Kitabı oku: «Rich Man, Poor Man», sayfa 6

X

The window was open, letting in a flood of the spring day's mellow sunshine, and the leaves of Mr. Mapleson's geraniums in their boxes on the sill quivered delicately in the breeze. There was a lily, too, standing in a dish beside them; and as the air stirred its stalk and slender, rapier-like leaves, they gracefully curved themselves, nodding and curtsying like a maiden. Outside the clocks had just finished striking six.

Mr. Mapleson sat on the bed; and with his chin in his hands, his shoulders sunken, he gazed vacantly at the wall. Never had his lined face looked so gray, so furrowed; never had it seemed so worn. Age in the last few weeks, it seemed, had told heavily on the little man.

At Mrs. Tilney's the boarders had not only seen this, but had noted more than one other change in him. His shy, friendly voice no longer joined in the talk at the dinner table; his timid, frosty little giggle no more was heard to echo their merriment. Banquo at the feast indeed could not have been more dejected. Submerged, downcast, detached, he had altered utterly in the brief two months since Christmas.

What it was that weighed on the little man's mind was of course not known to the others. But Mr. Mapleson knew. And it was this knowledge that had worn on him so destructively. Even now at the thought his face grew full of pain; and as he raised a hand to draw it across his brow a penetrating sigh escaped him. "Oh, God!" said Mr. Mapleson.

He was still sitting there, the tragic simpleton, that sentimentalist, when of a sudden a quick footfall, a step he well remembered, sounded in the hall. Then a hand rapped swiftly on the door.

The limousine bearing Bab to Mrs. Tilney's had come swiftly; as a matter of fact, for her it had come too swiftly. Uptown, when she had made up her mind, she had felt so sure, so certain. The thing to do, she had been convinced up there, was to see Mr. Mapy; he would set everything right. Yes, but now that she had come, what was it he was to set right? What was it he or anyone else could do? She confessed she didn't know.

Beeston's sneering, contemptuous speeches still rang echoing in her ears. Even had they been true, the affront in those utterances could not have been more stinging. And again, how did she know they weren't true? A vulgar fortune hunter Beeston had termed him; and what reason had she to believe he wasn't? To be sure, he had neither asked her to marry him nor openly made love to her; but then how did she know he wouldn't if once he got the chance? That was it – if once he got the chance!

"Oh, Mr. Mapy!" called Bab. "Oh, Mr. Mapy!"

Closing his door she stood there smiling wistfully.

The little man's face was a picture. Amazement and alarm together struggled in it – alarm most of all. Then of a sudden, as if from the cloud in her eyes he divined something, Mr. Mapleson scrambled to his feet.

"What is it?" he wheezed, and caught thickly at his breath. "Bab, they haven't sent you away?"

Sent her away? What in the world did he mean?

"Don't you understand?" she faltered; "I needed someone to talk to; I had to come to you! Aren't you glad to see me, Mr. Mapy?"

Mr. Mapleson wet his lips. Whatever it was that had troubled him seemed again to have laid its burden on his soul; for when he spoke it was with difficulty, his words clacking brokenly between his teeth.

"Then nothing's happened – nothing up there? They are kind to you? You are happy?" A half-dozen questions came dragging from his lips. After that, of a sudden Mr. Mapleson held out his pipelike arms to her. "Bab, Bab!" he cried. "Tell me you are happy!"

"Oh, happy enough!" she answered dully.

Then she told him what she herself had been told. After that what happened at Mrs. Tilney's was swift.

That evening, as Varick came down the stairs to the L road station on the corner and trudged briskly up the side street toward Mrs. Tilney's, a curious thing occurred. Across the way, as he approached, two men had come out from the shadow of a doorway; and after a sharp glance at him they had followed him, matching their step to his. The night before, the same thing had happened, and the night before that too. What was more, when he had left the bank a moment that morning he had seen one of the pair standing on a corner across Broad Street. What did they want with him? It hardly could have been a coincidence, his seeing them; for on reaching his room he drew the curtain to look and they still were there. Just then a hand rapped at Varick's door; and his face grim, curiously thoughtful, he turned away from the window.

"I beg pardon," said Mr. Mapleson. His manner hurried, he looked about him sharply. "You are alone?" he inquired. "You have a moment you can spare?"

Varick stared at him fixedly. His expression was, in fact, singularly hard and penetrating for one of his usual kindliness; and when he spoke his tone, too, was no less uncompromising.

"What do you want, Mr. Mapleson?" he asked.

The little man, it seemed, was not to be rebuffed.

"You must come with me!" he said. "You must come with me for a moment!" Catching Varick by the arm he half led, half tugged him down the hall. Then having reached his own door he paused, at the same time peering up at Varick like a little gnome.

"Be kind! Oh, be kind!" whispered Mr. Mapleson; and with this, having thrust open the door, he pushed Varick into the room, then closed the door behind him. Afterward, wandering along the hall, Mr. Mapleson sat down on the stairs.

It was a queer sight, the picture that slight, insignificant figure made huddled there in the dimness of the hall. A ray of light from the gas jet overhead fell upon his face, and Mr. Mapleson, one saw, was smiling rapturously. It was as if all were well now. It was as if, as in the fairy tale, all were to live happy ever afterward. But Mr. Mapy, it appeared, had counted without his host. Perhaps ten minutes had passed, certainly not more than fifteen at the most, and he was still sitting there, his face radiant, when behind him the door suddenly was thrown open. Bab spoke then, and as he heard her Mr. Mapleson got up hurriedly. Both in tone and in manner she seemed abrupt.

"No, no, you've said enough!" said Bab. "I won't hear you!"

Mr. Mapleson's face fell.

"Why, why!" he exclaimed. "What is it?"

Bab went straight toward him, toward the stairs.

"I'm going," she said, and her voice was like steel. "I'm going," said Bab, saying it between her teeth, and over her shoulder she gave Varick at the same time a look. Its air of disdain Mr. Mapleson did not miss. Neither did he miss the break in her voice, a note of hurt, of outrage, and nervously he put out his hand to halt her. "No, don't stop me!" she said, and pushed his hand aside. "It's true! It's true what they told me about him! He's just what they said he was!"

Varick's face was like a mask. He did not speak; he made no effort, so much as by a look, even to answer her.

Again after a glance at him Mr. Mapleson stammered: "What is it? Why, what is it?"

Bab answered with a laugh.

"Ask him!" she said; that was all. The next instant she had gone hurrying down the stairs. Then presently, far below, the street door slammed. At the sound, his eyes still on Varick's, Mr. Mapleson shuddered involuntarily.

"What is it?" once more he whispered. "Tell me what you've done."

Varick's face did not alter.

"I tried to save her," he said; "I did my best I asked her to marry me."

"To save her?" echoed the little man, and a gasp escaped him. "To save her!"

Varick's face grew still harder.

"Mapleson, are you mad or what is it? My soul, man; whatever in the world possessed you?"

Mr. Mapleson's jaw dropped suddenly. Again the last vestige of color fled from his furrowed face. He gaped at Varick like one bemused.

"What do you mean?" he whispered.

Varick said it then.

"I've found you out, Mapleson! You had those letters, didn't you? You gave those lawyers their proofs. It was you, wasn't it, who got together all those papers?"

Yes, it was Mr. Mapleson who had done all this, but still he did not speak. It was as if his tongue, paralyzed, cleaved to the roof of his mouth.

"Well," said Varick, "they were all forgeries! You forged them, John Mapleson. You cooked them all up yourself! Bab is no more Beeston's grandchild than I am!"

Mr. Mapleson did not even deny it.

"Hush!" he whispered, his voice appalled. "What if they should find out! Think what they'd do to her!"

XI

And there you are! Forger and fraud, jailbird too – all these, as Varick charged, Mr. Mapleson had been. Bab, indeed, was no more old Peter Beeston's grandchild than was the little man himself.

That night the dinner hour came and went disregarded; time sped and midnight drew near before the colloquy in Mrs. Tilney's top-floor back had ended. Mr. Mapleson admitted everything, bit by bit laying bare the whole of that tragic farce, the story of his past. And what a tale it was! Grotesque you'd call it, an outlandish, ludicrous affair, and yet of a pathos, banal as it was, one could not mistake. For Mr. Mapleson was not by nature in any way a criminal. Neither had he become a jailbird in seeking to serve his own ends. That was his story. Not once but twice the little man had become a forger, and each time he had forged only to help others. It had never been for himself.

"You mean you got nothing!" questioned Varick.

"I!" cried Mapleson. His tone was not only surprised, it was resentful. "Certainly not!" he said.

"Good Lord!" Varick murmured.

Absurd as it was, though, Varick could not overlook or disregard the fact that what Mr. Mapleson had done had its sinister side. Not above a week had passed when out of a clear sky the first bolt descended. Fraud and forgery, sad to say, seldom lack effect.

At one o'clock on a Saturday afternoon – it was the first half-holiday in April – Varick slammed shut the covers of the ledger he was working on and, his task finished for the day, donned his hat and hurried out into Broad Street. The day was glorious. A mild breeze was stirring, while from overhead, pouring down between the cañon-like walls of the skyscrapers, a burst of sunshine filled all the neighborhood with light. Its radiance contrasted vividly with the lower city's usual dingy dimness, though Varick gave little heed to that. He bustled onward, his face grim. Even when across the street a man stepped out from a doorway and followed him, matching his step to Varick's, he gave it scant attention. To be watched, to be followed, was not any novelty now. It neither worried him nor made him wonder why he was the subject of that espionage. The night before, shoved under his door at Mrs. Tilney's, he had found the card of no less a person than his one-time friend, David Lloyd. "I'd like to see you," was penciled on the back. But until that morning, some time after he had reached the bank, the full significance of the card and its message had not dawned on him.

Why did David Lloyd wish to see him? It was a year since the two had last met, and the friendship that Varick himself had at that time broken up he meant David to see never would be renewed. No Beeston, nor any kin of Beeston, should be a friend of his. He would arrange for that. Blunt, brusque, in fact, he had said good-by, then turned abruptly on his heel, leaving David Lloyd staring after him. This, however, was not the point. Though Varick often had regretted that day's harshness, he had still made no overtures. Neither by word nor by sign had he given the least hint that he wished to end the feud.

So what was the meaning of that card? What was it David Lloyd wished of him? It was not until nearly noon that a thought came to him. Then with a staggering certitude the suspicion flashed into his mind. Mr. Mapleson! Had the Lloyds heard something? Was the fraud already known? As murder will out, so, too, would a thing like that cry itself from the housetops.

"My soul!" said Varick to himself. "If they should know!"

That was why he had hurried homeward – to find out if they had. All the way uptown in the crawling L road train he sat mulling over in his mind the tale he had dragged piecemeal out of Mr. Mapleson. Across the aisle a pair of girls, office workers evidently, gave him an appraising look, frankly appreciative; then they began to giggle and whisper together, their eyes stealing consciously toward him. But Varick did not heed.

It was a queer tale – that story he had heard from Mr. Mapleson. He hailed, it appeared, from a town in western New York – Buckland, a village near Rochester. Here the little man had come of sound stock, a line of God-fearing, sturdy men, of thrifty, virtuous women. Of the man's family, however, only one besides himself survived. This was a married sister, and to her Mr. Mapleson owed the first of his two forgeries, a crime that had sent him to state's prison, and that he had committed to save her from dishonor and her husband from disgrace.

The sister's husband, it appeared, was a politician. He was, furthermore, like many of his ilk, smug, self-satisfied, selfish and dishonest. One might guess offhand his part in the tale. Some countyroad funds having fallen into his hands, the fellow had appropriated them, and then, unable to repay and in imminent peril of exposure, he had appealed in terror to his wife. She, in turn, appealed with a like terror to her brother.

One may picture the little man's trembling horror. One may picture, too, his shame. To clear the politician, however, fifteen hundred dollars must be had forthwith; and not having that much, Mr. Mapleson had obtained the amount in the only way he knew how – by forgery. He endorsed a check, the property of his employer. And the employer had been Beeston!

It was there, in fact, working in Beeston's office as a clerk, that Mr. Mapleson had obtained the information he later put to use in his second forgery. He knew Beeston's son – Randolph Beeston that was. He had known, too, of the man's surreptitious marriage.

At the time of his first offense he had salved his conscience with the usual sophistries. It was a loan, he had whispered to himself. It would be returned at once. He had indeed paid back all but a few dollars when an accident exposed him. No excuse availed then; and the joke of it, too, was that when once his disgrace became public the politician, with characteristic effrontery, publicly disowned him! Thus broken, beaten, outraged, he had served a five-years' penalty; and emerging from jail, he had renounced not only his family but all else that connected him with the unhappy past. The day he had come forth from Sing Sing was, in fact, the day he first had shown himself at Mrs. Tilney's. And then?

There were those first years of Mr. Mapleson's stay in the boarding house. There was the coming, too, of that unknown woman – the widowed girl mother and her child; then the mother's death. Lonely and shy, a man at heart as tender as a woman, the child thus brought to Mr. Mapleson had given him all the love and tenderness that life theretofore seemed to have denied him. And comforted by it, with all that child's affection to cheer him, to heal the hurt he had felt, Mr. Mapleson had sought in every way to repay Bab for all she had been to him. The forgery, his second effort, was a guaranty of this.

"Diamonds and pearls!" That had been his promise. However, it was not merely to get these that the fraud had been committed. Bab's interest in Varick, the newcomer at Mrs. Tilney's, Mr. Mapleson had been quick to see. Beeston beginning then to advertise for news of his long-lost son, the little man had grasped at the chance of a desperate coup. Bab's people he had not found. What is more, he knew he never would. The story the mother herself had suggested – that she was a widow, that she had come to New York to earn a living, that neither she nor her husband had any kin left living – all this, Mr. Mapleson had assured himself, must be true. His fraud, therefore, had been deliberate. How in his cracked wits, though, he hoped to succeed with it, who knows or who can tell? It is enough that he not only had tricked the Beeston lawyers but, shrewd as Mrs. Tilney was, had managed to cozen her as well. And Bab had been entrenched in the Beeston household as firmly, it seemed, as if she had been born there.

But now – Across the car aisle the two girls giggling and whispering there paused to nudge each other as Varick abruptly arose. Little wonder too! As the guard called his station and he wandered toward the door he had wrung his brows into a scowl, a frown of gathering disquiet. Why had that card been put beneath his door? What was it the Beestons knew? Had they so soon discovered the fraud, or was the message no more than a coincidence? It seemed to Varick inconceivable that David Lloyd should have sought him for any but the one reason. And yet why him? That in itself was startling. Why apply to him? Why not apply to the man responsible? Why?

With a swift look, turning as he left the car, Varick glanced behind him. Yes, he still was followed! That man, his shadow, still was there! He sped on toward Mrs. Tilney's, and, racing up the steps, was panting softly as he shut the street door behind him.

Why were they following him? Why had David Lloyd come to Mrs. Tilney's? More than that, if they knew, what was to happen to Bab? A moment later Varick rapped at Mr. Mapleson's door.

The Pine Street real-estate office that employed Mr. Mapleson at twenty-eight dollars a week, and long had thought these wages high, still further added to a reputation for free-handed generosity by making each Saturday in the spring and summer a half-holiday for their employees. These for years had been the joy of the little man's life. Swiftly he would put his desk in order, breathe a timid good-day to his fellow-clerks, then speed on his way uptown. There Bab would be waiting him.

The years had made little change. She had always been there – in the beginning as the Bab that Mr. Mapy had first known, the child in pigtails and pinafores, hanging over the gate and waving wildly when she saw him coming; then as a little bigger, a little older Bab, a stilty-legged young one who came running up the street to meet him. As soon as Mr. Mapleson had bolted luncheon, gobbling in his haste, he and Bab would sally forth, the man almost as eager as the child, bound together for an afternoon in the Park. Pennies in those days were scarce with the little man, but somehow he still managed to find enough for a voyage in the swan boats, a trip or two in the goat wagons, a mad whirl on the merry-go-round. "Who's got the brass ring? Ride again!" The first time Bab, by skill of arms, speared the treasured prize, Mr. Mapy was nearly beside himself with excitement.

"Who's got the brass ring? Why, she has!" he cried indignantly when the master of ceremonies monotonously chanted his cry. "My little girl's got it, of course!" snorted Mr. Mapy.

But time flies. There came a year when the carrousel even, with its gilded, splendid steeds, its giraffes, its stages, its flying dragons, gave way to other charms, more sedate, older, more grown up. On Saturdays then, Bab and Mr. Mapy wandered elsewhere, Bab now a slender, slim thing with dresses let down to her boot tops. It was to picture galleries and places like that, theaters too, that they now went, to see a good play that Mr. Mapy beforehand had made sure was good. For the little man, peculiar as he might be, in one respect had no delusions. Whether or not Bab fell heir to her diamonds and pearls, Mr. Mapleson meant her to grow up into a clean-minded, healthy-headed woman – the kind that looks you quietly in the face, clean, unafraid, as clear-eyed as Diana. She should be good, whatever else, vowed Mr. Mapy; and though the term be homely, as homely as his ambition, there is somehow about it a nobility at which even the most cynical of us may not sneer. Ave, John Mapleson! Salutamus!

What times the two had then! "Hah! th' play's the thing!" he'd cry, stirred, his face alight at some rousing scene that had depicted virtue victorious and villainy put to rout. "Hah, I told you so!" It made Bab smile to see him. On the other hand, if on the stage things went wrong with some poor girl or some noble fellow was in jeopardy, Mr. Mapy would sit almost breathless, silenced, waiting until all was well. Bab more than once had seen the tears steal down the little man's gray face. However, once the suspense had passed, once all was as it should be, Mr. Mapy, his spirits rising at a bound, would bubble with animation. "Great! Wasn't it great! Was ever anything so fine!" For a week he and Bab would talk it over, discussing every scene; then the Saturday half-holiday would come again, and there would be another matinée.

Little wonder Mr. Mapy so eagerly waited from week to week. It was his joy. It was the one great, true pleasure of that marred, broken life of his. And when heads began to turn, eyes to glance, lighting with admiration at the slim, tender girl, the young woman now, who went with him on these Saturdays, little Mr. Mapleson's heart fairly bounded, swelling with pride, with loving satisfaction.

 
Of all the days that's in the week
I dearly love but one day —
 

If he who wrote that ballad had only made it Saturday!

So thought John Mapleson at any rate. So, too, in the passage of all those years, never once had he let anything stand in the way of that holiday. There was Bab, hanging over the gate, waiting in her pigtails to wave to him. Then there was the stilty-legged little Bab riding the gilded carrousel, scream-ing with delight when she speared the treasured brass ring. And then, finally, there was Bab the blue-eyed and slender, the white-faced little old man's charming companion – the Bab whom people, smiling in admiration, turned their heads to see. All these, Mr. Mapy! Yes, but where was Bab now? It was a Saturday, yet she was not with him. He wondered with a rising terror what had happened. Where was she? What had befallen her?

He was still sitting there, his chin fallen on his breast, when he heard Varick's step upon the stair. A moment later there came his knock. With trembling knees the little man arose, and shambling across the room, he unlocked and opened the door.

"Well?" he asked monotonously.

In the week, the few days that had intervened since the night when he had dragged out of Mr. Mapleson his story, Varick's anger at the little man had drained itself away. For what good now could anger do? After all, too, if it were indeed forgery that Mr. Mapleson had set his hand to, there was no meanness in that fraud. It was merely the impulse of an unbalanced mind. Varick, after he had closed the door behind him, walked quietly across the room. Mr. Mapleson at his approach turned to him, trembling.

"What do you want?" he asked. "I have told you everything, haven't I?"

"Listen to me," said Varick. "There was a man here yesterday to see me, and I want to know why. You're not hiding anything, are you? Have these people uptown found out?"

"Found out?" repeated Mr. Mapleson. He gazed at Varick, his face dull, uncomprehending. "What do you mean?'

"Let me tell you something," said Varick, and he laid a hand on Mr. Mapleson's shoulder. "I see you don't know, but for ten days I have been followed – I, you understand! I have not told you before because I was not certain. Now I know. For ten days two men have been watching me!"

"Watching you?" echoed Mr. Mapleson. It was evident he still did not grasp what the fact conveyed. "Why should they watch you?" he faltered. "Why are they not watching me?"

Varick shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

"They probably are," he answered; "probably they are following all of us!" Then he added sharply: "But that's not the point! Don't you understand, they've found out! Uptown those people know!"

Mr. Mapleson was still staring at him as if bemused.

"Found out – they?" he faltered. "Why do you think so?" Then as Varick sternly gazed at him Mr. Mapleson put out an appealing hand.

"Please!" he said, and smiled wearily. "I am very tired and I cannot think. For her sake be a little kind. Won't you tell me now how you know?"

So Varick told him. The card David Lloyd had left could have had but one significance. David knew something. For that, for no other reason, would he have come there to Mrs. Tilney's. He had meant to ask Varick what he knew.

A sigh, a deep breath, escaped Mr. Mapleson.

"No, you are wrong," he said heavily. "I know why he came. She brought him here with her."

"Bab brought him!" repeated Varick, wondering.

Mr. Mapleson nodded slowly. She had brought David to see him, but the significance of this Varick could not see. It merely struck him as odd, yet why odd he could not have told. After all why shouldn't she? She knew nothing of the fraud. With equal propriety she might have brought any of her supposed relatives to see the little man.

"What are you going to do?" asked Mr. Mapleson.

He was gazing at Varick, his air intent. Again Varick looked at him with wonder.

"Do?" he repeated.

What was there to do? To him at any rate it was evident that those people either knew or suspected, so what could he do but wait? Bab could not be saved. He had tried and failed.

"You mean you'll do nothing?" persisted Mr. Mapleson. Once more his voice rose shrilly. "But you must!" he cried, adding: "It was for you I did what I did – because of you, Mr. Varick! I felt you cared for her; I thought you would be up there with her watching out for her! I told myself that with you near her I need have no fear! What is it now? Don't you love her? Are you going to stand by idle and let whatever happens happen? I cannot believe it, Mr. Varick!"

Varick waited until the outburst was at an end.

"I can do nothing," he said. "After what that man Beeston's done to me you know I can't go into that house! Besides that, you know I asked her to marry me, and you heard what she answered. When she comes back here I'll ask her again. That won't be long, I'm certain!"

Mr. Mapleson fairly bubbled over.

"Till she comes back!" he shrilled. "Till she comes back! I tell you she'll never come back. Don't you understand?"

Varick heard in sudden wonder. Before he could speak, though, Mr. Mapleson's voice rose to a shriller, keener pitch.

"I say she'll never come back! You've let her stay up there alone, never going near her, and now that fellow Lloyd wants her. That's why she brought him here – it was for me to see him. She'll marry him before you know it!" Then with a gesture of irrepressible misery and despair Mr. Mapleson seized him by the arm. "What are you going to do?" he demanded.

"I don't know," said Varick, "but I'll tell you this. If anything happens I'll be there with her!"