Kitabı oku: «To Him That Hath», sayfa 10

CHAPTER IV
PUCK MASQUERADES AS CUPID

David had suggested school to Tom, but the boy would none of it.

"What, set in one o' dem agony seats, biffin' your brain wid books, a skinny lady punchin' holes t'rough you wid her eyes! Not for mine, pard!"

A job was what he wanted, and David at length concluded that after Tom had been tamed by the discipline of a few months of regular work, he would perhaps be more amicable toward education.

There were but two men of whom David could ask aid in finding a place for the boy, Mr. Rogers and the Mayor of Avenue A. Mr. Rogers was beginning to be something of a puzzle to David. One thing that made David wonder was the smallness of Mr. Rogers's business compared with his ability. They had had a few short talks and David had discovered there lurked behind that reserved exterior a sharp intelligence which now and then flashed out unexpected poniards of bitter wit. David contrasted him with another rental agent he had met, doing several times Rogers's business, and the second man seemed a nonentity. Yet Rogers was the agent of but half a dozen tenements, and made no effort to extend his clientage.

David also wondered at what he could regard only as idiosyncrasies. The dingy brown of Rogers's hair seemed to him hardly a natural colour; he guessed hair dye. But hair dye he associated with vanity, with the man who would falsify his gray hair to extend his beauship, and vanity Rogers apparently had not. And one day, while sweeping out Rogers's office, David had tried on Rogers's spectacles, which had been left on the desk, and had discovered he could see through them as well as with his naked eyes. The lenses were blanks. Why should the man wear blank spectacles, why should he dye his hair? Mere idiosyncracies of course – yet rather queer ones.

Rogers was always kind and courteous to David, and David heard from tenants and neighbours many stories of the agent's warm heart – of rent advanced from the agent's own pocket when a tenant was out of work, of food that came covertly to fatherless families, of mysterious money and delicacies that came to the sick poor. Yet he was invariably cold and distant to David, and cold and distant to all others; so much so that to try to thank him was an embarrassment. Sometimes, when musing about Rogers's business restraint, his colourless dress, his reserve, his stealthy generosity, it seemed to David that Rogers sought obscurity and anonymity with the zeal that other men seek fame and brass tablets.

It was the reserve of Rogers and the constraint David felt in his presence, and even more the knowledge of the greater influence of the Mayor of Avenue A, that made David choose to ask the latter's aid in seeking work for Tom. So about four o'clock of the afternoon following Helen's call, he walked into the Pan-American Café. At a large table in a front corner sat the Mayor, two other men, and half a dozen women, all drinking of coffee and eating of cake, and all shaking with full-voiced laughter that bubbled straight from the diaphragm. David was in no hurry, so he sat down in the opposite corner of the almost empty café to wait the departure of the Mayor's friends.

The ladies about the Mayor were hearty beauties of from ten to twenty years' acquaintance with womanhood; and among them there was an abundance of furs and diamonds. Most of them were misses, David learned from the way the Mayor addressed them. The Mayor, David soon perceived, was the center of their interest. Their pleasantries, their well-seasoned smiles, their playful blushes, were all directed at him, and now and then one of his sallies was reproved by a muff's soft blow upon his mouth. The rôle of target seemed to please him; he bent now to this one, now to that, made sweeping flourishes, made retorts that drew upon him more of the same pleasant missiles. It began to dawn upon David that his saviour was very much of a gallant.

Presently the Mayor, rising to greet a newcomer, noticed David. After a few moments he excused himself and took a chair at David's table. A silk vest that was a condensed flower garden made the mayoral front a gorgeous sight to behold.

There was a new respect in the Mayor's manner. "I see you're flyin' in high society these days," he began, in a whisper.

"You refer to Miss Chambers? She's merely interested in me as you are – in my reform." David said this quietly, as though the subject was closed.

His dignity was not lost on the Mayor. "Say, you've taken an all-fired brace to yourself in the last ten days, ain't you! As for your lady friend – well, if the way she was talkin' to you is the way reformers talk, gee I wish some one like her'd try to make a man out o' me! She's all right, friend. I've seen her before and I've heard a lot about her. But her old man – Lord, but I'd like to set for a week or so on his windpipe! Real estate is one o' his thousand lines, you know. He owns a lot o' tenements in this part o' town – none near St. Christopher's, o' course – and as a landlord, say, he's just partic'lar hell!"

"I've come to ask another favour of you," David cut in, quickly. "You've seen the boy that stays with me. I want to get him a job if I can. I thought possibly you might be able to help me."

"I've seen the kid, yes. Somethin' of a sleight o' hand performance, ain't he? – now he's there and now he ain't. Where'd you pick him up?"

"We just fell in with each other a couple of months ago. There's a man in him."

"I see. And you're trying to dig it out. You'll have to do a little blastin' on the job, don't you think? As for gettin' him work" – he shook his head slowly – "there's about five thousand families on Avenue A, and each family's got five boys, and about once in so often the street out there is blockaded with their mas beggin' me to get 'em jobs. There's how I'm fixed."

"You can't help me then?"

"You've sized it up. Sorry. Wish I could."

After a moment David asked hesitantly: "You couldn't use a boy here, could you?"

"Here! Nothin' I could use a boy for."

"Help in the kitchen, carry things up from the cellar, clean up," David suggested.

The Mayor shook his head.

"It would be great for the boy if he could work a while for some one like you that would understand him, make allowances, and break him in properly," David went on eagerly. "He's never held a job, and a stranger wouldn't have much charity for his shortcomings, wouldn't keep him long. You don't need him, but still you can make things for him to do. In three or four weeks I'll have found another job for him, and by then you'll have him worked into shape to hold it. Of course I'll pay his wages myself – say three dollars a week; only he must think it's coming from you."

The Mayor's look changed to that sharp, penetrating gaze with which he had searched David's interior on his first visit. "Yes, you're in dead earnest," he grunted after a few seconds.

He raised a fat forefinger. "See here, friend. You're cuttin' into my business. I'm an octopus, a trust – you understand? – and any man that tries any philanthropic stunts in my part o' town, I run him out o' business. See? Now you send the kid around and I'll let him bust things here for a while. But keep your coin. I reckon three dollars ain't goin' to put Carl Hoffman on the bum."

David thanked him warmly. "But you don't need the boy," he ended in a determined voice, "so I can't let you pay him."

The Mayor regarded David steadily for a moment. "Have it your own way," he said abruptly; and suddenly his big fist reached across the table, and to David it was like shaking hands with a fervent pillow. "Friend, I've sized you up for the real thing. You made your mistake, and it was a bad one – but we all make 'em. You belong 'way up. I'm proud to know you."

David flushed and was stammering out his appreciation, when the Mayor interrupted with, "Oh, a friend that's good enough for Miss Chambers is good enough for me."

He glanced over his shoulder at the group he had left, then leaned confidentially across the table and asked in a whisper: "What d'you think o' the bunch? – the ladies I mean."

"Why, they seem to be very fine," David answered, surprised. "And they admire you."

"Friend," said the Mayor with an approving nod, "you certainly ain't been lookin' on with your blind eye. They do that! And every afternoon it's the same – either them, or some other bunch. And d'you know what they're after?"

"No."

"Me. They want to marry me. And there ain't a girl on the avenue between fifteen and seventy that ain't tryin' to do the same. Friend, I can't help bein' pop'lar with the ladies. I like 'em – God bless 'em! But when you've got a whole avenue tryin' to marry you, it's hell!"

He shook his head with an air of sadness. "I don't want to marry. I was married once for about a year. It was when I was a kid. I guess she was a pretty nice girl, but she was too much like her mother, and when she went I swore I'd keep out o' that kind o' trouble. But they're closin' in on me. One of 'em's sure to get me. I don't know which one, or mebbe I could head her off. I ought to keep away from 'em, but I can't leave 'em alone, and they won't leave me alone. Oh, hell!"

He rose with a groan. "Well, send round the kid," he said, and carefully pulling down his vest and smoothing his dozen hairs, he rejoined his friends. As David left the café he heard a deep roar from the Mayor, and had a glimpse of a fair suitress of forty rebuking the Mayor's mouth with her muff.

David sent Tom to the Mayor, and walked over to a hardware store on the Bowery to order some new ash cans. As he was returning through the Bowery a man stepped to his side with a quiet, "Hello, pal." Startled, David looked about. Beside him was a wiry, gray man, with deep-lined face and a keen, shifty eye. It was a man David had known in prison – a cynical, hardened gentleman who had been running counter to the law for thirty years, during which time he had participated in scores of daring robberies and had known most of the country's cleverest criminals. Bill Halpin was his name – at least the most recent of his dozen or two.

Halpin had taken a fancy to David while they were prison-mates, why David could not understand; and his greeting was warm to come from one of his contemptuous nature. The two walked on together, and David, in response to Halpin's queries, told that he had gone to work with the determination to live honestly. Halpin gave a sneer of unbelief – he sneered at all things save the frankly evil – but said nothing. When they reached David's tenement, David asked him in, but he said he had an engagement with a pal, and went away after promising to come around some other time.

David shovelled the furnace full of coal and was beginning his preparations for dinner, aglow with his new hopes and with the thought that he had regained Helen for his friend, when there was a knock at his door. He opened the door, expecting his usual caller – a tenant with a grievance. Kate Morgan stepped into the room.

David had seen her in finery before, but never in such finery as now. There was a white velvet hat with two great black plumes that curled down upon her back hair; a long black coat, through whose open front glowed the warm red of a gown; a black fur scarf round her neck and a black muff enclosing her white-gloved hands.

She stepped into the room and her eyes – brighter than ever were the eyes of the furs' original owners – gleamed over the scarf with hard defiance.

"Good evening, Mister Aldrich."

David flushed. "Good evening." He drew his one rocking-chair toward her. "Won't you sit down?"

She sank into the chair, threw open the coat so that the full glory of its white satin lining and of the red dress were displayed, and thrust out a little patent-leathered foot.

"I saw you with Miss Chambers last night," she said, her brilliant eyes darting contempt at him. "Of course you told her all about that Allen affair. You're not only a coward. You're a squealer."

David was standing with his back to his mantel, and Kate had to see the erectness, the confidence, the decision, that had come to him since the night of their adventure. "I don't know why you're saying these things," he returned quietly, "but if saying them pleases you, go on."

"Well, ain't we got high and dignified since we became a janitor!" she sneered. "A janitor! Sweeping – scrubbing – listening to the kicks of dirty tenants – digging with your hands in the garbage to separate paper, tin cans, greasy bones. Lord, but ain't you high up in life!"

"Go on," said David.

She drew out her cigarette box – she knew he disliked to see her smoke – lighted a cigarette, and blew a little cloud toward him.

"A janitor! What a poor, weak, miserable soul you've got. Think of a man turning from excitement, an easy life, good things, and taking up this! But you're not a real man. You'd rather do dirty work for a year than earn a year of good times by a night's work. Wouldn't you like to know what I cleaned up the other night after you sneaked out?"

"What you wanted, I suppose."

"That's it – I got all I went after! I'm on Easy Street for a year. And I'm enjoying life, too. You set that down. While you clean up other people's dirt, and live in a basement, and cook yourself three-cent dinners!"

All her fierceness, all her scorn, were in her words, gave them a jagged edge; and she thrust them in deep and twisted them vindictively. David, very white, looked steadily down at her, but made no reply.

"And besides, you're a squealer!"

He continued silent.

She sent out a puff of smoke, her eyes blazing at him, and thrust again:

"And a damned coward!"

David grew yet paler, but he continued his steady, silent gaze.

She sat looking up at him for several moments, without speaking again. Then slowly something of the fierce scorn, the wild desire to pain him, went out of her face.

"And so you're going to stick to honesty?" she presently asked, abruptly, her voice still hard. "As tough as it is?"

"Yes," said David, quietly as before.

"And nothing can change you?"

He shook his head.

She continued staring up at him. For an instant faint twitches broke her face's hard surface, but it tightened again. Suddenly, to David's astoundment, she whirled about in her chair, presenting him her back; and he saw a white hand clench and her little body grow rigid. Then suddenly she sprang up, hurled her cigarette box across the room, and turned upon him with a deep gasp, her face convulsed.

"Here I am!" she cried, stretching out to him her open hands. "I tried to get you to come to my way. You wouldn't come. I've come to your way. Here I am!"

This whizzing from one pole to the other was too great a speed for David. "What?" he gasped.

"I lied about New Year's night! I took nothing – not a thing! You wouldn't let me. I've acted to you like a devil. You're not a coward. You did not leave me in Allen's house. I saw you waiting behind the palm. I've tried to keep away from you. I didn't want to give in. But I've come! I've give in! I'll be whatever you want me to be, David! – whatever you want me to be!"

David was not yet at the other pole. "Whatever I want you to be?" he said dazedly.

"Yes! Yes! I'll be honest – be anything!" she answered, breathless. She moved a quick step nearer, and went on in an appealing, breaking voice: "But don't you see, David? Don't you see? I love you! Take me!"

David was there. A wave of pain, of self-shame, of infinite regret, swept through him. For a moment, while he tried to get hold of himself, he looked down into the quivering, passionate, tear-lit face; then he took the hands outstretched to him.

"Kate," he said imploringly, "I'm so sorry – so sorry! Forget me. I am nobody – nothing."

"I love you!"

"Think how poor I am, how far down."

"I love you!"

The low tensity of that iterated cry shamed out of existence all evasive reasons – drove David straight to what he thought his uttermost answer. "Forgive me," he said, sick with loathing of himself. "But you've forced me to say it… I don't love you."

"I love you!"

She had paled at his words, and her cry was only a whispered gasp; but her fixed upward gaze, passionate, appealing, mandatory, did not waver an instant. David had but one word left – and that, he had thought, was to be forever unspoken. But it had to be spoken now. After a moment, in which her face seemed to swim before him, he said, huskily:

"I love someone else."

She drew suddenly back, there was a sharp indrawing of the breath, the face hardened, the eyes above the fur neckpiece gleamed fiercely.

"Who?"

He shook his head.

"Who?"

"I cannot say."

The eyes narrowed to slits, and she looked him through as on the day she had guessed he was just from prison – only now her intuition was quickened a hundred fold. They stood motionless a few seconds, he trying to parry her instinct; then from her came a low, sharp "A-a-h!" and, after a second, "So it's her!"

He shivered. There was another moment of tense silence. Then she said, abruptly:

"It's Miss Chambers?"

He did not move an eyelash.

"You love Miss Chambers!" she announced decisively.

Her hands clenched. "I hate her! Why shouldn't she stay in her own world! Why should she come mixing in my affairs! Oh! I could – !" She finished with a tensing of her whole figure.

She glared silently at David for a moment; then a harsh, mocking laugh broke from her.

"So, you're in love with Miss Chambers! Miss Chambers – a janitor. What a lovely match! Of course you've told her, and she's said yes!"

"I shall never tell her," David said quietly.

The bitterness and mockery began to fade slowly from her face, and meditation came in their stead; and when she spoke again her tone was the tone of argument. "Don't you know that she's far, far above you? You're a fool to think of her! Why, you can never get her – never! You see that, don't you?"

"Yes." He raised a peremptory, entreating hand. "Please! – let's not speak of her."

Her whole body quickened. "After her, do you like any woman better than me?" she demanded.

He shook his head. "No."

"She's out of the question for you – she doesn't live!" She crept slowly toward David, her eyes burning into his. "There's no one between us," she said in a low, choked voice. Then her voice blazed up, her words rushed out. "You do not want me now, but you will! I'll make you love me. I'll be anything you like – I'll be honest! – I'll work! Yes, yes, I'll make you love me, David!"

Her hands had clutched his, and she now held up her quivering face. "I'm going to be honest for your sake, David. Kiss me!"

David was agonised with the pang of her tragedy, with the shame of his own great part in it. "Forgive me," he whispered huskily; and he stooped and pressed his lips to hers.

She gave a little cry and flung her arms about his neck and held him tight. Then breathing against his cheek, "You'll love me yet, David!" she abruptly withdrew her arms, and the next moment was out of the room.

CHAPTER V
ON THE UPWARD PATH

Kate's last sentence, "You'll love me yet, David!" recurred to him constantly during the next two days. He would not, of course – yet he could but muse upon the possibility. We are all creatures of change. Our views of to-day may not be our views of to-morrow, our dislikes of this year may be our desires of next. Since, as Kate had said, Helen Chambers did not live for him, might there not take place within him such a change as would make him yearn for the love he now could not accept?

David looked forward with dread to his next meeting with Kate. He feared another such scene, so painful to them both, as the one they had just passed through. But his fear was needless. Kate's nature was an impetuous one, little schooled to control, but her will was strong and she was capable of restraint as well as of abandon. She knew enough of character to see that David could be eventually won to be more than friend only by now asking and giving no more than friendship; and she was strong enough to hold herself to this course.

When she came in three evenings later, both manner and dress were sober, though her eyes showed what was behind her self-control. They greeted each other with constraint; but she at once said abruptly, "I'm going to behave," and went on to tell David that, after two days' searching, she had found a position in a department store and had begun work that morning.

"I'm a soap saleslady," she said. "Lace-box soap, a three-cake box for nine cents, takes off skin and all – you know the kind. I get five dollars a week. That's two hundred and sixty dollars for a year's work. I've made that, and more, in a night. Oh, it pays to be honest!"

She had broken the constraint, but nevertheless David was grateful for the entrance of Rogers who just then chanced in. David introduced the two, and after a few moments of chat Rogers invited David and Kate to dine with him at the Mayor's café, where he had all his meals; and a little later they set out for the Pan-American.

The restaurant was filled with diners – fair Germans sitting behind big glass steins, olive-skinned Jews and Hungarians, and women in plenty of both hues. Most were more or less Americanised, but many announced by the queer cut of their clothes that they were recent pilgrims. Some tables were quiet with a day's weariness, some buzzed with business, some (and most of these were Jewish) were eager with discussion on music, literature, politics, religion. Above the buzz of four tongues rose a wild, wailing air of the Carpathians that the orchestra, in red velvet jackets, were setting free with excited hands from their guitar, mandolin, xylophone and two violins.

The Mayor, in vest of effulgent white, was circulating among his guests, joking, wishing good appetites, radiating hospitality from his glowing face. His well-organised kitchen and dining-room apparently ran themselves, so during the dinner hours there was nothing to interrupt his being merely host. He beckoned Rogers's party, who had paused at the door, toward him with a grand wave of his jewelled hand, and led them to a table at the rear of the room.

"Well, friends, if your appetites are as good as my dinner, you've certainly got a good time comin'," he said, and moved on to other guests.

On the way over Kate had announced that she was going to do some studying at home – reading was one of David's interests, so she had decided it must be one of hers – and had asked for advice; and this now led to a discussion upon books between David and Rogers. David discovered that his employer had no use for poetry, had a fair acquaintance with fiction, and in history and philosophy was much better read than himself.

Rogers, in his unexcitable way, talked well. At times his remarks were brilliant in their analysis, and at times there came those quick, caustic thrusts of wit that pierce like a sword to the heart of pretense and false ideas. He expressed himself with ease in a wide vocabulary, though many of the less common words he mispronounced – a fault that to David was elusively familiar. He spoke always in a quiet, even tone, that would have led a casual hearer to believe that he was merely a cold mentality, that he had not the fire of a soul. But David had the feeling now, as he had had before and as he was often to have again, that in looking into those glowing eyes he was looking into the crater of a volcano.

During this play of wits Kate could only look silently on. She had known that David was in education above the level of her friends, but the side of himself he was now showing she had not before seen. His richness where she had nothing seemed to remove him to an impossible distance. Her face became drawn with sharp pain.

But presently the talk shifted from books to life, and she forgot her despair. Here she was at home. She knew life, her impressions were distinct and decided, and her sentences seemed pieces of her own vivid personality. The presence of the two men inspired her. David, who thought he knew her, found himself being surprised at the quickness and keenness of her mind, and Rogers watched her little sparkling face with more and more interest. She was surprised at herself, too; talking on subjects of broader interest than personalities was a new experience to her, and she discovered in herself powers never before called out.

As they were sipping their coffee to the frenzied music of a gypsy waltz, Tom, who had spied them from the kitchen, darted in to their table. His appearance was much improved by a haircut and a complete new outfit which a small amount in David's cash, and a larger amount in the Mayor's credit, had enabled him to purchase on the instalment plan. He shook hands all around, unabashed by Rogers's habitual reserve.

"How'd you like de feed?" he demanded eagerly. "If anyt'ing's wrong, I'll fix it. Nuttin'? O' course not. Say, de grub here's swell, ain't it? T'irty cents is a lot for a dinner, but it's wort' it. We buys only de best, we cooks it right, an' we serves it proper, wid table-clot' an' napkins. D'you take notice o' dem? It ain't many places you gits table-clot' an' napkins!

"Was your waiter all right? Shall I call him down for anyt'ing? No. Well, I'm glad I don't have to say nuttin' to him, for he's a friend o' mine. Say, mebbe you t'ink it's easy to run a place like dis. T'ink again! First, dere's what're we goin' to have to-day, den dere's gettin' it ready, den dere's servin' it, an' de dishes, an' washin' 'em, an' everyt'ing. It's hustle, an' worry, an' t'ink from when you gets up till when you goes to bed."

And on he went, picturing the responsibility under which he tottered, till they told him goodnight and went out.

Kate was in a glow of spirits when David and Rogers left her at her door. She whispered appealingly to David as they parted, "Please talk with me this way again, David." It had been in his mind that, under the circumstances, it would be better for Kate if they should cease to meet; but he frankly realised he was the only link which held her to her new honesty, and to break their friendship would be to snap that link. And so he answered, "Yes – often;" and this was in fact the first of many such hours spent together, in which they were often joined by Rogers. It seemed to David that Kate's cynicism and sharpness were beginning slowly to wear away.

Since his talk with Helen David's hope of conquering the future had been constantly high. He did not underestimate the struggle before him, but strength and courage had been flowing into him since food and shelter had ceased to be worries, and he now felt that under Helen's inspiration he could do anything. One of his aims he had already achieved, Helen's respect, though how still seemed to him a miracle. His heart yearned even more eagerly than ever for something higher than friendship, but he knew this desire to be, as always, unattainable. He could not hope for a second miracle, and one that would sink the first to a commonplace.

Her suggestion that he should write a story of the man-making of a boy whom surroundings had forced toward destruction, laid immediate and powerful hold upon him. He saw, as she had said, that a story of the right kind might contribute in some degree to awakening the public's sympathy for, and responsibility toward, the hundreds of thousands of children that are going to waste. And he saw, too, that such a book might lift him toward the world's respect, where he would be happier, more effective. Selfishly, altruistically, the story was the thing for him to do.

During the days after their talk, all his spare time, and even while he went about his work, his imagination was impassionedly shaping characters and plot. He had a note from Helen saying she wanted to see him the following Friday, and he could hardly wait for it to come, he was that eager to ask her judgment on his story's outline. When Friday afternoon did finally arrive, he began to look for her an hour before she could be expected, excitedly pacing his room, and every minute glancing through his window up to the sidewalk.

When Helen, after leaving her club of schoolgirls that afternoon, entered the reception room on her way out, she found Mr. Allen waiting for her in the Flemish oak settle.

"You were not expecting me, but I hope you're not displeased," he said in his grave, pleasant voice, and with the ease of long-accustomed welcome.

She could not wholly restrain a little air of vexation as she gave him her hand. "Of course I'm glad. But I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you if you've come to go home with me. I've promised to make a call – in the neighbourhood. Of course you can walk with me there, if you like."

"Oh, the neighbourhood!" He gave a humorous groan of mock complaint, but down in his heart the complaint was very real. The neighbourhood was coming too often between her and his desire to be with her. "Very well. I'll take what I can get."

She threw her sable scarf about her throat and they stepped forth into the narrow street, paved with new snow that the day had trodden to a dirty glaze. He had talked with her before about his ambitions, for his future had been part of his offering when he had offered himself. He now told her that he had just been appointed chief counsel of the committee of the legislature for investigating impure foods. She knew how great a distinction this was, how great a token of the future, and she congratulated him warmly.

"If these good things you see really do come, you know I don't want to share them alone," he said in a low voice, when she had finished.

She shook her head slowly. "The more I think, the more I see how unsuited I am for you. Our ideas are so different. You face one pole, I another. We would never pull together; we could only achieve the deadlock of two joined forces that struggle in opposite directions."

"But you know my hope is that we shall not always face in opposite directions."

She turned upon him a smile that was touched with irony. "You mean you expect some day to look toward my pole?"