledge might earn her their board.
With this in her mind, she had consulted a woman, living on the floor above, who had often spoken to her when they passed each other on the stairs, and who was employed in a department store on 14th Street near Broadway, the result being that Stiger & Company had given “Mrs. Stanton” a place in the repair shop, her wages being equal to her own and Dalton's board. This had continued all through the summer, her earnings keeping the roof over their heads, Dalton leaving her for days at a time, his invariable excuse for his absence being that he was “trying to get employment.”
Finally—and again her eyes burned, and the color mounted to her hot cheeks as she reached this part of her story—there had come that last awful, unforgettable December night.
She had come home from work and had put on a thin silk wrapper, too well worn for pawning, when the door of their little sitting-room was opened and Dalton entered, bringing two men with him. One of them kept his hat on as he talked, the other slouched his from his head after he had taken a seat and had had a chance to look her over. The three had come upon her suddenly, and she, realizing her dishabille, had risen hastily, excusing herself, when Dalton, who was half tipsy, stepped between her and her bedroom door.
“No, you'll stay here,” he had cried; “you're prettier as you are. I never saw you so fetching. Don't mind them, they're friends of mine. We've ordered up something to drink.”
She had stood trembling, looking from one to the other, her heart hammering wildly. No man had ever addressed her with such insolence and before such company. What she feared was that something would snap in her and she fall fainting to the floor.
“I will change my dress,” she had answered firmly, speaking slowly to hide her terror. She was Lord Carnavon's daughter now.
“No, I tell you, Barbara—I—”
There was something in her eyes that told him he had reached the limit of her forbearance. Beyond that there was danger.
She had glided past him, shut and locked her bedroom door, struggled with bungling fingers into her walking-dress, pinned on her hat, thrown an old silk waterproof around her shoulders, had slid back the bolt of her chamber opening into the hall, crept down the steps, and fled.
Ten minutes later Martha's arms were about her, and she sobbing on her old nurse's shoulder.