_ Chapter XIII
Had Felix continued his visits to Stephen Carlin's shop, he might have
escaped many sleepless hours and saved himself many weary steps.
Fate had doubtless dealt him one of those unlucky cards which we so
often find in our hands when the game of life is being played. If, for
instance, the book to the right, holding the lost will, had been opened
instead of the book to the left; or if we had caught the wrecked train
by a minute or less; or had our penny come up heads instead of coming
up tails: how many of the ills of life would have been avoided? And so
I say that had Felix continued his visits to Stephen as he should have
done, he would, one December afternoon, have found the ship-chandler
standing in the door, spectacles on his nose, checking off a wagon-load
of manila rope which had just been discharged on his pavement, stopping
only to nod to the postman who had brought him a letter. The delay in
breaking the seal was due entirely to the fact that a coil of light
cordage, used aboard the yachts he was accustomed to fit out, had just
been reported as missing, and so the unopened letter was tossed on top
a barrel of sperm-oil to await his convenience. But it was when Stephen
caught sight of the small cramped writing scrawled over the cheap yellow
envelope, the stamp askew, his own name and address crowded in the lower
left-hand corner, that the supreme moment really arrived, for at that
instant--had Felix been there--he would have seen Carlin slit the
covering with his thumb-nail, lay aside his invoice, and drop on the
first seat within reach, to steady himself.
Indeed, had Felix on this same December afternoon surprised him even an
hour later, say at six o'clock, which he could very well have done, for
Carlin did not close his shop until seven, he would have come upon
him with the same letter in his hand, his whole mind absorbed in its
contents, especially the last paragraph: "Be here at seven o'clock,
sharp; don't ring the bell below, just rap twice and I shall know it is
you. I have to be very careful who I let in."
It had been several weeks since Carlin had heard from his sister. She
had called at the store on her return from Canada, where she had spent
the summer, and he had helped her find a small suite of rooms on a side
street off St. Mark's Place, which she subsequently occupied, but since
then she had never crossed his threshold. At first she had kept him
advised of her nursing engagements--the days when her work carried her
out of town, or the addresses of those who needed her in the city.
These brief communications having entirely ceased, he had decided in his
anxiety to look her up and, strange to say, on that very night. That
his hand trembled and his rough, weather-browned face became tinged with
color as he read her letter to the end, turning the page and reading the
whole a second time, would have surprised anybody who knew the stern,
silent old sailor. His clerk, a thin, long-necked young man wearing
a paper collar and green necktie, noticed his agitation and guessed
wrong--Carlin being a confirmed old bachelor. And so did the driver
of the wagon, who had to wait for his receipt and who, wondering at
Stephen's emotion, would have asked what the letter was all about had
not the ship-chandler, after consulting his watch, crammed the envelope
into his side pocket, jumped to his feet, and shouted to the Paper
Collar to "roll the stuff off that sidewalk and get everything stowed
away, as he was going up to St. Mark's Place."
Here and there in the whir of the great city a restful breathing-spot
is found, its stretch of grass dotted with moss-covered tombs grouped
around a low-pitched church. At certain hours the sound of bells is
heard and the low rhythm of the organ throbbing through the aisles. Then
lines of quietly dressed worshippers stroll along the bordered walks,
the children's hands fast in their mothers' the arched vestibule-door
closing upon them.
Most of these oases, like Trinity, St. Paul's, and St. Mark's, differ
but little--the same low-pitched church, the same slender spire, the
same stretch of green with its scattered gravestones. And, outside, the
same old demon of hurry, defied and hurled back by a lifted hand armed
with the cross.
Of these three breathing-spaces, St. Mark's is, perhaps, a little
greener in the early spring, less dusty in the summer heat, less bare
and uninviting in the winter snow. It is more restful, too, than the
others, a place in which to sit and muse--even to read. Out from its
shade and sunshine run queer side streets, with still queerer houses,
rising two stories and an attic, each with a dormer and huge chimney.
Dried-up old aristocrats, these, living on the smallest of pensions,
taking toll of notaries public, shyster lawyers, peddlers of steel pens,
die-cutters, and dismal real-estate agents in dismal offices boasting a
desk, two chairs, and a map.
Stephen's course lay in the direction of one of these relics of better
days--a wide-eyed house with a pieced-out roof, flattened like an old
woman's wig over a sloping forehead, the eyebrows of eaves shading
two blinking windows. A most respectable old dowager of a building, no
doubt, in its time, with the best of Madeira and the choicest of cuts
going down two steps into its welcoming basement. That was before the
iron railings were covered with rust and before the three brownstone
steps leading to the front door were worn into scoops by heavy shoes;
before the polished mahogany doors were replaced by pine and painted a
dull, dirty green; before the banisters with their mahogany rail were
as full of cavities as a garden fence with half its palings gone; and
before--long before--some vulgar Paul Pry had cut a skylight in the
hipped roof, through which he could peer, taking note of whatever went
on inside the gloomy interior: each of these several calamities but so
much additional testimony to its once grand estate, and every one of
them but so many steps in its downward career.
For it had become anything but a happy house--this old dowager dwelling
of the long ago. Indeed, it was a very mournful and most depressing
house, and so were its tenants. In the basement was a barber who spent
half his time lounging about inside the small door, without his white
jacket, waiting for customers. On the first-floor-back there was a
music-teacher whose pupils were so few and far between that only the
shortest of lessons at the longest of intervals were recited on her
piano; on the second-floor-front was a wood-engraver who took to
photography to pay his rent. On the second-floor-back was a dressmaker
who could not collect her bills; while in the rear was a laundress who
washed for the tenants. Lastly, there was Mrs. Martha Munger, Stephen
Carlin's sister, who occupied the third floor both front and back, over
the laundress's quarters, the one chimney serving them both.
While the evil eye of the skylight, despite its dishonorable calling,
might have been put to some good use during the day, it can be safely
said that it was of no earthly, and for that matter of no heavenly, use
during the night. Nor did anything else in the way of illumination take
its place. My Lady Dowager's patrons were too poor or too stingy to
furnish even a single burner up and down the three flights. The excuse
was that the rays of the arc-light, blazing away on the opposite side
of the street, were not only powerful enough to shine through the
weather-beaten hall door covering the entrance but, still further, to
illuminate the rickety staircase--the very staircase up which Stephen
Carlin was now groping in answer to Martha's letter.
She had heard his heavy tread on the creaky steps, and was watching
for him with the door ajar--an inch at first, and then wide open, her
kerosene lamp held over the railing to give him light.
"Oh, but I'm glad you've come, Stephen. I was getting worried. I was
afraid maybe you didn't get the letter. It's black dark outside, isn't
it?" and she glanced at the cheap clock on the mantel behind her. "Come
in, the kettle was boiling over when I heard you. I'll talk to you in a
minute."
He followed with only a pressure of her hand, and, without a word of
greeting, seated himself near a table. In the same quiet, silent way
he watched her as she busied herself about the apartment, lifting the
kettle from the stove, adjusting the wick of the lamp which had begun to
smoke from the draft of the open door, taking from a shelf two cups and
saucers and from a tin bread box a loaf and some crackers.
When, in one of her journeys to and fro, she passed where the light of
the lamp fell full upon her round face, framed in its white cap and long
strings, he gave a slight start. There were dark circles below her eyes
and heavy lines near the corners of her mouth--signs he had not seen
since the month she had spent in the Marine Hospital when the plague
was stamped out. He noticed, too, that her robust figure, with its broad
shoulders and capacious bosom, restful pillow to many a new-born
baby, seemed shrunken--not in weight, but in its spring, as if all her
alertness (she was under fifty) had oozed out. It was only when she had
completed her labors and taken a chair beside him, her soft, nursing
hand covering his own, that his mind reverted to the tragedy which
had brought him to her side. Even then, although she sat with her face
turned toward his, her eyes reading his own, some moments passed before
either of them spoke. At last, in a wondering, dazed way, she exclaimed:
"Have you, in all your life, Stephen, ever heard anything like it?"
Carlin shook his head. The letter had given him the facts, and no
additional details could alter the situation. It was as if a dead body
were lying in the next room awaiting interment; when the time came
he would step in and look at it, ask the hour of burial, and step out
again.
"I came as soon as I'd read your letter," he said slowly examining
one by one his rough fingers bunched together in his lap. "We got
chuck-a-block on Second Avenue or I'd have been here before. Why didn't
you let me know sooner?" As he spoke he shifted his gaze to the wrinkles
in her throat--a new anxiety rising as he noticed how many more had
gathered since he saw her last.
"She wouldn't have it, and I want to tell you that you've got to be
careful, as it is. And mind you don't speak too sudden to her."
In answer he craned his head as if to see around the jamb of the door
leading into the smaller room and, lowering his voice, whispered: "Is
she here now?"
"No, but she will be in a few minutes; she's often late, she waits until
it's dark."
"How long has she been here with you?"
"About two weeks."
"Two weeks! You didn't tell me that."
"She wouldn't let me. She is having trouble enough and I have to do
pretty much as she wants."
He ruminated for a moment, this time scrutinizing the palms of his
hands, seemingly interested in some callous spots near the thumb-joint,
and then asked: "How did she find you?"
"By God's mercy and nothing else. I was sitting in a Third Avenue car
and there she was opposite. I couldn't believe my eyes, she was that
changed! She would have been off the dock, I believe, if she hadn't
found me. She has run away from Dalton now, and is so scared of him she
trembles every time some one comes up the stairs. That's why I wrote you
not to ring. He has nothing left. He kept a-hounding her to write to her
father and nigh drove her crazy; so she left him."
"Does she know Mr. Felix is here?" He had finished with the callous
spots and was cracking every horny knuckle in his fingers as he spoke,
as if their loosening might help solve the problem that vexed him.
"No, I haven't dared tell her. She would be off the dock for sure then.
She is more afraid of him than she is of Dalton."
"Mr. Felix won't hurt her," he rejoined sharply.
"Yes, but she knows she'd hurt HIM if he finds out how bad she's
off. She'd rather he'd think she's living like she used to do. Oh,
Stephen--Stephen, but it's a bad, bad business! I'm beat out wondering
what ought to be done."
She pushed back her chair, and began walking up and down the room like
one whose suffering can find no other relief, pausing now and then to
speak to him as she passed. "I tried to get her to listen. I told her
Mr. Felix might be coming over from London. I had to put it to her that
way, but she nearly went out of her mind, stiffened up, and began to put
on such a wild look that I had to stop. Have you heard from him lately?"
"No, I wrote and wrote and could get no answer. Then I went up to where
he boarded, and the woman told me he'd been gone some months--she didn't
know where. He left no word, and she forgot to get the name of the
express that came for his trunk. He is down with sickness somewheres,
or he'd have showed up. He was not himself at all when I last saw
him--that's long before you got back from Canada. He's done nothing but
walk the streets since he come ashore."
Stephen stopped, as if it were too painful for him to continue, looked
around the room, noting its bareness, and asked, with a break in his
voice: "Where do you put her?"
"In the little room. She wouldn't take mine and she won't let me help
her. She got work at first on 14th Street, in that big store near the
Square, and worked there for a while, that was when she was with Dalton.
But Dalton drove her out. And when she was near dead, with nothing to
eat, some people picked her up and she stayed with them all night--she
never told me where. That was last spring. She stood it for some months
living from hand to mouth, she working her fingers to the bone for him,
until she was afraid of her life and left him again. She was going she
didn't know where when I looked at her 'cross the car and she saw me.
"'Martha!' she cried, and was on the seat next me, my two arms about
her. She was sobbing like a lost child who has found its mother again.
There were two other women in the car, and they wanted to help, but I
told them it was only my baby back again. We were near 10th Street
at the time and I got her out and brought her here and put her to
bed--Listen! Keep still a moment! That's her step! Yes, thank God, she's
alone! I'm always scared lest he should come with her. Get in there
behind the curtain!"
Martha had lifted the lamp again as she spoke, and was holding it over
the banister, one hand down-stretched toward a woman whose small white
fingers were clutching the mahogany rail, pulling herself up one step at
a time.
"Don't hurry, my child. It's a hard climb, I know. Give me the box. I
began to get worried. Are you tired?"
"A little. It has been a long day." She sighed as she passed into the
room, the nurse following with a large pasteboard box.
"It's good to get back to you," she continued, sinking into a chair near
the mantel and unfastening her cloak. "The stairs seem to grow steeper
every time I come up. Thank you. Just hang it behind the door. And now
my hat, please." She lifted the cheap black straw from her head, freeing
a fluff of light-golden hair, and with her fingers combed it back from
her forehead.
"And please bring me my slippers. I have walked all the way home, and my
poor feet ache."
The nurse stooped for the hat, patted the thin shoulders, and went into
the adjacent room for the slippers, whispering to Carlin on her way back
to keep hidden until she called. He was still standing concealed by
the folds of the calico curtain dividing the apartment, a choke in his
throat as he watched the frail woman, her sharpened knees outlined
under the folds of the black dress and, below it, the edge of a white
petticoat bespattered with mud, the whole figure drooping as if there
were not strength enough along its length to hold the body upright. What
shocked him even more were the deep-sunken eyes and the hollows in
the cheeks and about the brows. All the laugh and sparkle of the once
joyous, beautiful girl he had known were gone. Only the gentle voice was
left.
Martha was now back, kneeling on the floor, untying the shabby shoes,
rubbing the small, delicately shaped feet in her plump hands to rest
and warm them. "There, my lamb, that's better," he heard her say, as she
drew on the heelless slippers. "I'll have tea in a minute. The kettle's
been boiling this hour." Then, as though it were an afterthought:
"Stephen wants to see you, so I told him maybe you would let him. Shall
I tell him to come?"
"Your brother, you mean? The one who lives here in New York?" she asked
listlessly.
"Yes, he's never forgotten you. And--"
"Some day I will see him, Martha. I shall be better soon, and then--"
She stopped and stared at Carlin, who misunderstanding Martha's words,
had drawn aside the calico curtain and was advancing toward her, bowing
as he walked, the choke still in his throat. "I hope your ladyship is
not offended," he ventured. "It was all one family once, if I may say
so, and there is only Martha and me."
She had straightened as she saw him coming and then, remembering that
she was in Martha's room, and he Martha's brother, she held out her
hand. "No, Stephen, I am very glad. I was only a little startled. It is
a long time since I saw you, but I remember you quite well, and you have
not changed. A little grayer perhaps. When was it?"
"When I came back from Calcutta, your ladyship, and the Rover was
wrecked. Your father ordered the crew home. I was first mate, your
ladyship remembers, and had to look after them. Some six years agone, I
take it."
"Yes, it all comes back to me now," she answered dreamily "six years--is
it not more than that?"
"No, your ladyship. Just about six."
She paused, rested her head on her hand, and looked at him intently
from beneath the wave of hair that had dropped again about her brow, and
asked: "Why do you still call me 'your ladyship' Stephen?"
"Well, I don't know, your ladyship. Mebbe it's because I've always been
used to it. But I won't if your ladyship doesn't want me to."
"Never mind, it does not matter. It has been so long since I have heard
it that it sounded odd, that was all." She roused herself with an effort
and added, in a brighter tone, changing the topic: "It was very good of
you to come to see Martha. She has me to look after now, and I am afraid
she gets unhappy at times. You cannot think how good she is to me--so
good--so good! I often wake in the night dreaming I am a child again
and stretch out my hand to her, just as I used to do years ago when she
slept beside me. She often speaks of you. I am glad you came to-day."
Carlin had been standing over her all the time, his rough pea-jacket
buttoned across his broad chest, his ruddy sailor's face with its
fringe of gray whiskers, bushy eyebrows, and clear, steady gaze in vivid
contrast to her own shrinking weakness.
"It ain't altogether Martha," he exclaimed in tones suddenly grown
deliberate. "It's you, your ladyship, that I particular came to see. You
ain't fit to take care of yourself, and there ain't nobody but me and
Martha that I can lay hands on now to help--nobody but just us two. I'm
not here to judge nobody. I know what's happened and what you're going
through, and you've got to let me lend a hand. If I lived to be a
hundred I could never forget his lordship's kindness to me, and things
can't go on as they are with you. There is a way out of it if you only
knew it."
She threw back her head quickly. "Not my Father?"
"No, not your father. Although his lordship would haul down his colors
mighty quick if once he saw you as I do now. But there are others who
would be glad to take a hand at the wheel and help you steer out of all
this misery. You ain't accustomed to it and you don't deserve it, and
I'm going to put a stop to it if I can." This last came with still
greater emphasis--the first mate was speaking now.
"Thank you, Stephen. You and Martha are very much alike. She has the
loyalty of an old servant, and you have the loyalty of an old friend.
But we must all pay for our mistakes--" she halted, drew in her breath,
and added, picking at her dress, "--and our sins. Everybody condemns us
but God. He is the only one who forgets, when we are sorry."
"Not so many remember as you may think, your ladyship. Some of 'em have
forgotten--forgotten everything--and are standing by ready to catch a
line or man a boat."
"Yes, there are always kind people in the world."
"Well, there mayn't be such an awful lot of 'em as you think, but I know
one. There's Mr. Felix, for instance, who--"
She sprang to her feet, her hands held out as a barrier, and stood
trembling, staring wildly at him, all the blood gone from her cheeks.
"Stop, Stephen! Not another word. You must not mention that name to me.
I cannot and will not permit it. I have listened too long already. I am
very grateful for your kindness and for your offers to me, but you must
not touch on my private affairs. I am earning my own living, and I shall
continue to do so. And now I would like to be alone."
"But, your ladyship, I've got something to tell you which--"
Martha stepped between them. "I think, Stephen, you'd better not talk to
her ladyship any more. You might come some other night when she's more
rested. You see she's had a very bad day and--"
Stephen's voice rang out clear. "Not say anything more, when--"
Martha dug her fingers into his arm. "Hush!" she whispered hoarsely, her
lips close against his hairy cheek. "She'll be on the floor in a dead
faint in a minute. Didn't I tell you not to mention his name?"
She stepped quickly to the side of her charge, who had walked
falteringly toward the window and now stood peering into the darkness
through the panes of the dormer.
"It's only Stephen's way, child, and you mustn't mind him. He doesn't
mean anything. He hasn't seen much of women, living aboard ship half his
life. It's only his way of trying to be kind. And you see he's known you
from a baby, same as me--and that's why he lets out."
She had folded the pitiful figure in her arms, her hand patting the bent
shoulders. "But we'll get on together, my lamb--you and me. And we'll
have supper right away--And I must ask you, Stephen, to go, now, because
her ladyship is worn out and I'm going to put her to bed."
Carlin picked up his hat and stood fingering the rim, trying to make up
his mind whether he should force the truth upon her then or obey orders
and wait. The training of long years told.
"Well, just as you say, your ladyship, I won't stay if you don't want
me, but don't forget I'm within call, not more than a half-hour away.
All Martha's got to do is to send a postal card and I'm here. I'm sorry
I hurt your feelings. God knows I didn't mean to! Martha knows what
I wanted to tell you. You'll have to come to it sooner or later. Good
night. I hope your ladyship will be rested in the morning. Good night,
Martha. You know you can write when you want me. Good night again, your
ladyship."
He opened the door softly, closed it behind him without a sound, placed
his hat on his head, and, reaching out for the hand-rail, felt his way
in the dark down the rickety stairs and out onto the sidewalk.
Once there, he looked up and down the street as if undecided, turned
sharply, and bent his steps toward Second Avenue, muttering to himself
over and over again as he walked: "I got to find Mr. Felix. I got to
find Mr. Felix." _