Kitabı oku: «The Girl from Sunset Ranch: or, Alone in a Great City», sayfa 4
CHAPTER VII
THE GREAT CITY
Helen Morrell never forgot her initial impressions of the great city.
These impressions were at first rather startling – then intensely interesting. And they all culminated in a single opinion which time only could prove either true or erroneous.
That belief or opinion Helen expressed in an almost audible exclamation:
“Why! there are so many people here one could never feel lonely!”
This impression came to her after the train had rolled past miles of streets – all perfectly straight, bearing off on either hand to the two rivers that wash Manhattan’s shores; all illuminated exactly alike; all bordered by cliffs of dwellings seemingly cut on the same pattern and from the same material.
With clasped hands and parted lips the girl from Sunset Ranch watched eagerly the glowing streets, parted by the rushing train. As it slowed down at 125th Street she could see far along that broad thoroughfare – an uptown Broadway. There were thousands and thousands of people in sight – with the glare of shoplights – the clanging electric cars – the taxicabs and autos shooting across the main stem of Harlem into the avenues running north and south.
It was as marvelous to the Montana girl as the views of a foreign land upon the screen of a moving picture theatre. She sank back in her seat with a sigh as the train moved on.
“What a wonderful, wonderful place!” she thought. “It looks like fairyland. It is an enchanted place – ”
The train, now under electric power, shot suddenly into the ground. The tunnel was odorous and ill-lighted.
“Well,” the girl thought, “I suppose there is another side to the big city, too!”
The passengers began to put on their wraps and gather together their hand-luggage. There was much talking and confusion. Some of the tourists had been met at 125th Street by friends who came that far to greet them.
But there was nobody to greet Helen. There was nobody waiting on the platform, to come and clasp her hand and bid her welcome, when the train stopped.
She got down, with her bag, and looked about her. She saw that the old gentleman with the wig kept step with her. But he did not seem to be noticing her, and presently he disappeared.
The girl from Sunset Ranch walked slowly up into the main building of the Grand Central Terminal with the crowd. There was chattering all about her – young voices, old voices, laughter, squeals of delight and surprise – all the hubbub of a homing crowd meeting a crowd of friends.
And through it all Helen walked, a stranger in a strange land.
She lingered, hoping that Uncle Starkweather’s people might be late. But nobody spoke to her. She did not know that there were matrons and police officers in the building to whom she could apply for advice or assistance.
Naturally independent, this girl of the ranges was not likely to ask a stranger for help. She could find her own way.
She smiled – yet it was a rather wry smile – when she thought of how Dud Stone had told her she would be as much of a tenderfoot in New York as he had been on the plains.
“It’s a fact,” she thought. “But, if they didn’t get my message, I reckon I can find the house, just the same.”
Having been so much in Denver she knew a good deal about city ways. She did not linger about the station long.
Outside there was a row of taxicabs and cabmen. There was an officer, too; but he was engaged at the moment in helping a fussy old lady get seven parcels, a hat box, and a dog basket into a cab.
So Helen walked down the row of waiting taxicabs. At the end cab the chauffeur on the seat turned around and beckoned.
“Cab, Miss? Take you anywhere you say.”
“You know where this number on Madison Street is, of course?” she said, showing a card with the address on it.
“Sure, Miss. Jump right in.”
“How much will it be?”
“Trunk, Miss?”
“Yes. Here is the check.”
The chauffeur got out of his seat quickly and took the check.
“It’s so much a mile. The little clock tells you the fare,” he said, pleasantly.
“All right,” replied Helen. “You get the trunk,” and she stepped into the vehicle.
In a few moments he was back with the trunk and secured it on the roof of his cab. Then he reached in and tucked a cloth around his passenger, although the evening was not cold, and got in under the wheel. In another moment the taxicab rolled out from under the roofed concourse.
Helen had never ridden in any vehicle that went so smoothly and so fast. It shot right downtown, mile after mile; but Helen was so interested in the sights she saw from the window of the cab that she did not worry about the time that elapsed.
By and by they went under an elevated railroad structure; the street grew more narrow and – to tell the truth – Helen thought the place appeared rather dirty and unkempt.
Then the cab was turned suddenly across the way, under another elevated structure, and into a narrow, noisy, ill-kept street.
“Can it be that Uncle Starkweather lives in this part of the town?” thought Helen, in amazement.
She had always understood that the Starkweather mansion was in one of the oldest and most respectable parts of New York. But although this might be one of the older parts of the city, to Helen’s eyes it did not look respectable.
The street was full of children and grown people in odd costumes. And there was a babel of voices that certainly were not English.
They shot across another narrow street – then another. And then the cab stopped beside the curb near a corner gaslight.
“Surely this is not Madison?” demanded Helen, of the driver, as her door was opened.
“There’s the name, Miss,” said the man, pointing to the street light.
Helen looked. She really did see “MADISON” in blue letters on the sign.
“And is this the number?” she asked again, looking at the three-story, shabby house before which the cab had stopped.
“Yes, Miss. Don’t you see it on the fanlight?”
The dull light in the hall of the house was sufficient to reveal to her the number painted on the glass above the door. It was an old, old house, with grimy panes in the windows, and more dull lights behind the shades drawn down over them. But there really could be no mistake, Helen thought. The number over the door and the name on the lamp-post reassured her.
She stepped out of the cab, her bag in her hand.
“See if your folks are here, Miss,” said the driver, “before I take off the trunk.”
Helen crossed the walk, clinging to her precious bag. She was not a little disturbed by this strange situation. These streets about here were the commonest of the common! And she was carrying a large sum of money, quite unprotected.
When she mounted the steps and touched the door, it opened. A bustle of sound came from the house; yet it was not the kind of bustle that she had expected to hear in her uncle’s home.
There were the crying of children, the shrieking of a woman’s angry voice – another singing – language in guttural tones which she could not understand – heavy boots tramping upon the bare boards overhead.
This lower hall was unfurnished. Indeed, it was a most unlovely place as far as Helen could see by the light of a single flaring gas jet.
“What kind of a place have I got into?” murmured the Western girl, staring about in disgust and horror, and clinging tightly to the locked bag.
CHAPTER VIII
THE WELCOME
Helen would have faced almost any peril of the range – wolves, a bear even, a stampede, flood, or fire – with more confidence than she felt at this moment.
She had some idea of how city people lived, having been to school in Denver. It seemed impossible that Uncle Starkweather and his family could reside in such a place as this. And yet the street and number were correct. Surely, the taxicab driver must know his way about the city!
From behind the door on her right came the rattle of dishes and voices. Putting her courage to the test, Helen rapped on the door. But she had to repeat the summons before she was heard.
Then she heard a shuffling step approach the door, it was unlocked, and a gray old woman, with a huge horsehair wig upon her head, peered out at her.
“Vot you vant?” this apparition asked, her black eyes growing round in wonder at the appearance of the girl and her bag. “Ve puys noddings; ve sells noddings. Vot you vant – eh?”
“I am looking for my Uncle Starkweather,” said Helen, doubtfully.
“Vor your ungle?” repeated the old woman.
“Mr. Starkweather. Does he live in this house?”
“‘S’arkwesser’? I neffer heard,” said the old woman, shaking her huge head. “Abramovitch lifs here, and Abelosky, and Seldt, and – and Goronsky. You sure you god de name ride, Miss?”
“Quite sure,” replied the puzzled Helen.
“Meppe ubstairs,” said the woman, eyeing Helen curiously. “Vot you god in de pag, lady?”
To tell the truth this query rather frightened the girl. She did not reply to the question, but started half-blindly for the stairs, clinging to the bag with both hands.
Suddenly a door banged above and a quick and light step began to descend the upper flight. Helen halted and looked expectantly upward. The approaching step was that of a young person.
In a moment a girl appeared, descending the stairs like a young whirlwind. She was a vigorous, red-cheeked girl, with dark complexion, a prominent nose, flashing black eyes, and plump, sturdy arms bared to her dimpled elbows. She saw Helen there in the hall and stopped, questioningly. The old woman said something to the newcomer in what Helen supposed must be Yiddish, and banged shut her own door.
“Whaddeyer want, Miss?” asked the dark girl, coming nearer to Helen and smiling, showing two rows of perfect teeth. “Got lost?”
“I don’t know but what I have,” admitted the girl from the West.
“Chee! You’re a greenie, too; ain’t you?”
“I reckon so,” replied Helen, smiling in return. “At least, I’ve just arrived in town.”
The girl had now opened the door and looked out. “Look at this, now!” she exclaimed. “Did you come in that taxi?”
“Yes,” admitted Helen.
“Chee! you’re some swell; aren’t you?” said the other. “We don’t have them things stopping at the house every day.”
“I am looking for my uncle, Mr. Willets Starkweather.”
“That’s no Jewish name. I don’t believe he lives in this house,” said the black-eyed girl, curiously.
“But, this is the number – I saw it,” said Helen, faintly. “And it’s Madison Avenue; isn’t it? I saw the name on the corner lamp-post.”
“Madison Avenyer?” gasped the other girl.
“Yes.”
“Yer kiddin’; ain’t yer?” demanded the stranger.
“Why – What do you mean?”
“This ain’t Madison Avenyer,” said the black-eyed girl, with a loud laugh. “Ain’t you the greenie? Why, this is Madison Street!”
“Oh, then, there’s a difference?” cried Helen, much relieved. “I didn’t get to Uncle Starkweather’s, then?”
“Not if he lives on Madison Avenyer,” said her new friend. “What’s his number? I got a cousin that married a man in Harlem. She lives on Madison Avenyer; but it’s a long ways up town.”
“Why, Uncle Starkweather has his home at the same number on Madison Avenue that is on that fanlight,” and Helen pointed over the door.
“Then he’s some swell; eh?”
“I – I guess so,” admitted Helen, doubtfully.
“D’jer jest come to town?”
“Yes.”
“And told the taxi driver to come down here?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he’ll take you back. I’ll take the number of the cab and scare him pretty near into a fit,” said the black-eyed girl, laughing. “Then he’s sure to take you right to your uncle’s house.”
“Oh, I’m a thousand times obliged!” cried Helen. “I am a tenderfoot; am I not?” and she laughed.
The girl looked at her curiously. “I don’t know much about tender feet. Mine never bother me,” she said. “But I could see right away that you didn’t belong in this part of town.”
“Well, you’ve been real kind to me,” Helen said. “I hope I’ll see you again.”
“Not likely,” said the other, shaking her head.
“Why not?”
“And you livin’ on Madison Avenyer, and me on Madison Street?”
“I can come down to see you,” said Helen, frankly. “My name is Helen Morrell. What’s yours?”
“Sadie Goronsky. You see, I’m a Russian,” and she smiled. “You wouldn’t know it by the way I talk; would you? I learned English over there. But some folks in Russia don’t care to mix much with our people.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Helen. “But I know when I like a person. And I’ve got reason for liking you.”
“That goes – double,” returned the other, warmly. “I bet you come from a place far away from this city.”
“Montana,” said Helen.
“I ain’t up in United States geography. But I know there’s a big country the other side of the North River.”
Helen laughed. “I come from a good ways beyond the river,” she said.
“Well, I’ll have to get back to the store. Old Jacob will give me fits.”
“Oh, dear! and I’m keeping you,” cried Helen.
“I should worry!” exploded the other, slangily. “I’m only a ‘puller-in.’ I ain’t a saleslady. Come on and I’ll throw a scare into that taxi-driver. Watch me.”
This sort of girl was a revelation to Helen. She was frankly independent herself; but Sadie Goronsky showed an entirely different sort of independence.
“See here you, Mr. Man!” exclaimed the Jewish girl, attracting the attention of the taxicab driver, who had not left his seat. “Whadderyer mean by bringing this young lady down here to Madison Street when with half an eye you could ha’ told that she belonged on Madison Avenyer?”
“Heh?” grunted the man.
“Now, don’t play no greenie trick with me,” commanded Sadie. “I gotcher number, and I know the company youse woik for. You take this young lady right to the correct address on the avenyer – and see that she don’t get robbed before you get her there. You get in, Miss Morrell. Don’t you be afraid. This chap won’t dare take you anywhere but to your uncle’s house now.”
“She said Madison Street,” declared the taxicab driver, doggedly.
“Well, now I says Madison Avenyer!” exclaimed Sadie. “Get in, Miss.”
“But where’ll I find you, Sadie?” asked the Western girl, holding the rough hand of her new friend.
“Right at that shop yonder,” said the black-eyed girl, pointing to a store only two doors beyond the house which Helen had entered. “Ladies’ garments. You’ll see me pullin’ ’em in. If you don’t see me, ask for Miss Goronsky. Good-night, Miss! You’ll get to your uncle’s all right now.”
The taxicab driver had started the machine again. They darted off through a side street, and soon came out upon the broader thoroughfare down which they had come so swiftly. She saw by a street sign that it was the Bowery.
The man slowed down and spoke to her through the tube.
“I hope you don’t bear no ill-will, Miss,” he said, humbly enough. “You said Madison – ”
“All right. See if you can take me to the right place now,” returned Helen, brusquely.
Her talk with Sadie Goronsky had given her more confidence. She was awake to the wiles of the city now. Dud Stone had been right. Even Big Hen Billings’s warnings were well placed. A stranger like herself had to be on the lookout all the time.
After a time the taxicab turned up a wider thoroughfare that had no elevated trains roaring overhead. At Twenty-third Street it turned west and then north again at Madison Square.
There was a little haze in the air – an October haze. Through this the lamps twinkled blithely. There were people on the dusky benches, and many on the walks strolling to and fro, although it was now growing quite late.
In the park she caught a glimpse of water in a fountain, splashing high, then low, with a rainbow in it. Altogether it was a beautiful sight.
The hum of night traffic – the murmur of voices – they flashed past a theatre just sending forth its audience – and all the subdued sights and sounds of the city delighted her again.
Suddenly the taxicab stopped.
“This is the number, Miss,” said the driver.
Helen looked out first. Not much like the same number on Madison Street!
This block was a slice of old-fashioned New York. On either side was a row of handsome, plain old houses, a few with lanterns at their steps, and some with windows on several floors brilliantly lighted.
There were carriages and automobiles waiting at these doors. Evening parties were evidently in progress.
The house before which the taxicab had stopped showed no light in front, however, except at the door and in one or two of the basement windows.
“Is this the place you want?” asked the driver, with some impatience.
“I’ll see,” said Helen, and hopped out of the cab.
She ran boldly up the steps and rang the bell. In a minute the inner door swung open; but the outer grating remained locked. A man in livery stood in the opening.
“What did you wish, ma’am?” he asked in a perfectly placid voice.
“Does Mr. Willets Starkweather reside here?” asked Helen.
“Mr. Starkweather is not at home, ma’am.”
“Oh! then he could not have received my telegram!” gasped Helen.
The footman remained silent, but partly closed the door.
“Any message, ma’am?” he asked, perfunctorily.
“But surely the family is at home?” cried Helen.
“Not at this hour of the hevening, ma’am,” declared the English servant, with plain disdain.
“But I must see them!” cried Helen, again. “I am Mr. Starkweather’s niece. I have come all the way from Montana, and have just got into the city. You must let me in.”
“Hi ’ave no orders regarding you, ma’am,” declared the footman, slowly. “Mr. Starkweather is at ’is club. The young ladies are hat an evening haffair.”
“But auntie – surely there must be somebody here to welcome me?” said Helen, in more wonder than anger as yet.
“You may come in, Miss,” said the footman at last. “Hi will speak to the ’ousekeeper – though I fear she is abed.”
“But I have the taxicab driver to pay, and my trunk is here,” declared Helen, beginning suddenly to feel very helpless.
The man had opened the grilled door. He gazed down at the cab and shook his head.
“Wait hand see Mrs. Olstrom, first, Miss,” he said.
She stepped in. He closed both doors and chained the inner one. He pointed to a hard seat in a corner of the hall and then stepped softly away upon the thick carpet to the rear of the premises, leaving the girl from Sunset Ranch alone.
This was her welcome to the home of her only relatives, and to the heart of the great city!
CHAPTER IX
THE GHOST WALK
Helen had to wait only a short time; but during that wait she was aware that she was being watched by a pair of bright eyes at a crevice between the portières at the end of the hall.
“They act as though I came to rob them,” thought the girl from the ranch, sitting in the gloomy hall with the satchel at her feet.
This was not the welcome she had expected when she started East. Could it be possible that her message to Uncle Starkweather had not been delivered? Otherwise, how could this situation be explained?
Such a thing as inhospitality could not be imagined by Helen Morrell. A begging Indian was never turned away from Sunset Ranch. A perfect stranger – even a sheepman – would be hospitably treated in Montana.
The soft patter of the footman’s steps soon sounded and the sharp eyes disappeared. There was a moment’s whispering behind the curtain. Then the liveried Englishman appeared.
“Will you step this way, Miss?” he said, gravely. “Mrs. Olstrom will see you in her sitting-room. Leave your bag there, Miss.”
“No. I guess I’ll hold onto it,” she said, aloud.
The footman looked pained, but said nothing. He led the way haughtily into the rear of the premises again. At a door he knocked.
“Come in!” said a sharp voice, and Helen was ushered into the presence of a female with a face quite in keeping with the tone of her voice.
The lady was of uncertain age. She wore a cap, but it did not entirely hide the fact that her thin, straw-colored hair was done up in curl-papers. She was vinegary of feature, her light blue eyes were as sharp as gimlets, and her lips were continually screwed up into the expression of one determined to say “prunes.”
She sat in a straight-backed chair in the sitting-room, in a flowered silk bed-wrapper, and she looked just as glad to see Helen as though the girl were her deadliest enemy.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“I am Helen Morrell,” said the girl.
“What do you want of Mr. Starkweather at this hour?”
“Just what I would want of him at any hour,” returned the Western girl, who was beginning to become heartily exasperated.
“What’s that, Miss?” snapped the housekeeper.
“I have come to him for hospitality. I am his relative – rather, I am Aunt Eunice’s relative – ”
“What do you mean, child?” exclaimed the lady, with sudden emotion. “Who is your Aunt Eunice?”
“Mrs. Starkweather. He married my mother’s sister – my Aunt Eunice.”
“Mrs. Starkweather!” gasped Mrs. Olstrom.
“Of course.”
“Then, where have you been these past three years?” demanded the housekeeper in wonder. “Mrs. Starkweather has been dead all of that time. Mr. Willets Starkweather is a widower.”
“Aunt Eunice dead?” cried Helen.
The news was a distinct shock to the girl. She forgot everything else for the moment. Her face told her story all too well, and the housekeeper could not doubt her longer.
“You’re a relative, then?”
“Her – her niece, Helen Morrell,” sobbed Helen. “Oh! I did not know – I did not know – ”
“Never mind. You are entitled to hospitality and protection. Did you just arrive?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Your home is not near?”
“In Montana.”
“My goodness! You cannot go back to-night, that is sure. But why did you not write?”
“I telegraphed I was coming.”
“I never heard of it. Perhaps the message was not received. Gregson!”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the footman.
“You said something about a taxicab waiting outside with this young lady’s luggage?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Go and pay the man and have the baggage brought in – ”
“I’ll pay for it, ma’am,” said Helen, hastily, trying to unlock her bag.
“That will be all right. I will settle it with Mr. Starkweather. Here is money, Gregson. Pay the fare and give the man a quarter for himself. Have the trunk brought into the basement. I will attend to Miss – er – ?”
“Morrell.”
“Miss Morrell, myself,” finished the housekeeper.
The footman withdrew. The housekeeper looked hard at Helen for several moments.
“So you came here expecting hospitality – in your uncle’s house – and from your cousins?” she observed, jerkily. “Well!”
She got up and motioned Helen to take up her bag.
“Come. I have no orders regarding you. I shall give you one of the spare rooms. You are entitled to that much. No knowing when either Mr. Starkweather or the young ladies will be at home,” she said, grimly.
“I hope you won’t put yourself out,” observed Helen, politely.
“I am not likely to,” returned Mrs. Olstrom. “It is you who will be more likely – Well!” she finished, without making her meaning very plain.
This reception, to cap all that had gone before since she had arrived at the Grand Central Terminal, chilled Helen. The shock of discovering that her mother’s sister was dead – and she and her father had not been informed of it – was no small one, either. She wished now that she had not come to the house at all.
“I would better have gone to a hotel until I found out how they felt toward me,” thought the girl from the ranch.
Yet Helen was just. She began to tell herself that neither Mr. Starkweather nor her cousins were proved guilty of the rudeness of her reception. The telegram might have gone astray. They might never have dreamed of her coming on from Sunset Ranch to pay them a visit.
The housekeeper began to warm toward her in manner, at least. She took her up another flight of stairs and to a very large and handsomely furnished chamber, although it was at the rear of the house, and right beside the stairs leading to the servants’ quarters. At least, so Mrs. Olstrom said they were.
“You will not mind, Miss,” she said, grimly. “You may hear the sound of walking in this hall. It is nothing. The foolish maids call it ‘the ghost walk’; but it is only a sound. You’re not superstitious; are you?”
“I hope not!” exclaimed Helen.
“Well! I have had to send away one or two girls. The house is very old. There are some queer stories about it. Well! What is a sound?”
“Very true, ma’am,” agreed Helen, rather confused, but bound to be polite.
“Now, Miss, will you have some supper? Mr. Lawdor can get you some in the butler’s pantry. He has a chafing dish there and often prepares late bites for his master.”
“No, ma’am; I am not hungry,” Helen declared. “I had dinner in the dining car at seven.”
“Then I will leave you – unless you should wish something further?” said the housekeeper.
“Here is your bath,” opening a door into the anteroom. “I will place a note upon Mr. Starkweather’s desk saying that you are here. Will you need your trunk up to-night, Miss?”
“Oh, no, indeed,” Helen declared. “I have a kimono here – and other things. I’ll be glad of the bath, though. One does get so dusty traveling.”
She was unlocking her bag. For a moment she hesitated, half tempted to take the housekeeper into her confidence regarding her money. But the woman went directly to the door and bowed herself out with a stiff:
“Good-night, Miss.”
“My! But this is a friendly place!” mused Helen, when she was left alone. “And they seem to have so much confidence in strangers!”
Therefore, she went to the door into the hall, found there was a bolt upon it, and shot it home. Then she pulled the curtain across the keyhole before sitting down and counting all her money over again.
“They got me doing it!” muttered Helen. “I shall be afraid of every person I meet in this man’s town.”
But by and by she hopped up, hid the wallet under her pillow (the bed was a big one with deep mattress and downy pillows) and then ran to let her bath run in the little room where Mrs. Olstrom had snapped on the electric light.
She undressed slowly, shook out her garments, hung them properly to air, and stepped into the grateful bath. How good it felt after her long and tiresome journey by train!
But as she was drying herself on the fleecy towels she suddenly heard a sound outside her door. After the housekeeper left her the whole building had seemed as silent as a tomb. Now there was a steady rustling noise in the short corridor on which her room opened.
“What did that woman ask me?” murmured Helen. “Was I afraid of ghosts?”
She laughed a little. To a healthy, normal, outdoor girl the supernatural had few terrors.
“It is a funny sound,” she admitted, hastily finished the drying process and then slipping into her nightrobe, kimono, and bed slippers.
All the time her ear seemed preternaturally attuned to that rising and waning sound without her chamber. It seemed to come toward the door, pass it, move lightly away, and then turn and repass again. It was a steady, regular —
Step – put; step – put; step – put —
And with it was the rustle of garments – or so it seemed. The girl grew momentarily more curious. The mystery of the strange sound certainly was puzzling.
“Who ever heard of a ghost with a wooden leg?” she thought, chuckling softly to herself. “And that is what it sounds like. No wonder the servants call this corridor ‘the ghost walk.’ Well, me for bed!”
She had already snapped out the electric light in the bathroom, and now hopped into bed, reaching up to pull the chain of the reading light as she did so. The top of one window was down half-way and the noise of the city at midnight reached her ear in a dull monotone.
Back here at the rear of the great mansion, street sounds were faint. In the distance, to the eastward, was the roar of a passing elevated train. An automobile horn hooted raucously.
But steadily, through all other sounds, as an accompaniment to them and to Helen Morrell’s own thoughts, was the continuous rustle in the corridor outside her door:
Step – put; step – put; step – put.
