Kitabı oku: «To Him That Hath», sayfa 11

He shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "You know I mean you will some day see the futility of such work as you are doing, and the wrongness of many of your ideas – and then you will turn to the true pole."

"Your pole? No. I do not believe, as you do, that only the fit should survive. I do not believe, as you do, that the hard conditions of life are necessary as a kind of sieve, or a kind of civil service examination, to separate the fit from the unfit. I do not believe, as you do, that the great mass who have failed to pass the meshes of this test, who are down, have by the mere fact of their being down proved their unfitness, shown that they are worthy to be neglected. Your belief, summed up, is that the world is made for the strong – for the rich man born to opportunities, and for the poor man born with the superior brains and energy to create them. To that belief I can never come. I believe the world is made also for the weak. Rather, I believe all should be made strong."

With a sweep of her hand she indicated the two rows of tenements whose dingy red walls stretched away and away till they and the narrow street disappeared into the wintry twilight.

"All these people here – they are weak because they have never had a chance to be otherwise. Give them a fair chance and they will become strong – or most of them. That is what I believe – a fair chance for all to become strong."

"And I believe the same. Only I believe that chance exists at present for all who are worthy. If there is good stuff in a man, he rises; if not, he belongs where he is. The struggle is selective, it develops. Make it easier and you lower the quality of your people."

"Ah, yes, I know you are an unalterable individualist," she sighed. "When I realise the great part you are going to have during the next twenty or thirty years in shaping the conditions under which we all must live, I wish you could be brought to a broader concept of the human relationship."

"If I am to play such a part, my own concept is quite broad enough."

"But in ways it is so hopeless! It consigns all these people to outer darkness. It holds no chance for the man whom circumstances are pressing down, no chance for any of those helpless people who are reaching vainly upward, or those who would be reaching upward if their consciousness were roused." They were drawing near to David's house, and the sight of it prompted a specific instance. "No chance for the man who has stolen, who repents, who struggles to reform."

"The repentant thief!" He gave a low laugh. "The one that repented on the cross is the eternal type of the thief that repents. If he repents, it's at the last minute – when he can steal no more!"

His words half angered her. "I wish you could talk with the one I'm going to see now!"

He looked at her in surprise. "That Aldrich fellow you were telling about!" he ejaculated.

He felt a further astonishment – that she should be calling upon a man, and evidently in his room. He did not put this into words, but she read it in his face. It angered her more, and she answered his look sharply:

"To have him call at my house or to see me at the Mission would be embarrassing to him. I feel that I can be of some service, and since I must choose between an uptown convention and helping save a man, I have decided to sacrifice convention. It seems strange, doesn't it?"

He did not reply to her sarcasm, but he still disapproved. There were so many things of which he disapproved that even had he been free to criticise he would have felt the futility of striking at any single fault. He prayed for the eradication of all this part of her life, and her restoration to normal views; first, because he honestly disbelieved in the work that interested her; second, because he reasoned that while she gave so much interest to the poor she was likely to have little interest left to give to his suit.

They paused before David's window. David, glancing out, saw Allen not ten feet away and heard Helen say, "I wish so much you would talk with Mr. Aldrich." For a moment his heart stood still. Then he sprang toward the door, intending to escape the back way, but it occurred to him that perhaps Allen might not come in, and that to avoid him by running away was also to miss Helen. He left the door ajar, to aid a quick flight if Allen started in, and peered through the window at the couple, as alert as a "set" runner waiting the pistol-shot.

They were a splendid pair, David had to admit to himself – both tall, she with the grace of perfect womanhood, he with the poise and dignity of power and success. She was a woman to honour any man's life; he – David now knew of Allen's brilliant achievements and brilliant future – had a life worth any woman's honouring. Yes, they were a splendid pair.

Presently Allen bowed and went away, and the next moment David opened the door for Helen. He was grateful to the dusk for muffling his agitation; and doubly grateful to it when she said, after giving him a firm pressure from her hand:

"I've been trying to arrange with a friend – Mr. Allen – to have a talk with you some day. I hope you may soon meet."

"Thank you," said David.

She suggested that they walk, and a few minutes later, David reciting the outline of his story, they entered Second Avenue, the East Side's boulevard, always thronged with business folk, shoppers, promenaders, students. They forgot the crowds through which they wove their way, forgot even that they walked, and it was a surprise to both when they found themselves, just as David finished, before her home.

She looked at his erect figure, at his glowing, excited face. "I think it's going to be splendid!" she cried.

"I think so myself," he returned, with an exultant little laugh. "So a man always feels at first. But when the cold and clammy days have come, when your fires have all gone out and there's nothing but ashes left in your imagination – "

"Then," she broke in quickly, "you must just keep going.

 
' – tasks in hours of insight will'd,
Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.'
 

That's worth remembering. But let's walk on for a few minutes. There's something I want to say."

She was silent for the greater part of a block. "One of our friends that we see much of is a publisher. He tells me that, though a novel may not sell enough to pay for the type-writing, it is pretty certain, if it has any merit, to yield several hundred dollars. If it has an active sale it may yield several thousand, and if it gets to the front of the big sellers it may yield a small fortune. I was thinking that if your book should go even moderately well, what a great deal it would help – toward – I mean what a great deal it would help you."

She looked at him expectantly. Her voice and her manner had had a background of constraint, and David vaguely felt that her meaning was not in her words, but was lurking behind them.

"Yes?" he said, wonderingly.

The constraint was more marked as she continued, with an effort: "Perhaps you might get – five thousand dollars for it."

"Yes?" he said, his wonderment rising.

The constraint and effort were even greater as she replied: "Well, that would do so much toward clearing your name!"

Her meaning leaped forth from its lurking place. For a moment he was completely stupefied… She wanted him to repay the stolen money to St. Christopher's!

He felt her eyes upon him, waiting. "Yes – it would help," he said, mechanically.

They turned back. She saw he was far away. She did not speak. First came to him the absurdity of his trying to repay with his present earnings – fifty years of utmost saving. But he pressed down the bitter laugh that rose. She was right; if he was ever to clear his name he must refund the money to the Mission. Perhaps the book would repay it; perhaps years and years of work would be required. But repay it he must. There was no other way.

He looked up as they paused again before her house. "Yes – I will repay," he said.

She reached out her hand. Its grasp was warm, tight.

"I knew it," she said, with a directness, a simplicity, that thrilled him. "I'm so glad!"

CHAPTER VI
JOHN ROGERS

David flung himself at the story as though it were a city to be taken by storm. He was full of power, of creative fury. His long-disused pen at first was stubborn, but gradually he re-broke it to work; and he wrote with an ease, a surety of touch, a fire, that he had never felt before. He had half-a-dozen separate incentives, and the sum of these was a vast energy that drove him conqueringly through obstacle after obstacle of the story.

These early days of the story were high days with him. He forgot, when writing, his basement room, his janitor's work, his dishonour. Infinity lay between the end of December and the end of January; in a month his spirits had risen from nadir to zenith. The world was his; nothing seemed beyond him. He even dared dream of passing Allen upon some mid-level and winning to the highest place in Helen Chambers's regard. The exhaustion of spirit at the end of each day's writing quenched this dream; but it was nevertheless enrapturing while it lasted, and at times David came near believing in it.

David had asked both Rogers and the Mayor to aid him in securing Tom a bona-fide position, and after the boy had been running the Pan-American Café for a month, a place was found. Tom's wages had been a heavy drain upon David's meagre income, and it was with a feeling of relief that David announced the coming change one night as they were preparing for bed.

"I've got some great news for you, Tom," he began.

"What's dat?" asked the boy, dropping the shoe he had just taken off.

"A new job!" cried David, trying to infect Tom with enthusiasm. "Delivery-boy on a wagon. You're to get four dollars a week – a dollar more than you're getting. Think of that! You're in luck, my boy – you're getting rich!"

But David's enthusiasm did not take. There came no sparkle into the boy's eyes, no eagerness into his manner. He looked thoughtfully at David a moment, then shook his head.

"I don't t'ink I'll take it."

"What!" cried David. The possibility of refusal had not occurred to him. He plunged into a fervent portrayal of the advantages of the new place.

"Mebbe you're right," Tom said, when the picture had been painted. "But I'm gettin' used to t'ings at de Pan-American; I likes de boss an' I likes de woik. An' I don't need de extry dollar. No, I don't want no better job dan what I got. It suits me right up to de chin."

He walked, in one shoe and in one stocking, across to David and held out his hand. "But, pard" – a note of huskiness was in his voice – "pard, I appreciate dat you was tryin' to do de fine t'ing by me. Shake."

There was nothing more to be said. Tom went back to the Mayor, and David continued dropping in Saturdays an hour before pay-time.

One evening in early February, just after David had coaled the furnace and settled down to his story, he had a call from Bill Halpin, whom he had not seen since their first meeting. Halpin leaned against the door, after it had been closed, and silently regarded David, a sneering smile upon his face.

"Honest!" he shot out at length, with a short, dry laugh. It was his first word since entering.

David stared at the sarcastic, saturnine figure.

"What do you mean?"

"Honest! And I half believed you!" Again the short laugh. "You almost fooled Bill Halpin – which is sayin' you're pretty smooth." He jerked his head upward. "What's your game? – yours and this man Rogers?"

"See here, Halpin, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, I suppose you'll say you don't know him. But since I met you on the Bowery I've been around here twice, and both times I saw you two with your noses together. You're a smooth pair. Come, what's your game?"

"I don't understand you!"

"Don't try to fool me, Aldrich," he drawled. "You can't. But don't tell me the game unless you want to. You know I wouldn't squeal if you did. All I want is for you to know you can't throw that honesty 'con' into me."

David strode forward and laid sharp hold of Halpin's shoulders.

"See here, Bill Halpin, what the devil do you mean?" he demanded.

Halpin looked cynical, good-humoured disbelief back into David's eyes, and again let out a dry cackle.

"Drop that actor business with me, Aldrich. I don't know what your game is – but I know there is a game. If you want to find out how much I know, come on. Let's go out and have a drink."

An hour later David stepped from the rear room of a Bowery saloon, and walked dazedly through the spattering slush back to his house. He paused before it, and looked irresolutely at Rogers's office window, whose shade was faintly aglow. He began to pace up and down the block, his eyes constantly turning to the window, his mind trying to determine his honourable course. At length he crossed the street, entered the house, and knocked at Rogers's door.

Rogers admitted him with a look of quiet surprise and led the way across his office into the living-room behind, whose one window opened upon the air shaft. In this room were two easy chairs, a couch on which Rogers slept, a table with a green-shaded reading-lamp, two or three prints – all utterly without taste. Everything was in keeping with the surface commonplaceness of the man except a row of shelves containing a couple of hundred well-selected books.

Rogers motioned David to a chair and he himself leaned against his table, his hands folded across the copy of "Père Goriot" he had been reading.

"I'm very glad you came in," he said, in his low, even voice.

David gazed at Rogers in his attitude of waiting ease, and he suddenly felt that to speak to this unsuspecting man was impossible. It did not occur to him that perhaps Rogers had caught his strained look, and that perhaps this ease might be the mask of an agitation as great as his own. He dropped his eyes. But it was his duty to speak – and, in a way, his desire. He forced himself to look up. Rogers had the same look and attitude of quiet waiting.

"Mr. Rogers," David began, with an effort, "I have just been told something that I think I am bound to tell you. You hired me, befriended me, in the belief that I knew nothing about you. I feel it would not be honourable in me to remain your employe, in a sense your friend, if I concealed from you that I know what may be your secret. And there is another reason why I want you to know that I know: if the story is true, I want to tell you how much I sympathise."

"Go on," said Rogers in his even voice.

"It's doubtless all a mistake," said David, hurriedly, feeling that it was not. "I've just had a talk with a man I knew in prison – Bill Halpin. He's called to see me several times. He happened to see you. Something about you struck him at once as familiar, but he could not recognise you. He saw you again, and he thought he placed you. He called here, had a talk with you, and on going away purposely shook hands. There was no grip in your little finger – you could only half bend it. He said he placed you by that."

Rogers still leaned against the table, his figure quiet as before – but David could see that the quiet was the quiet of a bow drawn to the arrow's head. The tendons of his hands, still holding the book, were like little tent-ridges, and his yellowish face was now like paper.

"And who did he say I am?" his low voice asked.

"He told me that fifteen years ago you and he were friends, pals – that you were a famous safe-breaker – that you were 'Red Thorpe.'"

Instantly Rogers was another man – tense, slightly crouching as though about to spring, his eyes blazing, on his face the fierce look of the haunted creature that knows it is cornered and that intends to fight to the last. A swift hand jerked open a drawer of the table, and stretched toward David. In it was a revolver.

David sprang to his feet and stepped back. Rogers glared at him for a moment, and for that moment David expected anything. Then suddenly Rogers said, "What a fool! – to be thinking of that!" and tossed the pistol into the open drawer.

Defiantly erect, he folded his arms, his fierce pallor suggestive of white heat, his eyes open furnace-doors of passion.

"Well, you've got me!" he said, with strange guttural harshness. "I've been expecting this minute for ten years. What're you going to do? Expose me, or blackmail me?"

David got back his breath. "I don't understand. Halpin told me he didn't think the police were after you."

"They're not. I don't owe the State a minute."

"Then why do you talk of exposure?"

"You understand – perfectly!" His words were a blast of furnace-hot ferocity. "You know what would happen if my clients learned I'm an ex-convict. They'd take every house from me – I'd again be an outcast. You know this; you know you've got your teeth in my throat. Well – I'll pay blood-money. I have paid it. A police captain found me out, and for five years sucked my blood – every cent I made – till he died. I'll pay again – I can't help myself. How much do you want? – blood-sucker!"

These hot words, filled with supremest rage and despair, thrilled David infinitely; he felt the long struggle, the tragedy, behind them.

"You mistake me," he cried. "I've told you what I have because I thought to tell was my duty to you. Betray you, or accept money for silence – I never could! Surely you know I never could!"

"For ten years I've touched no man's penny but my own," he said fiercely. "In money matters, I've been as honest as God!"

The rage was dying out of his face, and despair was growing – the despair that sees nothing but defeat, failure. He looked unbelief at David.

"But what difference does that make to you?" he asked bitterly. "Well – how much is it to be?"

The piercing brothership that had been surging up in David for this desperate, defiant, suspicious man, swept suddenly to the flood.

"Don't you see that we're making the same fight?" he cried with passionate earnestness. "I admire you! I honour you! Your secret is as safe with me as in your own heart."

David stretched out his hand. "I honour you!" he said.

For several moments Rogers's gaze searched David's soul. "You're speaking the truth – man?" he asked in a slow, harsh whisper.

"I am."

He continued staring at David's open face, flushed with its fervid kinship. "If you're lying to me – !" he whispered. Then he held out his hand, and his thin fingers gripped about David's hand like tight-drawn wires.

"During the month I've known you, you've seemed a white man. I think I believe you. But, man! don't play with me!" he burst out with sudden appeal. "If there's any trick in you, out with it now!"

"If there was, now would be my time, wouldn't it?"

They stood so for a moment, hands gripped, eyes pointed steadily into eyes.

"Yes, I believe you!" Rogers breathed, and sank into a chair and let his head fall into his hand. David also sat down.

Presently Rogers looked up.

"I guess I was very harsh," he said weakly. "But you can't guess what I was going through. It was the moment I had feared for ten years. It seemed that the world had fallen from beneath me."

"I understand," said David.

"But you cannot understand the ten years of fear, of suspense – of fear and suspense that walk with you, eat with you, sleep with you."

He sat looking back into the years. After a space, the hunger for sympathy, the instinct to speak his decade of repressed bitterness, prompted him on.

"I was one of those thousands and thousands that never had a chance when boys. I had no very clear idea between right and wrong; there was no one to show me the difference. I was full of life and energy, and I had brains. I could easily have been turned into the right way – but there was no one. So I turned into the wrong. About that part of my life Halpin told you."

"He said you were the cleverest man in your line."

Rogers seemed not to hear the praise. "A man may begin to think while he is still a boy; if he has spirit and animal energy, he doesn't begin to think till later. I was twenty-seven. I had been two years in Sing Sing and had three more years to serve. It wasn't the warden's words that started me thinking, nor the chaplain's sermons. Chaplains! – bah! – frocked phonographs! It was two old men I happened to see there – mere cinders of men. The thought shot into me, 'There's what you're going to be at sixty-five!'

"I couldn't get away from that thought. My mind forced me to study my friends; there was not one old man among them who was living a peaceful, comfortable life. That burnt-out, hunted old age – I revolted from it! I did a lot of thinking. I decided that, when I got out, prison gates should never have reason to close on me again.

"Finally, I was discharged. I knew it was hard for an ex-convict to get work, but I thought it would be easy for me. I was willing, clever, adaptable. But – oh, God! you know what the fight is, Aldrich!"

"I do!" said David.

Rogers was on his feet now, his eyes once more glowing. He began to pace the floor excitedly.

"Your fight was easy to mine. But I'll skip it – you know what the fight's like. It's enough to say that I found the world would not receive me as my old self. I changed my name; I grew a beard; I began to wear glasses; I dyed my red hair brown; I smothered down my spirit. I became John Rogers.

"A friend of mine in a Chicago real estate office, in which I once worked for a couple of weeks as a clerk, sent me an envelope and a sheet of paper of the firm. On the paper I wrote a letter of recommendation from the firm. I had told my story to the Mayor of Avenue A – it was because he knew I would sympathise with you that he brought you to me – and he helped me. I got my first job.

"Think of that, Aldrich!" He held a trembling fist in David's face, and laughed harshly. "I had to become a disguise, I had to lie, I had to commit forgery, to get a chance to be honest! Oh, isn't this a sweet world we're living in!

"And ever since, my life has been one great lie! A lie for honesty! But the lie has done for me what truth could not do. I'm respected in a small way. I'm successful in a small way. But, man, how that smallness chafes me! How I am shackled! I should be respected, be successful, in a large way. I'm cleverer than most of the men in my line. I have brains. I see big business opportunities. But I dare not take them. I must always be pulling back at the reins. If I let myself out, I should become prominent. Men would begin to ask, 'Who is that fellow Rogers?' and pretty soon some one would be sure to find out. And down I'd go! I must keep myself so small that I'll not be noticed – that's my only safety!"

He paused. David could say nothing.

"And always the lie that saved me is threatening to destroy me," Rogers went on, in a lower voice. "God, how I've worked to get to this poor place! How I want to live peacefully, honestly! But some day someone will find out I'm an ex-convict. A breath, and this poor house of cards I've worked so hard to build and protect will go flat! And I cannot begin all over again. I cannot! I haven't the strength. This is going to happen – I feel it! And how I fear it! How I've feared it for ten long years! Man, man, how I fear it!"

He dropped exhausted into a chair, and almost at once a cough began to shake him by the shoulders.

"And this disease" – a hand pressed itself upon his chest – "it's another prison gift!" he gasped, bitterly.

There was not a word in David. He reached out and gathered one of Rogers's thin hands in both of his; gathered it in the clasp of his soul. The cough ceased its shaking and Rogers looked up. He gazed at the tears, at the quivering brothership, in David's face. Thus he sat, silent, gripping David's hands; then, slowly, his own tears started.

"Man, dear," he whispered brokenly, "I think I'm going to be glad you found me out!"