Felix O'Day

Chapter XX

The routine of Felix's daily life had been broken this morning by the receipt of a letter. The postman had handed it to him as he crossed the street from Kitty's to Kling's, the tramp who was sweeping the sidewalk having pointed him out.

“That's him,” cried the tramp. “That's Mr. O'Day. Catch him before he gets inside his place, or you'll lose him. Here, I'll take it.”

“You'll take nothin'. Get out of my way.”

“For me?” asked Felix, coloring slightly as the postman accosted him.

“Yes, if you're Mr. O'Day.”

“I'm afraid I am. Thank you. If you have any others, bring them here to Mr. Kling's, where I can always be found during the day.”

He glanced at the seal and the address, but kept it in his hands until he reached Kling's counter, where he settled into a chair, and with the greatest care slit the envelope with his knife. A year had passed since he had received a letter, nor had he expected any.

He read it through to the end, turning the pages again, rereading certain passages, his face giving no hint of the contents, folded the sheets, put them back in the envelope, and slid the whole into his inside pocket. After a little he rose, stood for a moment watching Fudge, who, now that Masie had gone to school, had taken up his customary place in the window, his nose pressed against the pane. Then, as if some sudden resolve had seized him, he walked quickly to the rear of the store in search of his employer.

Otto was poring over his books, his bald head glistening under the rays of the gas-jet, which he had lighted to assist him in his work, the morning being dark.

“I have been wanting to talk to you for some time, Mr. Kling, about Masie,” he began abruptly. “I may be going home to England, perhaps for a few weeks, perhaps longer, and I should like to take her with me. I have a sister who would look after her, and the trip would do her a world of good. I have been wanting to do this for a long time, but I am a little freer now to carry out the plan I had for her. And so I have come to propose it to you.”

Otto listened gravely, his fat features frozen into calm. This clerk of his had made him many startling propositions, and every surrender had brought him profit. But turning over Beesving to him meant something so different that the father in him stood aghast. Yet his old habit of deference did not desert him when at last he spoke:

“Vell, vat vill I do? You knew I don't got notin' but Beesving. Don't she get everytin' vere she is? I do all de schoolin' and de clothes and Aunty Gossburger look after her. Vhen she gets older maybe perhaps she vould like a trip. And den maybe ve both go and leave you here to mind de shop in de summer-time. But now she's notin' but jus' Beesving, vid her head full of skippin' aroun'. No, I don't tink I can do dat for you. I do most anytin' for you, but my little girl, you see, dat come pretty close. Dat make a awful hole in me if Beesving go avay. No, you mustn't ask me dot.”

“Not if it were for her good?”

“Yes, vell, of course, but how do I know dot? And vot you vant to go avay for? Dot's more vorse as Beesving. Ain't I pay you enough? Maybe you vants a little interest in de business? I vas tinkin' about dat only yesterday. Ve vill talk about dot sometimes.”

Felix laughed gently.

“No, I don't wish any interest in the business. You pay me quite enough for the work I do, and I am quite willing to continue to serve you as long as I can. But Masie should not be brought up in these surroundings much longer. Perhaps you would be willing to send her to a good school away from here, if I could arrange it. Either here or in England.”

Otto threw up his hands; he was becoming indignant, his mind more and more set against Felix's proposition.

“Vell, but vat's de matter vid de school she has now? She is more dan on de top of all de classes. De superintendent told me so ven he vas in here last veek buying Christmas presents. I sold him dat old chair you got Hans to put a new leg on. You remember dot chair. Vell, dat vas better as a new von vhen Hans got trough. Hadn't been for you, dot old chair vould be kicking around now, and I vouldn't have de fifteen dollars he paid me for it. I vish sometimes you look around for more chairs like dot.”

Felix nodded in assent, reading the Dutchman's obstinate mind in the shopkeeper's sudden return to business questions. If Masie's future was to be helped, another hand than his own must be stretched out. He turned on his heel, and was about to regain his chair, when Otto, craning his head, called out:

“Dot's Father Cruse comin' in. You ask him now vonce about dis goin' avay bizness. He tell you same as me.”

The priest was now abreast of Felix, who had stepped forward to greet him, Otto watching their movements. The two stood talking in a low voice, Felix's eyes downcast as if in deep thought, the priest apparently urging some plan, which O'Day, by his manner, seemed to favor. They were too far off, and spoke too low, for Otto to catch the drift of the talk, and it was only when Felix, who had followed the priest outside the door, had returned that he called, from his high seat under the gas-jet: “Vell, vat did Father Cruse say?”

Felix drew his brows together. “Say about what?” he asked, as if the question had surprised him.

“About Beesving. Didn't you ask him?”

“No, we talked of other things,” replied Felix and, turning on his heel, occupied himself about the shop.

Across the street meanwhile Kitty's own plans had also gone astray this winter's morning—so many of them, in fact, that she was at her wits' end which way to turn. A trunk had been left at the wrong address, and John had been two hours looking for it. Bobby had come home from school with a lump on his head as big as a hen's egg, where some “gas-house kid,” as Bobby expressed it, “had fetched him a crack.” Mike, on his way down from the Grand Central, knowing that John was away with the other horse and Kitty worrying, had urged big Jim to gallop, and, in his haste, had bowled over a ten-year-old boy astride of a bicycle, and, worse yet, the entire outfit—big Jim, wagon, Mike, boy, bicycle, and the boy's father—were at that precise moment lined up in front of the captain's desk at the 35th Street police station.

The arrest did not trouble Kitty. She knew the captain and the captain knew her. If bail were needed, there were half a dozen men within fifty yards of where she stood who would gladly furnish it. Mike was careless, anyhow, and a little overhauling would do him good.

What did trouble her was the tying up of big Jim and her wagon at a time when she needed them most. Nobody knew when John would be back, and there was the stuff piling up, and not a soul to handle it. She stood, leaning over her short counter, trying to decide what to do first. She could not ask Felix to help her. He was tired out with the holiday sales. Nor was there anybody else on whom she could put her hands. It was Porterfield's busy time, and Codman had all he could jump to. No, she could not ask them. Here she stepped out on the sidewalk to get a broader view of the situation, her mind intent on solving the problem.

At that same instant she saw Kling's door swing wide and Father Cruse step out, Felix beside him. The two shook each other's hands in parting, Felix going back into the shop, and Father Cruse taking the short-cut across the street to where Kitty stood—an invariable custom of his whenever he found himself in her neighborhood.

Instantly her anxiety vanished. “Look at it!” she cried enthusiastically. “Can you beat it? There he comes. God must 'a' sent him!” Then, as she ran to meet him: “Oh, Father, but it's better than a pair o' sore eyes to see ye! I'm all balled up wi' trouble. John's huntin' a lost trunk. Bobby's up-stairs with a slab o' raw beef on his head. Mike's locked up for runnin' over a boy. And my big Jim and my wagon is tied up outside the station, till it's all straightened out. Will ye help me?”

“I am on my way now to the police station,” said the priest in his kindest voice.

“Oh, then, ye heard o' Mike?”

“Not a word. But I often drop in there of a morning. Many of the night arrests need counsel outside the law, and sometimes I can be of service. Is the boy badly hurt?”

“No, he hollered too loud when the wheel struck him, so they tell me. He's not half as bad as Bobby, I warrant, who hasn't let a squeak out o' him. Will ye please put in a word for me, Father? I can't leave here or I'd go meself. I don't care if the captain holds on to Mike for a while, so he lets me have big Jim and the wagon. John will be up to go bail as soon as he gets back, if the captain wants it, which he won't, when he finds out who Mike is. Oh, that's a good soul! I knew ye'd help me. An' how did ye find Mr. Felix?”—a new anxiety now filling her mind.

The priest's face clouded. “Oh, very well; he spent last evening with me.”

“Oh, that was it, was it? An' were ye trampin' the streets with him, too? It was pretty nigh daylight when he come in. I always know, for he wakes me when he shuts his door.”

The priest, evidently absorbed in some strain of thought, parried her question with another: “And so the boy was not badly hurt? Well, that is something to be thankful for. Perhaps I may know his people. I will send Mike and the wagon back to you, if I can. Good-by.” And he touched his hat, passing up the street with his long, even stride, the skirt of his black cassock clinging to his knees.

The arrest, so far as could be seen from Mike's general deportment, had not troubled that gentleman in the least. He had nodded pleasantly to the captain, who, in return, had frowned severely at him while the father of the boy was making the complaint; had winked good-naturedly at him the moment the accuser had left the room; had asked after Kitty and John, motioned to him to stay around until somebody put in an appearance to go bail, and had then busied himself with more important matters. A thick-set man, in a brown suit and derby hat, accompanied by an officer and another man, had brought in a frail woman, looking as if life were slowly ebbing out of her; and the four were in a row before his desk. The usual questions were asked and answered by the detective and the clerk—the nature of the charge, the name and address of the party robbed, the name and address of the accused—and the entries properly made.

During the hearing, the frail woman had stood with bent head, dazed and benumbed. When her name was asked, she had made no answer nor did she give her residence. “I am an Englishwoman,” was all she had said.

Mike, now privileged to enjoy the freedom of the room, had been watching the proceedings with increasing interest, so much so that he had edged up to the group, as close as he dared, where he could get the light full on the woman. When the words, “I am an Englishwoman,” fell from her lips, he let out an oath, and slapped his thigh with the fiat of his hand. “Of course it is! I thought I know'd her when she come in. English, is she? What a lot o' lies they do be puttin' up. She never saw England. She's a dago from 'cross town. Won't Mrs. Cleary's eyes pop when I tell her!”

The group in front of the captain's desk disintegrated. The woman, still silent, was led away to the cell. Rosenthal's clerk, who had made the charge for the firm, had come round to the captain's side of the desk to sign some papers. Pickert and the officer had already disappeared through the street-door. At this juncture the priest entered. His presence was noted by every man in the room, most of whom rose to their feet, some removing their hats.

“Good-morning, captain,” he said, including with his bow the other people present. “I have just left Mrs. Cleary, who tells me that one of her men is in trouble. Ah! I see him now. Is there anything that I can do for him?”

“Nothing, your reverence; the boy's not much hurt. I don't think it was Mike's fault, from the testimony, but it's a case of bail, all right.”

“I am afraid, captain, she is not worrying so much about our poor Mike here as she is about the horse and wagon. These she needs, for Mr. Cleary is away, and there is no one to help her. Perhaps you would be good enough to send an officer with Mike, and let them drive back to her?”

“I guess that won't be necessary, your reverence. See here, Mike, get into your wagon and take it back to the stable, and bring somebody with you to go bail. We didn't want the wagon, only there was no place to leave it, and we knew they would send up for it sooner or later. It's outside now.”

“Thank you, captain. And now, Mike, be very sure you come back,” exclaimed the priest, with an admonishing finger; “do you hear?” He always liked the Irishman.

Mike grinned the width of his face, caught up his cap, and made for the door. The priest watched him until he had cleared the room, then, leaning over the desk, asked: “Anything for me this morning, captain?”

“No, your reverence, not that I can see. Two drunks come in with the first batch, and a couple of crooks who had been working the 'elevated'; and a woman, a shoplifter. Got away with a piece of lace—a mantilla, they called it, whatever that is. She's just gone down to wait for the four o'clock delivery. It's a case of grand larceny. They say the lace is worth $250. Wasn't that about it?”

Rosenthal's man bobbed his head. He had not lifted his hat to the priest, and seemed to regard him with suspicion.

“What sort of a looking woman is she?” continued the priest.

“Oh, the same old kind; they're all alike. Nothing to say—too smart for that. I guess she stole it, all right. All I could get out of her was that she was an Englishwoman, but she didn't look it.”

The priest lowered his head, an expression of suddenly awakened interest on his face. “May I see her?” he asked, in an eager tone.

“Why, sure! Bunky, take Father Cruse down. He wants to talk to that Englishwoman.”

To most unfortunates, whether innocent or guilty, the row of polished steel bars which open and close upon those in the grip of the law, are poised rifles awaiting the order to fire. To a woman like Lady Barbara, these guarded a dark and loathsome tomb, in which her last hope lay buried. That she had not deserved the punishment meted out to her did not soothe her agony. She had deserved none of Dalton's cruelty, and yet she had withered under its lash. This was the end; beyond, lay only a slow, lingering death, with her torture increasing as the hours crept on.

The sound of the turnkey's hand on the lock roused her to consciousness.

“Bring her outside where I can talk to her,” said Father Cruse, pointing to a bench in the corridor.

She followed the guard mechanically, as a whipped spaniel follows its master, her steps dragging, her body trembling, her head bowed as if awaiting some new humiliation. She had no strength to resist. Something in the priest's quiet, in the way he trod beside her, seemed to have reassured her, for as she sank on the bench beside him, she leaned over, laid one hand on his sleeve, and asked feebly: “Are they going to let me go?”

“That I cannot say, my good woman; I can only hope so.” He looked toward the guard. “Better leave us for a while, Bunky.” The turnkey touched his cap and mounted the narrow iron steps to the room above.

Father Cruse waited until the footsteps had ceased to echo in the corridor, and then turned to Lady Barbara. “And now tell me something about yourself; have you no friends you can send for? I will see they get your message. The captain told me you were English. Is this true?”

She had withdrawn her hand and now sat with averted face, the faint flicker of hope his presence had enkindled extinguished by his evasive answer. Only when he repeated the question did she reply, and then in a mere whisper, without lifting her head: “Yes, I am English.”

“And your people, are they where you can reach them?”

She did not answer; there was nothing to be gained by yielding to his curiosity. Nor did she intend to reply to any more of his questions. He was only one of those kind priests who looked after the poor and whose sympathy, however well meant, would be of little value. If she told him how cruel had been the wrong done her, and how unjust had been her arrest, it would make no difference; he could not help her.

“There must be somebody,” he urged. He had read her indecision in the nervous play of her fingers, as he had read many another human emotion in his time. “There must be somebody,” he repeated.

“There is only Martha,” she answered at last, yielding to his influence. “She was my nurse when I was a child. She is as poor as I am. She will come to me if you will send word to her. They would not listen to me at Rosenthal's when I begged them to bring her to the store.” She lifted her head and stared wildly about her. “Oh, the injustice of it all—and the awful horror of this place! How can men do such things? I told them the truth, Father, I told them the truth. I never stole it. How could I ever steal anything? How dared he speak to me as he did?”

She turned, straining her whole body as if in mortal anguish; then, with her shoulder against the hard, whitewashed wall, she broke at last into sobs.

The priest sat still, waiting and watching, as a surgeon does a patient slowly emerging from delirium.

“Men are seldom reasonable, my good woman, when they lose their property, and they often do things which they regret afterward. Of what were you accused?”

His tone reassured her, and, for the first time, she looked directly at him. “Of stealing a mantilla which I had taken to my rooms to repair.”

“Whose was it?”

“Rosenthal's, for whom I worked.”

“The large store near by here, on Third Avenue?”

“Yes.”

Father Cruse lapsed once more into silence, absorbed in a study of certain salient points of her person—her way of sitting and of folding her hands, her thin, delicately modelled frame, the pallor of her oval face, with its mobile mouth, the singular whiteness of her teeth, and the blue of her eyes, shaded by the cheap, black-straw hat which hid her forehead. Then he glanced at her feet, one of which protruded from her coarse skirt—no larger than a child's.

When he spoke again, it was in a positive way, as if his inspection had caused him to adopt a definite course which he would now follow. “This old nurse of yours, this woman you called Martha, does she know of any one who could get bail for you? You can only stay here for a few hours, and then they will take you to the Tombs, unless some one can go bail. I know the Rosenthals, and they would, I think, listen to any reasonable proposition.”

“Would they let me go home, then?”

“Yes, until your trial came off.”

She shuddered, hugging herself the closer. Her mind had not gone that far. It was the present horror that had confronted her, not a trial in court.

“Martha has a brother,” she said at last, “who has a business of some kind, and who might help. If you will bring her to me, she can find him.”

“You don't remember what his business is?” he continued.

“I think it is something to do with fitting out ships. He was once a mate on one of my father's vessels and—”

She stopped abruptly, frightened now at her own indiscretion. She had been wrong in wanting to send for Stephen, even in referring to him. Whatever befell her, she was determined that her people at home should not suffer further on her account.

Father Cruse had caught the look, and his heart gave a bound, though no gesture betrayed him. “You have not told me your name,” he said simply—as if it were a matter of routine in cases like hers.

She glanced at him quickly. “Does it make any difference?”

“It might. I do not believe you are a criminal, but if I am to help you as I want to do, I must know the truth.”

She thought for a moment. Here was something she could not escape. The assumed name had so far shielded her. She would brave it out as she had done before.

“They call me Mrs. Stanton.”

“Is that your true name?”

The Carnavons were imperious, unforgiving, and sometimes brutal. Many of them had been roues, gamblers, and spendthrifts, but none of them had ever been a liar.

“No!” she answered firmly.

Father Cruse settled back in his seat. The ring of sincerity in the woman's “No” had removed his last doubt. “You do very wrong, my good woman, not to tell me the whole truth,” he remarked, with some emphasis. “I am a priest, as you see, and attached to the Church of St. Barnabas—not far from here. I visit this station-house almost every morning, seeing what I can do to help people just like yourself. I will go to Rosenthal, and then I will find your old nurse, and I will try to have your case delayed until your nurse can get hold of her brother. But that is really all I can do until I have your entire confidence. I am convinced that you are a woman who has been well brought up, and that this is your first experience in a place of this kind. I hope it will be the last; I hope, too, that the charge made against you will be proved false. But does not all this make you realize that you should be frank with me?”

She drew herself up with a certain dignity infinitely pathetic, yet in which, like the flavor of some old wine left in a drained glass, there lingered the aroma of her family traditions. “I am very grateful, sir, to you. I know you only want to be kind, but please do not ask me to tell you anything more. It would only make other people unhappy. There is no one but myself to blame for my poverty, and for all I have gone through. What is to become of me I do not know, but I cannot make my people suffer any more. Do not ask me.”

“It might end their suffering,” he replied quickly. “I have a case in point now where a man has been searching New York for months, hoping to get news of his wife, who left him nearly a year ago. He comes in to see me every few nights and we often tramp the streets together. My work takes me into places she would be apt to frequent, so he comes with me. He and I were up last night until quite late. He has nothing in his heart but pity for that poor woman, who he fears has been left stranded by the man she trusted. So far he has heard nothing of her. I left him hardly an hour ago. Now, there, you see, is a case where just a word of frankness and truth might have ended all their sufferings. I told Mr. O'Day this morning, when I left him, that—”

She had grown paler and paler during the long recital, her wide-open eyes staring into his, her bosom heaving with suppressed excitement, until at the mention of Felix's name, she staggered to her feet, and cried: “You know Felix O'Day?”

“Yes, thank God, I do, and you are his wife, Lady Barbara O'Day, Lord Carnavon's daughter.”

She cowered like a trapped animal, uncertain which way to spring. In her agony she shrank against the wall, her arms outstretched. How did this man know all the secrets of her life? Then there arose a calming thought. He was a priest—a man who listened and did not betray. Perhaps, after all, he could help her. He wanted the truth. He should have it.

“Yes,” she answered, her voice sinking. “I am Lord Carnavon's daughter.”

“And Felix O'Day's wife?”

“And Felix O'Day's wife,” came the echo, and, with the last word, her last vestige of strength seemed to leave her.

The priest rose to his full height. “I was sure of it when I first saw you,” he said, a note of triumph in his voice. “And now, one last question. Are you guilty of this theft?”

“GUILTY! I guilty! How could I be?” The denial came with a lift of the head, her eyes kindling, her bosom heaving.

“I believe you. There is not a moment to be lost.” The priest and father confessor were gone now; it was the man of affairs who was speaking. “I will see Rosenthal at once, and then send for your nurse. Give me her address.”

When he had written it, he stepped to the foot of the stairs, and called to one of the guards. Then he slipped his hand under his cassock, drew out his watch, noted the hour, and in a firm voice—one intended to be obeyed—said:

“Go back into your cell and sit there until I come. Do not worry if I am away longer than I expect, and do not be frightened when the key is turned on you. It is best that you be locked up for a while. You should give thanks to God, my dear woman, that I have found you.”