Kitabı oku: «A Daughter of the Forest», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XXI
IN THE GREAT RAILWAY STATION
“There, dear, you are better. Drink this.”
Margot opened her eyes in the big waiting-room for women at the great station. A kind-faced woman in a white cap and apron was bending over her and holding a cup of bouillon to her lips, which obediently opened and received the draught with grateful refreshment.
“Thank you. That is good. Where am I? Who are you?”
The attendant explained: and added, with intent to comfort:
“You are all right. You will be cared for. It was the long going without food and the sudden confusion of arrival. The Indian says you have not eaten in a long time. He is here, I could not keep him out. Is – is he safe?”
The hot, strong soup, and the comforting presence restored the girl so far that she could laugh.
“Joe safe? Our own dear old Joseph Wills? Why, madam, he is the very best guide in all the state of Maine. Aren’t you, Joe? And my uncle’s most trusted friend. Else he would not be here with me. What happened to me that things got so queer?”
“You fainted. That’s all.”
“I? Why, I never did such a thing in my life before.”
Joe drew near. His face seemed still impassive but there was a look of profound concern in his small, black eyes.
“Wouldn’ eat. Get sick. Joe said. Joe hungry, too.”
Margot sat up, instantly, smitten with remorse. If this uncomplaining friend admitted hunger she must have been remiss, indeed.
“Oh, dear madam! Please get him something to eat, or show him where to get it for himself. This last part of the road, or journey, was so long. The train didn’t stop anywhere, hardly, and I saw none of the eating places I had seen on the other trains. We were late, too, in starting, and had no breakfast. My own head whirls yet, and poor Joe must be famished. I have money, plenty, to pay for everything.”
The station matron called an attendant and put Joe in his charge. She, also, ordered a tray of food brought from the restaurant and made Margot eat. Indeed, she was now quite ready to do this and heartily; and her appetite appeased, she told the motherly woman as much of her story as was necessary; asking her advice about a stopping place, and if she, too, thought it true that the widow’s house had been demolished.
“Oh, yes, miss. I know that myself, for I live not so far from that street. It is, or was, an old-fashioned one, and full of big houses that had once been grand but had run down. The property was valuable, though, and no doubt the widow bettered herself by selling. More than that, if she is still in the city, her name should be in the directory. I’ll look it up and if I find it, telephone her. After we do that will be time enough to look for some other place, if she is not to be found.”
Margot did not understand all this, and wondered what this quiet, orderly person had to do with the starting of trains, which she could hear continually moving out and in the monster building, even though she could not see them from this inner room. But this wonder was soon lost in a fresh surprise as, having consulted a big book which was chained to a desk in one corner, the matron came forward, smiling.
“I’ve found the name, miss. Spelled just as you gave it to me. The number is away up town, in Harlem. But I’ll ring her up and see.”
Again the matron crossed the room, toward a queer looking arrangement on the wall; but, a new train arriving, the room so filled with women and children that she had no more leisure to attend to Margot. However, she managed to tell her:
“Don’t worry. I’ll be free soon again, for a minute. And I’ll tell that Indian to sit just outside the door, if you wish. You can sit there with him, too, if it makes you feel more at home. You’re all right now, and will not faint again.”
“No, indeed. I never did before nor shall again, I hope.”
Yet Margot was very thankful when she and Joe were once more side by side, and now amused herself in studying the crowds about her.
“Oh! Joe, there are more ‘types’ here in a minute than one could see at home in years. Look. That’s a Swede. I know by the shape of his face, and his coloring. Though I never saw a live Swede before.”
“Wonder if she ever saw a dead one!” said a voice in passing, and Margot knew she had been ridiculed, yet not why. Then, too, she saw that many glances were turned upon the bench where she and Joe sat, apart from the crowd and, for almost the first time, became conscious that in some way she looked not as other people. However, she was neither over-sensitive nor given to self-contemplation and she had perfect faith in her uncle’s judgment. He had lived in this great city, he knew what was correct. He had told her to ask the widow to supply her with anything that was needed. She had nothing to do now but wait till the widow was found, and then she could go on about the more important business which had brought her hither.
As she remembered that business, her impatience rose. She was now, she must be, not only within a few miles of her unknown father, but of the man who had wronged him, whom she was to compel to right that wrong. She sprang to her feet. The crowd that had filled the waiting-room was again thinning, for a time, and the matron should be free. Would she never come?
“Then I’ll go to her! Stay right here, Joe. Don’t leave this place a minute now till I get back. Then we’ll not lose each other. I’ll come for you as soon as I can.”
Joe grunted his assent and closed his eyes. He, too, was conscious of staring eyes and indignant at them. Had nobody ever seen an Indian before? Were not these clothes that he was wearing the Master’s gift and of the same sort all these other men wore? Let them gaze, if that suited the simple creatures. As for him he was comfortable. The bench was no harder than the ground. Not much harder. He would sleep. He did.
But Margot found the matron doing a strange thing. She had a long pipe running from a box on the wall, and sometimes she was calling into it, or a hole beside it, in the most absurd way: “Hello! Hello, Central!” or else she was holding the tube to her ear and listening.
“What is it? What are you doing?”
“The telephone. I’m ringing up your friend. I’ll tell you what I hear, soon.”
Even the matron rather objected to having this oddly-dressed, inquisitive girl continually at hand, asking questions. She was busy and tired, and Margot understood that she was dismissed to her bench and Joe.
There she settled herself to think. It was time she did. If this friendly widow, whom her family had always known, could not be found, where should she go? To some hotel she supposed, and wondered which and where.
She was still deep in her musings when the matron touched her arm.
“I got an answer. The number is all right. It is the lady’s home when she is in town, but she has been in the country all summer. The boarding-house – it’s that – is closed except for the janitor, and he doesn’t know where she has gone. That’s all.”
It might be “all,” but it made the woodlander’s heart sink. Then she looked up and saw a vaguely familiar profile, yet she knew nobody, had seen nobody at home, and not even on her journey, whom she could remember to have been just like this.
It was the face of a young man, who was dressed like all these other city men about her, though with a something different and finer in the fit and finish of the light gray suit he wore. A slight moustache darkened his upper lip, and he fingered this lovingly, as one might a new possession. A gray haired lady leaned lightly on his arm and he carried her wraps upon his other. Suddenly she spoke to him, as they moved outward toward a suburban train, and he smiled down upon her. It was the smile that revealed him – Adrian.
“Why, how could I fail to know him! Adrian – then all is right!”
She forgot Joe and all else save that retreating figure which she must overtake, and dashed across the room regardless of the people who hindered her progress, and among whom she darted with lightning-like speed.
“Adrian! Adrian! Adrian!”
Their train was late, the lady had been helped to the last platform, and the young man sprang after her just as it was moving out. He heard his own name and turned, wondering and startled, to see a light-haired girl fiercely protesting against a blue-coated official, who firmly barred her passage beyond the stile into the dangerous region of a hundred moving cars.
“Your ticket, miss! Your train – which is it?”
“Ticket! It’s Adrian I want. Adrian, who has just gone on that car – oh, so fast, so fast! Adrian!”
“Too bad, miss, and too late. Sorry. The next train out will not be many minutes. Likely your friends will wait for you at your station. Which is it?”
“My friends? Oh! I don’t know. I guess – I guess I haven’t any.”
She turned away slowly, her heart too heavy for further speech, even had there been any speech possible; and there was Joe, the faithful and silent, laying his hand on her shoulder and guiding her back to their own bench.
“One girl runs away, get lost. Joe go home no more.”
“Poor Joe, dear Joe. I had no idea of running away. But I saw somebody, that boy who was at the island this summer, and I tried to make him see me. Too late, as the man said. He has gone, and now we, too, must go somewhere. I’ll ask that nice woman. She’ll tell us, I think,” and she again sought the matron.
“Yes. I do know a good place for you, if – they’ll take you in. Meaning no harm miss, but you see, you aren’t fixed just the same, and the Indian – ”
“Is it a question of clothes? It’s not the clothing makes the character, my uncle says.”
“No, miss, I suppose not. All the same they go a mighty long way toward making friends, leastways in this big city. And Indians – ”
“Joe Wills is just as noble and as honest as any white man ever lived!”
“Maybe so. Indeed, I’m not denying it, but Indians are Indians, and some landladies might think of tomahawks.”
Margot’s laugh rang out and the other smiled in sympathy.
“Joe, Joe! Would you scalp anybody?”
Then, indeed, was the red man’s impassivity broken by a grin, which happily relieved the situation, fast becoming tragic.
“Well, I’m not wise in city ways but I know that I can find a safe shelter somewhere. I’m going to ask that policeman, yonder, to find us a place.”
“That’s sensible, and I’ll talk with him myself. If he isn’t on duty likely he’ll take you to my friend’s himself. By the way, who was that you ran after and called to so loud? You shouldn’t do that in a big, strange station, you know.”
“I suppose not; yet I needed him so, and it was Adrian, who’s been at my own home all summer. If he’d heard, or seen me, he would have taken all the care, because this is where he’s always lived. The same familiar spot that – that dear Peace Island is to Joe and me,” she said, with a catch in her voice and laying her hand affectionately upon his sleeve.
“Adrian? A Mr. Adrian?”
“Why, no. He is a Wadislaw. His father’s name is Malachi Wadislaw, and my business here is with him.”
“Wadislaw, the banker? Why then, of course, it’s all right. Officer, please call a cab and take them to Number – West Twenty-fifth Street. That’s my friend’s; and say I sent them.”
CHAPTER XXII
NUMBER 526
“Mother, that was Margot!”
Mrs. Wadislaw heard but did not comprehend what Adrian was saying. She was flushed and panting from her rush after the retreating train and her nerves were excited.
“I’ll never, never – run – for any car – in this world, again!” she gasped. “It’s dangerous, and – so – so uncomfortable. My heart – ”
“Poor mother! I’m sorry. I’ll get you some water.”
The young fellow was excited himself but on quite a different matter; yet he knew that nothing could be done for the present and that the disturbed lady would take no interest in anything until her own agitation was calmed.
“No, no. Don’t you leave me. Touch the button. Let the porter attend – I – I am so shaken. I’ll never, never do it again.”
He obeyed her and sat down in the easy-chair beside her. She had been compelled to run else they had been left behind, and she had been hurried from the platform of that last car through the long train to their own reserved seats in the drawing-room car.
“It was foolish; doubly so, because trains are so frequent. There was no need for haste, anyway, was there?”
“Only this need: that when anybody accepts a dinner invitation one should never keep a hostess waiting.”
“But when the hostess is only your own sister, and daughter?”
“One should be most punctilious in one’s own family. Oh, yes. It is no laughing matter, my son, and since you have come home and regained your common sense, you must regard all these seeming trifles. Half the disagreements and discomforts of life are due to the fact that even well-bred people treat their own households with a rudeness they would not dare show strangers. Now that you have given up your careless habits I shall take care to remind you of all these details, and expect to see you a finished society man within a twelvemonth.”
“No, indeed!”
“Adrian! How can you trifle so? Now when you’ve so lately been restored to me?”
“Dearest mother, I am not trifling. I should be, though, if I meant to shine nowhere else than at a fashionable dinner-table. There, don’t look worried. I’ll try not to disgrace you, yet – Well, I’ve learned a higher view of life than that. But can you hear me now? That was Margot – woodland Margot – who saved my life!”
“Nonsense. It couldn’t be.”
“It surely was; and I’m going to ask you to excuse me from this one visit so that I can go back and find her.”
“Find her? If it were she, and I’m positive you are mistaken, of course she is not in the city alone. Her uncle must be with her, and your sister will be deeply hurt if you fail her this first time. At a dinner, you know, there are a certain and limited number of guests. The failure of one leaves his or her partner in an awkward position. You must keep your engagement, even if – But, Adrian?”
“Yes, mother.”
“You must not exaggerate your obligations to those people. They did for you only what anybody would do for a man lost in the woods. By their own admission you were worth a great deal to that farmer. Else he never would have parted with eighty dollars, as he did. I shall always prize the gold piece you brought me; indeed, I mean to have it set in a pin and wear it. But this Maine farmer, or lumberman, or whatever he is, just drop him out of mind. His very name is objectionable to me, and you must never mention it before your father. Years ago there was a – well, something unpleasant with some people; and, please oblige me by – by not being disagreeable now. After all my anxiety while you were gone and about your father’s health, I think – I really – ”
Adrian slipped his arm across the back of the lady’s chair and smiled upon her, lovingly. He was trying his utmost to make up to her and all his family for whatever they had suffered because of his former “misdeeds.” He had come home full of high resolves and had had his sincerity immediately tested by his father’s demanding that:
“If you are in earnest, if you intend to do a son’s part by us, go back into the bank and learn a good business. This ‘art’ you talk about, what is it? But the shifty resource of a lot of idle fellows. Get down to business. Dollars are what count, in this world. Put yourself in a place where you can make them, and while I am alive to aid you.”
Adrian’s whole nature rebelled against this command, yet he had obeyed it. And he had inwardly resolved that, outside the duties of his clerkship, his time was his own and should be devoted to his beloved painting.
“After all, some of the world’s finest pictures have been done by those whose leisure was scant. If it’s in me it will have to come out. Some time, in some way, I’ll live my own life in spite of all.”
It had hurt him, too, a little that his people so discouraged all history of his wanderings.
All of his sisters were married and well-connected, and one of them voiced the opinion of all, when she said:
“Your running away, or your behaving so that you had to be sent away, is quite disgrace enough. That you are back safe, and sensible, is all any of us care to know.”
But because he was forbidden to talk of his forest experiences he dwelt upon them all the more in his own mind; and this afternoon’s glimpse of Margot’s sunny head had awakened all his former interest. Why was she in New York? Was the “master” with her? He, of whom his own mother spoke in such ignorant contempt, as a “farmer,” a “lumberman,” yet who was the most finished scholar and gentleman that Adrian had ever met.
“Well, I can’t get home till after that wretched dinner, and I should have to wait for the next train, anyway, even if the ‘mater’ would let me off. I’ve promised myself to make her happy, dear little woman, if I can, and sulking over my own disappointments isn’t the way to do that,” he reflected. So he roused himself to talk of other matters, and naturally of the sister at whose home they were to dine.
“I don’t see what made Kate ever marry a warden of state’s prison. I should think life in such a place would be hateful.”
“That shows how little you know about it, and what a revelation this visit will be to you. Why, my dear, she has a beautiful home, with horses and carriages at her disposal; her apartments are finely furnished and she has one comfort that I have not, or few housekeepers in fact.”
“What is that?”
“As many servants as she requires, and at no expense to herself. Servants who are absolutely obedient, thoroughly trained, and never ‘giving notice.’”
“I do not understand.”
“They are the convicts. Why, they even have an orchestra to play at their entertainments, also of convicts; the musical ones to whom the playing is a great reward and treat. I believe they are to play to-night.”
“Horror! I hope not. I don’t want to be served by any poor fellow out of a cell.”
“You’ll not think about that. Not after a little. I don’t at all, now, though I used to, sometimes, when they were first in office. It’s odd that though they’ve lived at Sing Sing for two years you’ve not been there yet.”
“Not so odd, little mother. Kate and I never get along together very well. She’s too dictatorial. Besides, she was always coming home and I saw her there. I had no hankering after a prison, myself. And speaking of disgrace, I feel that her living in such a place is worse than anything I ever did.”
“Adrian, for a boy who has ordinary intelligence you do say the strangest things. The office of warden is an honorable one and well paid.”
The lad smiled and his mother hastily added:
“Besides, it gives an opportunity for befriending the unhappy prisoners. Why, there is a man – ”
She hesitated, looked fixedly at her son as if considering her next words, then concluded, rather lamely:
“But you’ll see.”
She opened her novel and began to read and Adrian also busied himself with the evening paper; and presently the station was reached and they left the train.
A carriage was in waiting for them, driven by men in livery, and altogether quite smart enough to warrant his mother’s satisfaction as they stepped into it and were whirled away to the prison.
But as he had been forewarned, there was no suggestion of anything repulsive in the charming apartments they entered, and his sister’s greeting was sufficiently affectionate to make him feel that he had misjudged her in the past.
All the guests were in dinner dress and Adrian was appointed to take in his own mother, Kate having decided that this would be a happy surprise to both parties. They had been the last to arrive and as soon as greetings were over the meal was immediately served; but on their way toward the dining-room, Mrs. Wadislaw pressed her son’s arm and nodded significantly toward the leader of the palm-hidden orchestra.
“Take a look at that man.”
“Yes. Who is he?”
“A convict, life sentence. Number 526. He plays divinely, violin. But – ”
Again she hesitated and looked sharply into Adrian’s face. Should she, or should she not, tell him the rest? Yes. She must; it would be the surest, shortest way of curing his infatuation for those wood people. Her boy had spoken of this Margot as a child, yet with profound love and admiration. It would be as well to nip any nonsense of that sort in the bud. There was only a moment left, they were already taking their places at the elegantly appointed table, and she whispered the rest:
“He is in for robbery and manslaughter, – your own father the victim. His name is Philip Romeyn, and your woodland nonpareil is his daughter.”
