Kitabı oku: «To Him That Hath», sayfa 13

CHAPTER IX
THE MAYOR AND THE INEVITABLE

At the end of a few days Jimmie Morgan had been settled into David's place, and David was established in Rogers's room and thoroughly drilled into his part. Finally, toward the last of the week, a rented typewriter was installed in the office and Kate Morgan installed before it.

"As I told you, there'll be little for you to do," Rogers said to her the afternoon she began work. "When anybody's about you can make a show of being busy – but the rest of the time do as you please."

He went into his room and closed the door. Kate turned to David, who sat at a desk beside her looking a very different man in the well-tailored suit Rogers had made him buy.

"Isn't he fine!" she said in a low voice.

"He certainly is," David returned warmly.

"The way he pretended to get all that money for our furniture! But I'll pay him back some day – you see. I didn't think I could, but I know now that after a little experience I'll be making good money. They told me at the school I was the fastest girl on the machine they'd had for years. Some day I hope my chance'll come to do him a good turn."

David wondered if she guessed, as he had, the kind of turn Rogers, in his dreams, would like best for her to do him. She had guessed, and she guessed too what was running that instant in David's brain, for she shook her head and whispered meaningly:

"You know I don't care for him that way."

David looked abruptly back at his desk, and her machine began a whizzing tattoo that fully corroborated the statement of her teachers. But Kate as he had first known her a year before came into his mind, and his eyes slipped surreptitiously up to view the contrast. She wore a white cotton dress, its folds as smooth as the iron's bottom, in which she looked very fresh and girlish. The hardness and cynicism had gone from her face, and her exaggerated pompadour had subsided into a dressing which allowed the hair to fall loosely about brow and ears, lending an illusion of fulness to her rather thin face. She was a far softer, far more controlled Kate Morgan than the Kate Morgan who had been his first post-prison friend. But the control, he knew, had not extinguished her old personality. It was there, ready to flame forth when occasion provoked it.

That evening, in response to a request sent down by the Mayor of Avenue A, David went up to the Mayor's flat. The sitting-room was a chaos of chairs, newspapers, clothes and photographs of feminine admirers – the confirmed disorder of an unmarried man of forty-five. The Mayor, standing amid his household goods in evening clothes, noted that David was observing the quality of his housekeeping.

"You've seen this before, Aldrich," he said brusquely, "so don't turn your nose up so much, or you'll spoil the ceilin'."

He glanced about the room. "It does look like I was boardin' a pet hurricane, don't it," he admitted. "Sometimes I've been on the point o' askin' Mrs. Hahn (who attended to the three-room flat) to clean up a bit – but, oh say! I can't boss a woman!"

Early in their friendship the Mayor had discovered that David had some acquaintance with the social customs of Fifth Avenue, and he had gradually adopted David as his social and sartorial mentor – though in the item of vests he grumbled against David's taste as altogether too conservative. So David was not now surprised when the Mayor said, "I sent for you to look me over," stepped into the best light, pulled down his vest and coat, and demanded complacently: "Well, friend, do I look fit to be two-steppin' with the ladies?"

David's gaze travelled upward from the broad, but not broad enough, patent-leather shoes, past his large, white-gloved hands, to the white vest girdled with a heavy gold chain, across the broad and glistening area of his evening shirt, and upward to the culminating glory of his silk hat.

"You certainly do!" said David.

"I thought you'd think so," said the Mayor, nodding. "When I get into my dress suit I ain't such a slouch, am I. But since you made me quit wearin' them handy white bows that hooks in the back o' the neck, my ties always look like I'd tied 'em with my feet. Here, fix this blamed thing on me right."

When David had complied, the Mayor lowered himself into a chair, taking care to pull up his trousers and to see that the bending did not crumple his shirt bosom.

"It's the first fall affair – at the Liberty Assembly Hall – very small crowd – very select," he announced to David in a confidential voice that could have been heard in the street. "If only the dear ladies – oh Lord! – leave me alone!"

He sighed, and shook his head.

"I may look like a happy man, friend, but I ain't. I'm gettin' near my finish. Yes, sir! The bunch after me is narrowin' down to a few – the rest has sorter dropped out o' the runnin'. And them few is closin' in on me – closin' in on me. They're in earnest, every one of 'em. Oh, you can't count the chances I have to set alone with 'em in their parlours, walk home alone with 'em at night, and all them sort o' tricks. And me" – he groaned, and despair made a vain effort to wrinkle his smooth face – "me, I like it. That's the hell of it!

"Yes, one's goin' to get me sure. I wish I knew which one'd win out. I'd be almost willin' to put my money on Carrie Becker. I guess she's as good as any of 'em. She's just had a row with Mrs. Schweitzer. You know Mrs. Schweitzer sets in one corner o' Schweitzer's café every afternoon, and holds a kind o' reception with the people that drop in. Carrie Becker wants to marry me and do the same thing in my café, which is ten times as good as Schweitzer's. She wants to snow Mrs. Schweitzer under. Oh, I'm onto her! That makes two reasons she has for marryin' me. Yes – if I was bettin', I'd bet on Carrie Becker."

He heaved a great sigh and rose. "Well, I'd better be goin'. You're sure, are you, that I look all right?"

"Perfect."

The joy of living spread over his face. "Yes, I guess I do."

They walked together to the stoop. David watched the Mayor's progress down the street, saw the heads turn to stare at his effulgent amplitude, and he guessed how the Mayor's gratification was chirrupping to itself beneath the Mayor's waistcoat.

David had ceased cooking his own meals since he had moved from his basement room, and had become a boarder at the Pan-American Café. When he, Rogers and Tom appeared at breakfast the next morning the Mayor, pale and agitated, yet striving to look composed, hurried over to their table.

"I want to see you as soon's you're through eatin'," he whispered in David's ear.

"All right," said David.

The Mayor kept an impatient eye on David, and the moment breakfast was done he was at David's side, hat in hand. "We can't talk in here," he said. "I've got a key to the Liberty Assembly Hall. Let's go over there." And excusing themselves to Rogers, he led David out.

The big ball-room, scattered about with the débris of the previous night's pleasure, had in the cold light of morning a look of desolation which even the mural cascades and seas and mountains could not dispel. The room was a fit setting for the despairing face the Mayor turned upon David when the hall door was locked behind them. The Mayor did not speak for several seconds, held his gaze straight on David; then he shouted, his mask of self-control flung aside:

"Well, you see me! What d'you think o' me?"

"What's up?

"It's all up! I've gone and done it!"

"Done what?"

"What? – I've done It! – I'm engaged!"

There was frantic hopelessness in the Mayor's voice and in the Mayor's face.

"You don't say so!" David ejaculated.

"I did say so!"

David could hardly restrain a laugh at the Mayor's desperate appearance. "Engaged! You don't look it!"

"A-a-h! quit your kiddin'!" roared the Mayor fiercely. "This ain't nothin' to laugh at. It's serious."

"To which one?" David queried, with the required gravity.

"Carrie Becker. I knew she'd get me. Oh, she's a slick one all right! Say, friend, if you want a job kicking me at five dollars an hour, get busy!"

He began to pace wildly to and fro across the room, then let himself drop with a groan into a chair beneath an Alpine cascade, so that it seemed the water was splashing upon his polished head.

"It was last night – in this damned hall – in that damned corner there – that it happened," he burst out to David, who had taken a chair beside him. "The hall was all fixed up fancy. There was a line o' them green, shiny, greasy-lookin' perpetuated palms across each corner. What's anybody want a hall fixed like that for! – ain't the old way good enough, I'd like to know?

"Them palms made little holes, with settees inside, that the women could rope you into. Cosy and invitin' – oh, sure! And about how many unmarried females in the bunch d'you think missed tryin' to lead me in? Nary a blamed one! But I was wise to their little game, and I says to myself, 'None o' them palms for mine.'

"I balked every time they led me that way – till that last dance with Carrie Becker. I was prancin' along with her in my arms, comfortable and thinkin' nothin' about danger, when she says her shoe's untied and won't I fasten it. I'll bet my hat she undone it herself, and on purpose! Well, in I went behind her, doubled myself up and fastened her shoe. I held out my arm to her, but she said she was out o' breath and didn't I want to rest a minute, and she throwed me up a smile. You know she's got a real smile, even if it has been workin' forty years. Right there's where I ought t've run, but I didn't. I set down.

"The window was open, and outside was a new moon. Well, she leaned over close to me – you know how they do it! – and began to talk about that moon. It looked like a piece o' pie-crust a man leaves on his plate. I knew it was time for me to be movin', and I started up good and quick. But just then her hand happened to fall on mine – accident, oh, sure! – and what d'you think I done? Did I run? No. I'm a fool. I set down. And it was good-bye for me.

"When a woman gets hold o' my hand she's got hold o' my rudder, and she can steer me just about where she likes. Outside was the moon, there behind them palms playin' goo-goo music was the orchestra, and there beside me a little closer'n before was Carrie Becker. Well, I ain't no wooden man, you know; I like the ladies. I began to get dizzy. I think I enjoyed it. Yes, while it lasted I enjoyed it.

"She said a few things to me, and I said a few things to her – and pretty soon there she was, tellin' me how unpleasant it was livin' with her brother's family. I was plumb gone by that time. 'Why don't you get married?' I asked her. Oh, yes, I was squeezin' her hand all right. 'Nobody'll have me,' she said. 'Oh, yes,' I said, and I named half a dozen. 'But I don't care for any o' them – I only care for one man,' she said. I asked who. She give me that smile o' hers again and said, 'You.'

"I was dizzy, you know – way up in the air, floatin' on clouds, and – oh, well, I asked her! I ain't goin' to deny that. I asked her! And you can bet she didn't lose no time sayin' yes and fallin' on my shirt-front. As for me – well, friend, I won't go into no details, but I done what was proper to the occasion. And I enjoyed it. Yes, while it lasted I enjoyed it.

"She didn't give me no chance to back out. Not much! As soon as we come from behind them palms she told, and then come the hand-shakin'. The ladies shook my hand, too; but cold – very cold! And soon they all wanted to go home. Understand, don't you? And everybody's been shakin' hands this mornin'. They think I'm happy. And I've got to pretend to be. But, oh Lord!"

He glared despairingly, wrathfully, at the corner wherein had been enacted the tragedy of his wooing, then looked back at David.

"There's the whole story. Now I want you to help me."

"Help you?" queried David. "What do?"

"What do!" roared the Mayor, sarcastically. "D'you think I'm chasin' down a best man!"

"If I can help you that way – "

"Oh, hell! See here – I want you to help me out o' this damned hole I'm in. You ought to know how to get me out."

"Oh, that's it." David thought for a moment, on his face the required seriousness. "There are only three ways. Disappear or commit suicide – "

"Forget it!"

"Break it off yourself – "

"And get kicked out o' this part o' town!"

"Or have her break it off."

"Now you're comin' to the point, friend. She must break it off, o' course. But how'll I get her to?"

"Isn't there something bad in your past you can tell her – so bad that she'll drop you?"

"Oh, I've tried that already. As soon as I got outside the hall last night and struck cool air, I come to. I began to tell her what a devil of a fellow I'd been – part truth, most lies. Oh, I laid it on thick enough!"

"And what did she say?"

"Say? D'you suppose she'd take her hooks out o' me? Not much! Say? She said she was goin' to reform me!"

They looked steadily at each other for a long time; then David asked:

"You really want my advice? – my serious advice?"

"What d'you suppose I brought you here for? Sure I do."

"Here it is then: Marry her."

David expected an outburst from the Mayor, but the Mayor's head fell hopelessly forward into his hands and he said not a word. David took advantage of the quiet to speak as eloquently as he could of the advantages of marrying in the Mayor's case. At length the Mayor looked up. Hopelessness was still in his face, but it was the hopelessness of resignation, not the hopelessness of revolt.

"Well, if it had to be one o' them, I'd just as soon it was her," he said, with a deep sigh.

CHAPTER X
A BAD PENNY TURNS UP

David found a keen pleasure in the business on which he was now engaged. For four years he had talked to no one, and for a year he had talked to but four or five. Now he was actively thrown among men of the world – Jordon, the general agent of the New Jersey Home Company, his assistants, and the attorneys of the company. He instinctively measured himself beside them, and he exulted, for though they were the shrewder in business, he felt himself bigger, broader, than they.

The deal progressed hopefully. David discovered the five owners in Rogers's syndicate to be five ordinary men, with no particular business courage and no courage of any other kind, and whose interest in their own welfare was their only interest in life. However, they had confidence in Rogers's success, and stood solidly behind him – which was all that could be desired of them. From his first meeting with Jordon, David, too, was confident of success. Jordon held off, talked about preposterous prices – but David felt surrender beneath the grand air with which the general agent brushed Rogers's proposition aside. The company had to have the land, so it had to meet Rogers's terms. And after each subsequent meeting David felt that much nearer the day of surrender.

One morning, two weeks after he had entered upon his new duties, he was looking through some papers in the living-room relating to the land, when Kate knocked and entered.

"There's a woman out there wants to see you," she said, with a sharp glance.

"What's she want?"

"She wouldn't tell me. She said you'd see her all right – she was an old friend. If she is, I think some of your friends had better sign the pledge!"

David followed Kate into the office. A tall woman rose from his chair and smiled at him. It was Lillian Drew. The life went out of him. He stood with one hand against the door jamb and stared at her.

When he had seen her five years ago she had had grace, and lines, and a hardened sort of beauty – and she had worn silks and diamonds. Now the face was flushed, and coarsened, and lined with wrinkles – the hands were gemless, the hair carelessly done – and in place of the rich gown there was an ill-fitting jacket and skirt. It was evident that for her the last five years had been a dizzy incline.

"What a warm welcome!" she said, with a short laugh.

David did not answer her. Kate's quick eyes looked from one to the other.

"Wouldn't you just as soon our talk should be private?" Lillian Drew asked, with a smile of irony. "You'd better run out for awhile, little girl."

Kate glanced at her with instinctive hatred. Lillian Drew, whom the five years had made more ready with vindictiveness, glared back. "Come, run along, little girl!"

Kate turned to David. "You'd better leave us alone for a few minutes," he said with an effort.

Kate jerked on her hat, jabbed in the pins, marched by Lillian Drew with "you old cat!" and passed out into the street.

"Well, now – what do you want?" David demanded.

"Oh, I've just come to return your call. May I sit down? – I'm tired." And smiling her baiting smile she sank back into David's chair.

David crossed to his desk and looked harshly down upon her. "How did you find me?"

"Surely you thought I'd look you up when I got back to town! I asked at the Mission. A girl in the office there wrote your address down on a card for me. And told me a few things." She narrowed her eyes – almost all their once remarkable brilliance was gone. "A few things, mister."

"Please say at once what you want," he asked, trying to speak with restraint.

"Just to see an old acquaintance."

"Come to the point!" he said sharply.

"Well, then – I'm broke."

"I don't see why that brings you to me."

"Because you're going to give me money – that's why."

"I certainly will not!"

"Oh, yes, you will – when I get through with you. You wouldn't want me to tell all I know of Phil Morton, now would you?"

"Tell if you want to." Anger at her as the cause of his five hard years was rising rapidly. He pointed savagely to a mirror that Kate had put up behind the door. "Look at yourself. Who'll believe your word?"

"But I won't ask 'em to believe my word," she said softly, her eyes gleaming triumph at him.

Her words and manner startled him. "What do you mean?"

"Why, I'll show the letters, of course."

"Letters! What letters?"

"Morton's letters."

"Morton's letters!" He stared at her. "You gave them to me."

"Part of them." She laughed quietly, and ran the tip of her tongue between her lips. "Oh, you were easy!"

David choked back an impulse to lay vengeful hands upon her. "You're lying!" he said fiercely.

"Oh, I am, am I?"

She slipped a hand into the pocket of her skirt, paused in the action, and her baiting smile turned to a look of threat. "If you try to grab them, if you make a move toward me, I'll scream, people will rush in here, and the whole thing will come out at once! You understand?"

The tormenting smile returned, and she slowly drew from her skirt a packet of yellow letters held together by an elastic band. She removed the band, drew one sheet from its envelope, and held it up before David's eyes.

"You needn't bother about reading it. You've read one bunch – and they're all alike. But look at the handwriting. I guess you know that, don't you? And look at the signature: 'Always with love – Phil.' That's one letter – there are fourteen more. And look at this photograph of the two of us together, taken while he was in Harvard. And look at this letter written five years ago, saying he'd send me five hundred the next day – and at this letter, written two days before he died, saying he hadn't another cent and couldn't get it. I guess you're satisfied."

She coolly snapped the band over the bundle and returned the letters to her pocket. "I guess I'll get some money, won't I?"

"I see," David remarked steadily, "that I must again call your attention to the fact that there are such things as laws against blackmailing."

She looked at him, amusedly. "That worked once – but it won't work twice. Arrest me for blackmail, and there'll be a trial, and at it the truth about Morton will come out. You told me five years ago you didn't care if the truth did come out – but I know a lot better now!" She laughed. "Please send for a policeman!"

He was helpless, and his face showed it.

"Oh, I've got you! But don't take it so hard. You scared me out of town – but I've got nothing against you. I really like you; I'm sorry it's you I'm troubling. I've got to have money – that's all."

There was an instant of faint regret in her face – but only an instant. "Yes, I've got you. But I haven't showed you all my cards yet. Mebbe you'll tell me you won't pay anything to keep me still about Phil Morton, who's been dead for five years. All right. But you'll pay me to keep still about yourself."

David looked at her blankly.

"You don't understand? I'll talk plainer then. I've been doing a little putting one and one together. You didn't take that five thousand dollars from the Mission. Phil Morton didn't have a cent of his own – he told me that when he was half crazy with trying to beg off; he said I was driving him into crime. He took that money, and I got it. Well, for some reason, I don't know why, you said you took it, and went to prison."

Wonderment succeeded to hardness and sarcasm. "You're a queer fellow," she said slowly. "Why did you do it?"

"Go on!"

"I don't understand it – you're a queer lot! – but I know you've got your reason for wanting to make the world think it was you that took the money and not Phil Morton. And I know it's a mighty strong reason, too – strong enough to make you willing to go to prison and to keep still while people are calling you thief. Well – and here's my ace of trumps, mister – if you don't hand out the cash I'll tell that you didn't take the money!"

David sank slowly into Kate Morgan's chair, and gazed stunned at the woman, whose look grew more and more triumphant as she noted the effect of her card. His mind comprehended her threat only by degrees, but at length the threat's significance was plain to him.

If he didn't pay her, she would clear his name, He must pay her money to retain his guilt.

"I guess I'll get the money – don't you think?" she asked.

He did not answer. Temptation closed round him. Temptation coming in its present form would have been stronger in his darker days, but even now it was mighty in its strength. Why should he bear his disgrace longer? This woman could clear him; would clear him, if he did not pay. And he had no money – almost none. He had merely to say "no" – that was all.

In these first dazed moments he really did not know which was the voice of temptation and which the voice of right. One voice said, "To refuse will be to destroy hundreds of people." And the other voice said, "To pay blackmail is wrong." Desire took advantage of this moral disagreement to order his reply.

"I shall not pay you a cent!"

"Oh, yes you will," she returned confidently.

"I shall not! – not a cent!" he said, with wild exultation.

"You know what'll happen if you don't?"

"Yes. You'll tell. All right – tell!"

She studied his flushed face and excited eyes. "You're in earnest?"

"Don't I look it! I shall not pay you a cent! Understand? Not a cent!"

He had risen, and she too now rose. "Oh, you'll pay something," she said with a note of coaxing. "I'm not as high as I once was. Fifty dollars would help me a lot."

"Not a cent!"

"Twenty-five?"

"Not a cent, I said."

"Well, you'll wish you had!" she said vindictively, and turned and walked out of the office.

He dropped back into his chair. So he was going to be righted before the world! – at last! Vivid, thrilling dreams flashed through his brain – dreams of honour, of success, of love!.. Then, slowly, his mind began to clear; he began to see the other results of Lillian Drew's disclosure. His five years would have been uselessly spent – lost. And the people of the Mission – Quick visions pictured the consequence to them.

He sprang up, holding fast to just one idea among all that confused his brain. He must stick to his old plan; the people must keep Morton. He must find Lillian Drew and silence her. But where find her? He had not asked her address, he had not even watched which direction she had gone. Perhaps even now she might be telling someone.

He seized his hat, and hurried from the room. As he came out upon the sidewalk, a tall woman who had been standing across the street, started over to meet him. At sight of her he stopped, and gave a great sigh of relief.

"You're looking for me, aren't you?" she asked, when she had come up.

"Yes."

"I knew you'd be changing your mind, so I waited," she said with a smile of triumph. "I knew you'd pay!"