FATHER SHOOTS GIRL’S BETRAYER—TRAGEDY NARROWLY AVERTED AT THE HOTEL TRESSILLON—SON OF THE LATE THOMAS ELLINGER WOUNDED
FATHER SHOOTS GIRL’S BETRAYER—TRAGEDY NARROWLY AVERTED AT THE HOTEL TRESSILLON—SON OF THE LATE THOMAS ELLINGER WOUNDED
He stared and stared at the thing. The paper crackled in his trembling hands, the letters swam before his eyes. Nonsense! “Son of the late Thomas Ellinger”—must be a mistake!
He read the story with a furious sort of incredulity. It was a nasty story of a young city man going out to a little country town for a vacation, boarding in the house of a decent farmer, and running off one night with the poor little sixteen-year-old daughter. He had taken her to a disreputable hotel and registered as man and wife, which they weren’t. And the decent farmer, the outraged, the desperate father, had tracked them, and, standing in the doorway of the crowded and noisy restaurant, had fired two shots at the girl’s betrayer—at Tommy! At the boy who a few months ago had been sitting opposite Uncle James at this very table!
“No! Nonsense!” he cried, crumpling up the paper and throwing it under the table. “One of those beastly newspaper stories! Damned lies, all of them!”
He went up to his room, got his hat and stick, and hurried out, furtive, terrified, afraid that every one was pointing him out as the uncle of that fellow. He wanted to telephone, where he would not be seen or heard, somewhere outside of his hotel. He went into a booth in a cigar store, and called for the Hotel Tressillon.
“Mr. Ellinger,” he demanded.
In a moment he heard that familiar young voice, with its exaggerated accent.
“This is Mr. Ellinger speaking.”
“Thomas!” cried the old gentleman.
The boy gave a sort of gasp. Then, with his unfailing genius for doing the wrong thing, he assumed an airy and offhand tone.
“Hello, Uncle James!” he said jauntily. “I didn’t know that you were back in town again.”
“See here!” shouted the old gentleman, in a tremendous voice. “Is it true—this abominable thing I saw in the papers? Is ityou?”
“Yes,” replied Tommy.
“Yes?” repeated his uncle’s voice, incredulous. “Yes?Youdid a thing like that? Good God! Explain yourself, Thomas!”
“I can’t!” said Tommy.
There was a brief silence.
“You—you young cur!” The old man’s voice was trembling. “Don’t ever come near me again. Don’t let me see you. I’d like to shoot you! You miserable, dastardly cur! You’ve disgraced the whole family. You’ve disgraced your father’s name. I’d like to see you hanged—only hanging’s too good for you!”
Tommy’s face was scarlet, as if he had been struck. He went across the room, as far as he could get from the telephone, sat down, tried to smoke a cigarette, and tried to smile carelessly. He had to give it up. He hid his hot face in his arms, and sat there, amazed, confounded, utterly overwhelmed, at his own deed and at the awful consequences of it.
His uncle’s voice he recognized as the voice of the world in general. That was how he was to be regarded in the future—a cad, a cur, hanging too good for him. A pariah—he who so valued the good opinion of others! It was the sort of thing one couldn’t live down, ever. His life was blasted at its very beginning.
He knew that he could never justify himself. There were the facts in the newspapers, and he couldn’t deny any of them. How explain, even try to explain, what lay[Pg 30]behind them? He himself didn’t comprehend it. He was more surprised, more shocked, than any one else could possibly have been.
He looked at his wrist watch, which lay on the table because it couldn’t be put on over his bandaged wrist, and saw with dismay that it was only ten o’clock in the morning. The thought of the hours he would have to pass, shut up there alone, overwhelmed him. He was ashamed to go out, even into the corridor. He had already had to face a doctor and the waiter who had brought up his breakfast, and his raw sensibilities had made each of these encounters an ordeal.
He imagined a quite preposterous hostility. He was already an outcast, he was deserted, no one would come or telephone; he had nothing whatever to do now, or in the future. He looked around the ugly little hotel bedroom, and he felt that he was in prison, judged and convicted by his fellow men, and already banished from them.
Nothing to do, but plenty to think of, to recollect, and to examine. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, and tried his honest best to retrace all the steps of the affair and to discover the true measure of his guilt.
He remembered every minute detail. He saw himself getting on the train at the Grand Central, saw himself in the train reading magazines, hoping that the other passengers admired his clothes and his luggage, and fearing that they didn’t. He remembered the dust and the heat and the tedium.
It was late afternoon when he reached Millersburg, and he was gratified to see from the window that a fair proportion of the population was assembled to see the New York train arrive. He was confident that he was causing more or less of a sensation as he descended, with his irreproachable tweed suit, his imposing eyeglass, and the latest thing in traveling bags.
He walked leisurely over to a solitary old carriage, climbed in, and directed the driver to take him to Mr. Van Brink’s. Then he leaned back carelessly, prepared to review the landscape, when the jolting old vehicle stopped. They were not yet out of sight of the station, from whence the natives were still watching his progress.
“Well, what’s wrong?” he asked the old driver. “Horse given out already?”
“Here ye be!” the driver answered dryly. “Here’s Van Brink’s!”
Tommy knew very well that he was being laughed at by the loungers at the station, as well as by the old driver, and he liked it no better than any one else would have liked it; but he was a genuinely good-natured sort of devil, and he grinned, in spite of a very real chagrin at so unimposing an arrival.
Having paid the driver lavishly, he walked along the little garden path before him, and up some steps to a little veranda. The door opened at once, and a hand reached for his bag.
“Come right in!” entreated a gentle young voice. “This way, please!”
The little house was cool and very dark, every shade pulled down, every shutter closed. Tommy followed the white dress that was ascending the stairs, and was presently led into a dim, breezy room, smelling of verbena.
The white dress flitted over to the window and threw open the shutters.
“There!” she said, looking back over her shoulder and smiling.
That smile! Tommy looked at her, enchanted.
You could see that she was very young, although her figure was almost matronly—short, full, agreeably rounded. She had calm, clear gray eyes, fair hair neatly arranged, a rather pale, chubby face with blunt features, pretty enough; but what was she but a nice, ordinary little country girl in a calico dress? What was there, or could there be, in such a young person to arouse the faintest interest in a man of the world like Tommy?
Ah, it was something to which far more sophisticated souls than his must have succumbed—a lure so flamboyant, a charm so candidly voluptuous!
She was serenely aware of her carnal fascinations. She was ignorant, but not without a certain experience, and she had a fatal sort of instinct. She knew her power, and knew how to employ it.
She looked at Tommy with complete self-possession. She was not in any way awed by his clothes, his eyeglass, or his magnificent air. Indeed, it was he who grew red and confused before the calm gaze of the girl in the calico dress.
“Is there anything you’d like to have, Mr. Ellinger?” she asked politely. “There’s towels[Pg 31]—”
“No, not at all!” protested Tommy, in his best manner. “Thanks awfully, but there’s nothing.”
The little thing in the white dress went out.
Tommy unpacked his bag, and then, restless and hungry, wandered about the room, looked out of the window, yawned, whistled, brushed his hair again, wondered what was expected of him. At last a knock at the door, and the gentle young voice said:
“Supper’s ready, Mr. Ellinger!”
She was waiting to show him the way to the dining room. She behaved, in fact, like a very nice little hostess, properly concerned with his comfort. He liked that, of course, and he liked the supper, too. It was a novel sort of meal to Tommy—cold meat, fried potatoes, little glass dishes of preserves and pickles, cakes, pies, strawberries, and coffee, all on the table together.
Old Van Brink and his wife made no impression on him at all. They were what he had expected—what they ought to be. He talked to them in his best manner, genial, very much at ease. He was ingenuously sure that they were kind and honest people, and that they admired him. All his interest centered on the calm little thing across the table.
Supper over, Van Brink retired to a rocking-chair with the newspaper, and his wife began to carry the dishes into the kitchen. The little thing looked at Tommy.
“Would you like to take a little walk?” she asked. “‘Most every one does—down to the village.”
“Charmed!” he assured her, with his inane magnificence. “Will you wait till I get my stick?”
So they set off together down the dark, tree-bordered street. It was cool and very quiet, with a wistful little breeze stirring in the leaves.
“Peaceful, isn’t it?” said Tommy contentedly.
“Oh, yes! I hope it will do you good,” the little thing answered benevolently.
Thanks, said Tommy, there wasn’t much wrong with him—he needed a rest, that was all.
“Well, you’ll get it, here!” said she, with a deep sigh.
“Why? Not much excitement?”
“Oh, you can’t imagine! Year after year!”
He was sorry for her.
“But you’ll be getting married one of these days,” he assured her gallantly.
“There’s no one here to marry,” she said.
They had come into the brightly lighted Main Street, and Tommy became somewhat distrait. He was wondering what sort of impression he was producing on the natives. They were observing him. He saw girls turn to stare after him, and a group of youths on a corner snickered as he passed.
All this pleased him. He swung his stick and strolled on with exquisite indifference. The little thing, he fancied, must be admiring him tremendously.
But she wasn’t. He was undoubtedly causing a sensation, this lofty stranger from the city with his remarkable clothes; but his smooth face was too innocent, his manner, for all its swagger, too ridiculously boyish. He was more or less stupid to this maiden accustomed to the loutish gallantries of the corner loafer, to facile caresses and furtive advances. He was insipid—“slow,” she called him to herself; but of course he could be taught.
Coming to Egbert’s Drug Store, they went in, at Tommy’s suggestion, and each of them had a glass of soda. She did feel a certain triumph then, at his manners and his handful of change.
It was dark when they returned to the house.
“Would you like to sit on the porch?” she asked. “All right! Let’s bring the hammock around.”
So they brought the hammock from the little back garden and slung it on the veranda. They were hidden from the street by a tangle of honeysuckle. The window behind them was unlighted, and there wasn’t a sound from the house. They might have been alone in the universe. No one disturbed them, no one came into sight. There they sat, in the sweet-scented dark, Tommy on the railing, the little white figure swaying in the hammock.
“Don’t you want to smoke?” she asked.
“Thanks!” he answered. “Yes, I will, if you don’t mind.”
“If it’s cigarettes, I’d like to have one, please.”
He was surprised and rather offended, because this wasn’t according to his idea of her.
“Sure it won’t make you sick?” he asked.[Pg 32]
“Oh, no!” she answered pleasantly. “We used to smoke at boarding school, you know.”
He proffered a lighted match, and in its glare he caught a glimpse of her face, quietly smiling. Again he was fascinated, suddenly, unexpectedly.
They smoked for some time in silence. Tommy could see her curled up in the hammock, swinging just a little. All of a sudden she sighed.
“Oh, dear!”
“What is it?”
“Nothing much. For goodness’ sake, Mr. Ellinger, how old are you?”
He tried to laugh in an amused way, but he was chagrined and puzzled by her tone.
“Why do you want to know?” he inquired.
“Never mind, if you’d rather not say.”
“I’ve no objection to telling you, my—my dear young lady,” he answered, nettled. “I’m—eighteen.”
“Are you? I’m only sixteen. We’re only kids, aren’t we?”
He didn’t like that. Moreover, he perceived something sinister beneath the words.
“I suppose so,” he assented, in a tone of paternal indulgence.
“Call me ‘Esther,’”said she. “Don’t let’s be silly! What’syourname?”
He hesitated, and finally decided upon “Tom”; but she, like every one else, saw the inevitability of “Tommy.”
There was a long silence. Then out of the dark came her calm little voice.
“Tommy,” she said, “you’re a funny boy!”
“Am I?” he said, with an uneasy laugh.
The situation was quite out of hand now. He didn’t know what was expected of him as a man of the world. He did know, though, that he was failing.
“Tommy,” said she, again, “come and sit here, beside me.”
With a quite artificial alacrity he jumped up, went over to her, and sat down in the hammock, close to her. He called himself a fool, an imbecile, a contemptible ass.
“I ought to kiss her,” he said to himself, “or put my arm around her, or at least hold her hand!”
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even talk to her. He wanted, above everything else in the world, to run away. He was not flattered or in any way stirred or excited—only miserably ill at ease and instinctively alarmed. He dared not move, even to turn his head.
At last Esther got up with a sigh.
“Good night, Tommy,” she said. “I hope you’ll sleep well!”
“Thanks,” he answered, feeling utterly foolish and miserable.
He did not sleep well. He lay in bed, his hands clasped under his head, looking out at the summer sky.
“She’s a queer girl,” he thought, with a sort of resentment. “She’s bold—runs after a fellow; and yet you can see she doesn’t care two straws for him.”
In long imaginary conversations with Esther he regained his lost advantage. He was affable but cool—very cool. He could see her round little face quite clearly before him, her serene eyes, her neat fair hair.
He awoke after his restless night to a hot, still morning. He could not find a bath tub. Dressing reluctantly, unrefreshed and a bit irritable, he went downstairs. It was a few minutes after eight by his watch—a very decent, early hour, he thought; but, looking into the dining room, he saw only one place laid on the long table.
Mrs. Van Brink hurried in from the kitchen, limp, hot, and painfully anxious.
“Set down to the table, Mr. Ellinger,” she cried in her shrill voice. “I’ll bring your breakfast right off. We’re all done. You won’t have to wait more’n a minute.”
He ate alone, a little resentful that Esther didn’t appear. Then he went out on the porch. No one there—the shady street was quiet and empty. He went around the house to the sun-baked little yard at the back, where he discovered Mrs. Van Brink hanging dish towels on a line in terrible haste. Her face became positively convulsed with worry at the sight of his listlessness.
“Now, then!” she cried. “You don’t know what to do with yourself, I’ll be bound! And I haven’t got a minute to spare, with the dinner I have to get up for Mr. Van Brink at noon. His farm’s four miles off, you know.”
She stared at him, frowning, until an inspiration came.
“Maybe you’d enjoy to play on the harmonium,” she suggested. “Esther’s got some real sweet music.[Pg 33]”
Tommy did not know what a harmonium was; but she showed him a queer little organ in the parlor, and he sat before it all the rest of that intolerable morning, picking out tunes and experimenting with the stops.
At noon old Van Brink came driving home in his buggy, and his hot and anxious wife began hurrying back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, bringing in an enormous hot dinner. The farmer had nothing to say to Tommy. He sat there with his napkin tucked in his collar, consuming one dish after the other as fast as his wife brought them in, absorbed and ravenous, like a feeding animal. Now and again Tommy caught the old man’s small blue eyes surveying him with an expression which he could not comprehend, but which he didn’t like.
Van Brink drove off directly after eating, and his wife withdrew to the kitchen again. With growing resentment, Tommy seized his hat and went out, followed the route of the night before, and reached the village. Entering the only hotel, the Gilbert House, he ordered a cocktail and bought a newspaper; but the drink was shockingly bad, and he couldn’t endure the stale dullness of the place long enough to read the paper there.
He had never before in his life suffered from such boredom. He went back to the house, determined to write at once to his uncle and say he couldn’t stand it any longer.
And there, rocking on the porch and enjoying the cool of the afternoon, sat Esther.
“Hello!” she said cheerfully.
“Good afternoon,” he replied stiffly.
“Well! What makes you look so cross?”
“I’ve had a rotten day.”
“I’m sorry; but it wasn’t my fault, was it? You needn’t be cross at me.”
“It was your fault, in a way. You might have told me what there is to do in this place.”
“Oh, but there isn’t anything! I’ll take you for a walk after supper, if you want.”
So after supper, when Mrs. Van Brink had gone back to the kitchen, and her husband, in stocking feet, sat reading his newspaper, Esther and Tommy set out again.
“Shall we go right out in the country?” Esther asked him. “Or would you rather go through the village and see some of the fine houses?”
Tommy preferred the country.
They turned north, followed the dark and quiet street past all the little houses, and into a road soft with dust, under the black shadow of great trees, with a sweet breeze blowing from the meadows.
“One day’s enough for you,” said Esther. “How would you like to spendyearshere?”
“By Jove! How do you stand it?”
“Well, I won’t, any longer than I can help!”
They were going uphill steadily. The fields were left behind, and the pine forest was closing in on them, dark and fragrant.
“This is my favorite walk,” said Esther. “I often come here by myself.”
“Rather lonely, isn’t it?”
“I’m never lonely.”
Again that vague alarm came over the boy. He felt defenseless, lost. He dreaded to go farther; but, chattering pleasantly, Esther went on and on, and he had to answer and to follow.
The road grew rougher, and his little comrade stumbled often.
“Hadn’t we better turn back?” suggested Tommy. “You’ll be tired.”
“Oh, no! I don’t callthisfar!”
“And it’s getting late. Your mother and father—”
She laughed.
“You needn’t worry about them! Let’s sit down and rest a few minutes, if you like.”
There was a great flat rock a little way up the bank from the roadway. Sitting there, they could catch a glimpse of an enormous orange-colored moon through the branches.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” said Esther. “And doesn’t my ring look pretty in the moonlight?”
She held up a plump little hand for him to see.
“Are you engaged?” he asked, for even he knew that the question was expected of him.
“Yes—to the young man you saw last night in the drug store. It’s a secret, though; mommer and popper don’t know.”
“I hope you’ll be happy,” said Tommy, after a pause.
“I don’t see how I can be,” she answered plaintively. “I don’t really like him; but oh, dear, what else can I do? Why, I’ve only seen one realrefinedman in all my life. He was a traveling salesman. He wanted to marry me and go and live in New[Pg 34]York; but popper wouldn’t let me. He said I was too young.”
“Well, you know, you are, rather. You don’t want to be hasty, my dear young lady!”
She sighed.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this; but I’m so unhappy!”
He felt very sympathetic, but could think of nothing to say.
“I’m going to take off this ring now, while I’m with you,” Esther went on. “I want to forget all about Will for a while.” She slipped her warm little hand into his. “Oh, Tommy!” she said coaxingly. “Be nice, won’t you?”
The light of the moon shone clearly on her pretty upturned face, her white throat. He stared and stared at her. She leaned back, more and more, until her head was resting on his breast and her smooth hair brushed his lips.
The first wave of some immense and terrible emotion, something he had never before experienced, came rushing over him. He clenched his hands, struggling against a fierce desire to push her away.
“What are you doing to me?” he wanted to shout. “What’s happening to me? Go away! Get out!”
But she did not stir. She rested against him, contented as a kitten, soft, gentle, and still. Little by little his mood changed, his panic was allayed, and he bent over and kissed her. Then he wanted never to let her go again. He kissed her violently, time after time. He couldn’t stop.
A sort of madness possessed him. A terror greater than ever assailed him—a terror of himself. He knew he wasn’t to be trusted. He put her aside brusquely and got up.
“Come on!” he said. “It’s late. Let’s go back!”
He sat at the open window of his room that night, oppressed by guilt and dread.
“I shouldn’t have kissed her,” he said to himself. “Now she’ll think I’m in love with her.”
He knew well enough that he was not. He disliked her—almost loathed her; she was so soft and clinging, so irresistible and so inferior. He didn’t want to see her again.
He hadn’t yet been able to devise a suitable attitude when he met her the next morning. Seeing her so perfectly unmoved helped him, and they sat down to breakfast in friendly accord.
“It’s another hot day,” she said. “Mommer thought maybe you’d enjoy a picnic.”
“A picnic—just you and me?” he asked suspiciously.
She nodded, and waited for his reply, watching his face with candid eyes. He grew red and hot.
“Very nice idea,” he said loftily.
He was racking his brains for some means of avoiding the excursion.
“Not if I know it!” he said to himself. “She won’t get me alone again!”
But his reflection in a distant mirror caught his eye. What? Here he was, six feet tall, dressed in absolutely the latest fashion, a thorough man of the world, and yet uneasy in the presence of this sixteen-year-old country girl! “Dumpy,” he called her—stolid, ignorant, rustic, in a cheap cotton frock.
His good humor came back. He smiled down upon her kindly, all alarm gone. Let her make love to him if she liked—there was no harm in it.
They started directly after breakfast, walked mile after mile through the fields in the full glare of the hot August sun, up stony hills, through bramble-lined woodland paths, until Tommy, carrying the big lunch basket and a walking stick, and wearing a rather heavy Norfolk jacket—the only correct thing for picnics—was dazed and tired. Not Esther, though; she was as fresh and cheerful as ever.
In the course of time they reached the place predestined by her for lunching—a little clearing on the slope of the pine-covered mountain, a sort of sunny nest in the forest, where a brook ran by, rapid and cool.
When he had at last satisfied his appetite—a strangely hearty and indiscriminate one for such a man of the world—Tommy lay back against a sun-warmed stone, smoking a cigarette and looking up at the bright sky. It was nice to have Esther there, he admitted to himself. It was nice to see her, contented and blessedly quiet, sitting beside him.
He turned his head to see her better. What a round, pretty, white throat she had! And her lashes were almost dark against her cheeks. He was annoyed by a sudden great longing to kiss her again. He tried to put[Pg 35]the thought out of his mind—tried desperately; but in some inexplicable way, even as she sat there with her eyes closed and her little face so tranquil, she conveyed the fact to him that she was waiting to be kissed.
He did it, with a violence surprising to them both. She struggled half-heartedly, then settled down, close to his side, with his arm about her, and said no more. He kissed her again and again, stroked her hair, looked at her in delight. Dear, gentle, ardent little soul! Truly it was an afternoon on Olympus!
Tommy was done for now. She had awakened his innocent, primitive manhood, had aroused in him a feeling which he was too immature to appraise. He believed that he was, that he must be, in love with her. How otherwise explain his joy in kissing her, his immeasurable admiration for her charms?
“By Jove!” he said to himself. “I’min love!”
He said it with amazement, with pride, with profound distress, because his passion tormented him. He was ashamed of it. He knew very well that it was not spontaneous; Esther had forced its growth. He had not wooed and won her; he had been captured in a most obvious way. He was a slave, and he knew and resented it.
Not that Esther was at all a difficult lady to serve. She had no whims, no caprices. She was neither jealous nor exacting. Indeed, she required nothing at all of Tommy. She let him alone. She was very affectionate, whenever he was; but if he were moody or anxious, she was peacefully silent.
There was always an air of content about her. She might have been the personified ideal of the man of forty—the woman who is always responsive, and yet who exacts nothing. Very, very different from the ideal of generous eighteen!
Precious little joy did poor Tommy find in this his first love. He was perplexed and confused; he couldn’t imagine any sort of end to it. He couldn’t contemplate marrying Esther, and the idea of any other sort of arrangement never occurred to him. In his eyes she was simply a respectable young girl, under her father’s roof, not good enough, or not suitable, to be the wife of a man of the world, but far too good to be thought of in any improper way.
He didn’t even know what he wanted—whether he wanted to leave her, or whether he couldn’t live without her. He was weary beyond measure, those hot and sleepless August nights.
At last, one evening, there came a sort of crisis. It was a sultry, rainy night, and they were in the little parlor, bored and constrained by the presence of old Van Brink in the next room, with the door open. Esther had been playing hymn tunes on the harmonium, and Tommy had been watching her, feverishly impatient to kiss her. She had stopped playing, and they sat in silence, listening to the squeak of the old man’s rocking-chair and the rustle of his newspaper.
The room irritated Tommy by its amazing tastelessness. Even Esther looked different in it, he thought. Outside, under the summer sky, alone with him, she was a goddess. In here, what was she more than the plump, phlegmatic Esther Van Brink?
A door opened, and Mrs. Van Brink came in to her husband, her work in the kitchen finished until the next sunrise. She looked exhausted. It occurred to Tommy, not for the first time, that Esther was not a remarkably kind daughter. He had never yet seen her do any sort of work for her mother.
Immediately, with artless tact, Mrs. Van Brink closed the door. Tommy sprang up and caught Esther in his arms.
“My!” she cried, laughing. “Aren’t you in a hurry, though?”
Tommy reddened, painfully aware of his disadvantage.
“I don’t know what you’ll do to-morrow evening,” Esther went on. “Will Egbert’s coming to see me.”
Tommy could scarcely grasp the idea. An evening without Esther! Another man! He was silent for some time. He realized then that he would rather marry Esther than lose her, than be supplanted by any Will Egbert.
“Look here, Esther!” he said at last. “I know I haven’t any right to complain. I’m not—anything to you; but I’d like you to know something. Before I came here, my uncle—”
He paused so long that Esther frowned.
“Yes?” she said. “What about your uncle, Tommy?”
“He warned me—told me I couldn’t get engaged, or anything of that sort. You understand, don’t you, Esther? You see,[Pg 36]I haven’t any income. I depend on him, and Iknow, very well, that he’d never consent to—to anything.”
She didn’t answer.
“I’ve thought it over a great deal,” he went on; “but I don’t know what to do exactly.”
To his chagrin and surprise, Esther got up and, going back to the harmonium, began to play loud, triumphant hymns. He could not guess her mood. He was afraid he had offended her; and with that a shade of the old magnificence returned.
“Esther darling, you’re not angry, are you?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” she replied cheerfully; “but I want to think. Let’s sing.”
She had a book of “College Songs,” ugly and tasteless, like everything else in her life, and they sang them, one after the other, until bedtime. In the next room the mother and father listened, proud and pleased.
“Hark to sis!” said old Van Brink. “Sings and plays pretty good, hey, mother?”
“My, yes! It’s real sweet!”
“I’ll bet you that young man don’t see many girls like sis, city or country, hey, mother? He’s no call to turn up his nose at our gal, hey?”
“He don’t,” she answered thoughtfully.
The next morning, at breakfast, as soon as they were alone for a minute, Esther whispered:
“Tommy, I’ve got a plan! Let’s go out on the porch,” she suggested aloud, as her mother came in to clear the table.
“Well!” said Tommy, when they were alone again.
“Well!” she repeated. “Come on—sit down and listen. I want you to take me to the city to see your uncle.”
“No!” cried Tommy, startled. “No, my dear girl! That wouldn’t do at all!”
“It would! I’ll be so nice he’llhaveto like me. I thought and thought about it last night.Pleasedo, Tommy!”
“But, my dear child, don’t you see that you couldn’t go off with me that way? You’d—you’d compromise yourself!”
“Not if we got married right away.”
“But suppose Uncle James said no?”
“But he wouldn’t—especially when he sees how I trust you.”
Tommy put forward all the objections he could think of, but she was able to answer them all.
“I’llmanage him,” she insisted. “Only let me see him! And then, Tommy,” she went on, “it’s getting horrid for me here. Egbert is jealous. He says he won’t give me up, and won’t take back his old ring. And”—amazing invention!—“mommer and popper say that you’re just trifling with me, and they want me to take back Will. Every one says I’m a silly little fool to think so much of you!” Tears came into her gray eyes.
“Oh,do, Tommy,please, take me away! I’m so miserable here!”
And at last, because she wept, and because he could see no other way, he agreed to take her.
Reluctant and harassed as he was, he couldn’t help a certain delight in the adventure. He hadn’t yet lost a boyish relish for running away; and this getting up after the others were asleep, stealing downstairs, bag in hand, and meeting Esther in the dark little hall, thrilled him to the marrow.
They hurried through the empty streets, black beneath the shadow of the old trees, and entered the station, where an oil lamp burned. The ticket office was closed; there wasn’t a soul in sight. They sat down side by side on a bench, to wait for the New York train.
In her usual way, Esther put her hand in Tommy’s. He turned to look down at her in the dim lamplight, and the sight of her flushed, excited little face, combined with the pressure of her hand, nearly brought tears to his eyes. How she trusted him, poor little girl! Leaving her home and her parents and going off with him this way! He swore to himself that she should never be sorry for it; that, even if she were not quite the wife he would have chosen, he would respect her forever for this generous, this noble trust in him.
He had, in short, never in his life been so overwhelmingly asinine. His fair, infantile face was pale from the intense seriousness of his resolutions and the weight of his responsibility. He would at that moment have been ready to assure you that it was he who had implored and persuaded Esther to run away with him—that it was his idea and his wish.
It was midnight when they arrived at the Grand Central. The moment they stepped off the train, a realization of his colossal folly rushed over the boy. The[Pg 37]subtle excitement of the hurrying crowds, the sophistication of this environment, suddenly destroyed his rustic romance, and he grew cold with fright.
What was this that he had done? What was he to do with Esther? He couldn’t marry her without a license. He had thought of taking her at once to Uncle James, to convince him on the spot of Esther’s desirability as a wife. Uncle James might be asleep; or, if he were awake, he would surely need some preparation. He was courtly toward ladies—ladies with money; but one never knew—
“Oh, Lord!” he thought. “Oh, Lord! What can I do with her?”
They had eloped from the girl’s home. He was now and forever responsible for little Esther. There she sat, waiting for his wise decision.
They sat down on a bench in the immense hall, he with his latest thing in traveling bags, Esther with a shabby little wicker suit case. Forlorn, young, weary, they sat in silence—waiting, both of them, for Tommy to become a man.
“I know!” he cried suddenly. “Esther, you go into the ladies’ waiting room while I telephone. I have a cousin. I think she’d be willing to do something. At least she’ll put you up overnight.”
But in the telephone booth his courage fled. He couldn’t explain all this over the wire. He ran out and got a taxi, and at one o’clock he arrived at his cousin’s little flat uptown.
She was a charming, gracious, good-natured young widow. She got up, put on a dressing gown, and sat listening with angelic patience to Tommy’s story; but she could not conceal her horror.
“Oh, Tommy, mydearboy! You’re so young! Don’t be hasty! Oh, Tommy, don’t rush into—anything!”
“Now, look here!” said Tommy, sick with nervousness and alarm. “Don’t lecture me, Alison. It’s done. Just suggest something. She can’t go back now. I’ll have to see Uncle James about getting married; but what shall I do now? I can’t leave the poor kid sitting there in the Grand Central Station all night.”
“No, of course you can’t,” Alison agreed. “Bring her here, Tommy—and hurry: I’ll wait up for her.”
She set about making preparations for this most unwelcome guest, thinking and hoping all the time that Tommy might be saved—that this distressing thing might blow over without hurting him.
She pictured Esther as a poor innocent little rustic, as simple as Tommy. She never saw the girl, and so was never enlightened. She waited for two hours, but no one came. Then, worried, heavy-hearted, she went back to bed.
Tommy had hurried back to Esther, and found her just as he had left her—a model of patience and propriety, with her little bag beside her. Though she was pale and heavy-eyed with sleep, she was as neat and fresh as ever. He told her his plan.
“Come on,” he said. “Hurry up! Alison said she’d wait for you.”
“I’m not going there,” she said. “I can’t, Tommy.”
“You’ll have to, dear!”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t! I can’t! I just couldn’t face a strange woman now. What would she think of me, running away with you like this?”
“But what can I do with you, Esther?”
She clasped his arm and looked up into his face with streaming eyes.
“Oh, Tommy! Please don’t leave me! I’m so frightened and so lonely! Don’t send me away!”
“But you must be reasonable, sweetheart,” he implored. He began to realize how terribly he had mismanaged this affair. He cursed himself. Why hadn’t he made plans? “You know we’ve got to consider your reputation,” he said.
“Oh, that doesn’t matter!” she cried. “No one’ll ever know about it. Only don’t go away from me, Tommy! I couldn’t bear it!”
He yielded. He was so distressed, so confused, so alarmed, that he had no moral strength to withstand her. He took her to the Tressillon, a quiet, dingy place where he had once or twice had dinner. He took two rooms for them, on different floors, and he registered as “Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Ellinger, Jr.” What else could he have done?
He slept soundly, although he hadn’t expected to close an eye. The first thing he thought of upon waking was to telephone to Esther’s room. He was told that she wasn’t there.
He dressed and hurried down to look for her everywhere—in the dining room, the[Pg 38]grill, the lounge; but he couldn’t find her. He was seized with panic.
When he found that her bag was still in her room, he resigned himself to wait; but he was angry—more angry than he had ever been in his life.
She came back at lunch time, composed and smiling. He was sitting on the lounge when she entered. He got up, took her arm with a nervous grip, and led her into a quiet corner.
“Look here, Esther!” he said. “You mustn’t act like this! Where have you been?”
“Oh, nowhere special—just for a walk.”
“I’d planned for us to go to the City Hall and get the license this morning, and get married.”
“Oh, Tommy!” she said, with a pout. “I don’t want to get married. I’m too young!”
“Don’t be silly!” he said impatiently. “We’ll have a bite of lunch and then we’ll hurry down town.”
“I think it’s silly to get married. We’re too young. What could we live on?”
“You needn’t worry about that,” he said, wounded. “I dare say I can manage to take care of you.”
“I don’t think you could, Tommy. We’d only be miserable. No, let’s not be married.”
“Esther!” he cried, appalled. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I think we’ve made a mistake. Let’s not be silly and make it any worse. The best thing would be for us to part. I can look out for myself perfectly well. I know a man here in the city—I dropped in to see him this morning, and he said he’d get me an engagement to go on the stage. He’s an advance agent, or something. I met him out in Millersburg. He has lots of pull.”
“Don’t talk that way!” he thundered. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done? Haven’t you enough sense to see that you’re compromised?”
“No one knows anything about it, and there’s no harm done. I’ll write to mommer and tell her I ran away to go on the stage.”
“No, you won’t!” said Tommy. “I sent them a telegram this morning to say that we were married. I thought we would really be by the time they got the message.”
She looked at him in silence.
“Well!” she said at last. “Youarea fool!”
“I suppose I am,” he replied bitterly. “However, it’s done now. They know you’re here with me, and they think you’re my wife, so you’ll have to see it through.”
“Not I!” she said cheerfully. “I’m not going to marry a kid like you!”
“For God’s sake, why did you come away with me?” he cried.
She smiled.
“I guess I liked you,” she said.
“Don’t you like me now?”
“Don’t be silly!” she said. “Of course I do; but I think we’re too young to think of marriage. It was a mistake.”
She was absolutely incomprehensible to him; but she could read him through and through, and the better she knew him, the greater grew her contempt.
“It was only a joke,” she said.
“Is that your idea of a joke? It’s a pretty dangerous one.”
She shook her head.
“No, it isn’t. I knew you were a nice boy. I knew I could trust you. I’ll always remember you, Tommy—always. You’re the nicest—”
“What do you propose to tell your parents? They’ll write to you here, or they may come.”
“They won’t find me. I’ll leave to-morrow morning. Mr. Syles told me of a nice boarding house. You’ll go back to your uncle. He’ll never know about it, and we’ll both forget the whole thing, won’t we?”
They went up into her room, and they argued all afternoon. Tommy tried to show her the enormity of her conduct, but she insisted upon regarding it as an escapade. She emphasized her sixteen years. She behaved with an airy childishness which she had never shown before, and which he knew to be false.
He had played the part she had determined he should play, and there was an end to him. Her modest little pocketbook was well stuffed with his money. She was in the city where she wished to be.
Sixteen? Esther sixteen? Preposterous idea! She was as old as the earth.
At last she said she was hungry, and reluctantly he took her downstairs to the dining room, crowded and noisy, with dancing going on to the music of a fiendish orchestra. Gone was his pride, gone was his kindly protectiveness. He was overwhelmed with shame; he saw himself a dupe, when he had fancied himself a hero.[Pg 39]
He couldn’t eat. He sat there across the table, in sullen wretchedness, keeping his eyes off her detestable face, listening to her calm voice, telling him that it was “better for them both to part now.” She was affable, but she made no effort to be kind. She had nothing to say about love, about grief at parting. She placidly ignored their romance. She urged him to be “sensible,” and a “good boy.” And with every word she made a fresh wound in his quivering, childish soul—scars never to be healed.
He was sitting with his back to the door, and he hadn’t seen old Van Brink enter. He had looked up in alarm at a shriek from Esther, and there was that face, convulsed with hatred—hatred forhim! Then the shot, the crowd, the atrocious sense of unreality, of insane confusion, the pain in his wrist.
Some one had hurried him off in a taxi. He had looked back blankly from the doorway at the brightly lighted room, at an old man held by force from following him. It wasn’t, it couldn’t be real!
Once again he picked up the newspaper and looked at that shameful headline:
TRAGEDY NARROWLY AVERTED ATHOTEL TRESSILLON
It occurred to young Thomas Ellinger that perhaps the tragedy had not, after all, been averted.
“Everything passes,” runs the old saying, and the contrary is also true. Nothing passes.
If you had looked at that stalwart and serious gentleman in the box, correct, evidently prosperous, with his honest and rather blank gaze, you would certainly have imagined him to be one of those fortunate creatures without a history, a soul without a scar. He was there with an agreeable, well-bred wife and a pretty young daughter, and he was apparently enjoying the play with a temperate and sedate enjoyment—interested, but not very much interested, you know.
And yet he is none other than the black sheep of twenty years ago, the disgraced and abandoned Tommy. Moreover, the actress whom he is watching with so tepid an air is Esther herself, and he is very cunningly concealing a great confusion of feelings.
He had casually suggested going to see her act that evening, as he had done four or five times before, since he had by chance discovered that Esther and the celebrated Elinor Vaughn were one and the same person. He had no knowledge of the means by which she had risen, but he was by no means surprised to find her at the top. Why shouldn’t she be? Indeed, how could she not be? She was certainly born for victory.
Each time that he watched her magnificent outbursts of dramatic passion, her rages and her griefs, he felt a secret and delightful joy. Only imagine what he had escaped! Only think what such a woman, capable of moving the most cynical heart, could have done with him! He looked cautiously at the people about him, saw them stirred to horror, grief, or delight, and he felt himself superior to them all. They didn’t know that it was only Esther Van Brink!
He watched her to-night, at the end of her famous second act, winning by heartbreaking entreaties the mercy of a vindictive and obdurate husband. Never could he have withstood her. He would have been lost!
The curtain fell, rose again, fell, and she came out to stand for a moment before the footlights, bowing, smiling a little wearily; and then she saw him.
He drew back hastily, but it was too late. When she came before the curtain again, she looked at him and smiled. Before the third act began, a boy came to the box with a note: