“Good-night, then.”
“Good-night.”
When she returned to her dressing-room later on, she found Fairfax there, sitting on a trunk, a satisfied smile on his lips. She left the door open.
Mr. Ripton conducted the two men across to the stage door, leading them through the narrow space back of the big drop. Chorus girls threw kisses at Harvey; they all knew him. He winked blandly at Butler, who was staring straight before him.
“A great life, eh?” said Harvey, meaning that which surrounded them. They were in the alley outside the stage door.
“I’m going to catch the ten-twenty,” said Butler, jamming his hat down firmly.
“Ain’t you going to see the last act?” demanded the other, dismayed.
Butler lifted his right hand to heaven, and, shaking it the better to express the intensity of his declaration, remarked:—
“I hope somebody will kick me all over town if I’m ever caught being such a damned fool as this again. I honestly hope it! I’ve been made ridiculous—a blithering fool! Why, you—you—”He paused in his rage, a sudden wave of pity assailing him. “By George, I can’t help feeling sorry for you! Good-night.”
Harvey hurried after him.
“I guess I’ll take it, too. That gets us out at eleven-thirty. We can get a bite to eat in the station, I guess.”
He had to almost trot to keep pace with Butler crossing to the Grand Central. Seated side by side in the train, and after he had recovered his breath a bit, he said:—
“Confound it, I forgot to ask Nellie if it will be wise for her to come out on Sunday. The heart’s a mighty bad thing, Butler.”
“It certainly is,” said Butler, with unction.
At the station in Tarrytown he said “Good-night”very gruffly and hurried off to jump into the only cab at the platform. He had heard all about Blakeville and the wild life Harvey had led there, and he was mad enough to fight.
“Good-night, Mr. Butler,” said Harvey, as the hack drove off.
He walked up the hill.
CHAPTER III
MR. FAIRFAX
He found the nursemaid up and waiting for him. Phoebe had a “dreadful throat” and a high temperature. It had come on very suddenly, it seems, and if Annie’s memory served her right it was just the way diphtheria began. The little girl had been thrashing about in the bed and whimpering for “daddy” since eight o’clock. His heart sank like lead, to a far deeper level than it had dropped with the base desertion of Butler. Filled with remorse, he ran upstairs without taking off his hat or overcoat. The feeling of resentment toward Butler was lost in this new, overpowering sense of dread; the discovery of his own lamentable unfitness for “high life” expeditions faded into nothingness in the face of this possible catastrophe. What if Phoebe were to die? He would be to blame. He remembered feeling that he should not have left her that evening. It had been a premonition, and this was to be the price of his folly.
At three in the morning he went over to rouse the doctor, all the time thinking that, even if he were capable of forgiving himself for Phoebe’s death, Nellie would always hold him responsible. The doctor refused to come before eight o’clock, and slammed the door in the disturber’s face.
“If she dies,” he said to himself over and over again as he trudged homeward, “I’ll kill that beast of a doctor. I’ll tear his heart out.”
The doctor did not come till nine-thirty. They never do. He at once said it was a bad attack of tonsilitis, and began treatment on the stomach. He took a culture and said he would let Mr.—Mr. What’s-His-Name know whether there was anything diphtheritic. In the meantime,“Take good care of her.”
Saturday morning a loving note came from Nellie, deploring the fact that she couldn’t come out on Sunday after all. The doctor said she must save her strength. She instructed Harvey to dismiss Bridget and get another cook at once. But Harvey’s heart had melted toward Bridget. The big Irishwoman was the soul of kindness now that her employer was in distress.
About nine o’clock that morning a man came up and tacked a placard on the door and informed the household that it was in quarantine. Harvey went out and looked at the card. Then he slunk back into Phoebe’s room and sat down, very white and scared.
“Do you think she’ll die?” he asked of the doctor when that gentleman called soon afterward. He was shivering like a leaf.
“Not necessarily,” said the man of medicine, calmly. “Diphtheria isn’t what it used to be.”
“If she dies I’ll jump in the river,” said the little father, bleakly.
“Nonsense!” said the doctor. “Can you swim?” he added, whimsically.
“No,” said Harvey, his face lighting up.
The doctor patted him on the back. “Brace up, sir. Has the child a mother?”
Harvey stared at him. “Of course,” he said.“Don’t you know whose child you are ’tending?”
“I confess I—er—I—”
“She is the daughter of Nellie Duluth.”
“Oh!” fell from the doctor’s lips. “And you—you are Miss Duluth’s husband? I didn’t quite connect the names.”
“Well, I’m her husband, name or no name,” explained the other. “I suppose I ought to send for her. She ought to know.”
“Are you—er—separated?”
“Not at all,” said Harvey. “I maintain two establishments, that’s all. One here, one in the city.”
“Oh, I see,” said the doctor, who didn’t in the least see. “Of course, she would be subject to quarantine rules if she came here, Mr.—Mr.—ahem!”
“They couldn’t get along without her at the theatre,” groaned the husband.
“I’d suggest waiting a day or two. Believe me, my dear sir, the child will pull through. I will do all that can be done, sir. Rest easy.”His manner was quite different, now that he knew the importance of his patient. He readjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “I hope to have the pleasure of seeing Mrs.—er—your wife, sir.”
“She has a regular physician in town,” said Harvey, politely.
For two weeks he nursed Phoebe, day and night, announcing to the doctor in the beginning that his early training made him quite capable. There were moments when he thought she was dying, but they passed so quickly that his faith in the physician’s assurances rose above his fears. Acting on the purely unselfish motive that Nellie would be upset by the news, he kept the truth from her, and she went on singing and dancing without so much as a word to distress her. Two Sundays passed; her own lamentable illness kept her away from the little house in Tarrytown.
“If we tell her about Phoebe,” said Harvey to Bridget and Annie, “she’ll go all to pieces. Her heart may stop, like as not. Besides, she’d insist on coming out and taking care of her, and that would be fatal to the show. She’s never had diphtheria. She’d be sure to catch it. It goes very hard with grown people.”
“Have you ever had it, sir?” asked Annie, anxiously.
“Three times,” said Harvey, who hadn’t thought of it up to that moment.
When the child was able to sit up he put in his time reading “David Copperfield” to her.
Later on he played “jacks” with her and cut pictures out of the comic supplements. By the end of the month he was thinner and more“peaked,” if anything, than she. Unshaven, unshorn, unpressed was he, but he was too full of joy to give heed to his own personal comforts or requirements.
His mind was beginning to be sorely troubled over one thing. Now that Phoebe was well and getting strong he realised that Nellie would be furious when she found out how ill the child had been and how she had been deceived. He considered the advisability of keeping it from her altogether, swearing every one to secrecy, but there was the doctor’s bill to be paid. When it came to paying that Nellie would demand an explanation. It was utterly impossible for him to pay it himself. Thinking over his unhappy position, he declared, with a great amount of zeal, but no vigour, that he was going to get a job and be indep
endent once more. More than that, when he got fairly well established in his position (he rather leaned toward the drug or the restaurant business) he would insist on Nellie giving up her arduous stage work and settling down to enjoy a life of comfort and ease—even luxury, if things went as he meant them to go.
One afternoon late in October, when the scarlet leaves were blowing across his little front yard and the screens had been taken from the windows, a big green automobile stopped at his gate and a tall man got out and came briskly up the walk. Harvey was sitting in the library helping Phoebe with her ABC’s when he caught sight of the visitor crossing the porch.
“Gentleman to see you,” said Annie, a moment later.
“Is it the butcher’s man? I declare, I must get in and attend to that little account. Tell him I’ll be in, Annie.”
“It ain’t the butcher. It’s a swell.”
Harvey got up, felt of the four days’ growth of beard on his chin, and pondered.
“Did he give his name?”
“Mr. Fairfax, he said.”
He remembered Fairfax. His hand ran over his chin once more.
“Tell him to come in. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”
He went upstairs on the jump and got his razor out. He was nervous. Only that morning he had written to Nellie telling her of Phoebe’s expensive illness and of her joyous recovery. The doctor’s bill was ninety dollars. He cut himself in three places.
Fairfax was sitting near the window talking with Phoebe when he clattered downstairs ten minutes later, deploring the cuts but pleased with himself for having broken all records at shaving. The big New Yorker had a way with him; he could interest children as well as their mothers and grown sisters. Phoebe was telling him about “Jack the Giant Killer” when her father popped into the room.
“Phoebe!” he cried, stopping short in horror.
Fairfax arose languidly.
“How do you do, Mr.—ah—ahem! The little girl has been playing hostess. The fifteen minutes have flown.”
“Ten minutes by my watch,” said Harvey, promptly. “Phoebe, dear, where did you get that awful dress—and, oh, my! those dirty hands? Where’s Annie? Annie’s the nurse, Mr. Fairfax. Run right away and tell her to change that dress and wash your hands. How do you do, Mr. Fairfax? Glad to see you. How are you?”
He advanced to shake the big man’s hand. Fairfax towered over him.
“I was afraid you would not remember me,”said Fairfax.
“Run along, Phoebe. She’s been very ill, you see. We don’t make life any harder for her than we have to. Washing gets on a child’s nerves, don’t you think? It used to on mine, I know. Of course I remember you. Won’t you sit down? Annie! Oh, Annie!”
He called into the stair hallway and Annie appeared from the dining-room.
“Ann—Oh, here you are! How many times must I tell you to put a clean dress on Phoebe every day? What are her dresses for, I’d like to know?” He winked violently at Annie from the security of the portière, which he held at arm’s length as a shield. Annie arose to the occasion and winked back.
“May I put on my Sunday dress?” cried Phoebe, gleefully.
“Only one of ’em,” said he, in haste. “Annie will pick out one for you.”
Considerably bewildered, Phoebe was led away by the nurse.
“She’s a pretty child,” said Fairfax. If his manner was a trifle strained Harvey failed to make note of it. “Looks like her mother.”
“I’m glad you think so,” said the father, radiantly.“I’d hate to have her look like me.”
Fairfax looked him over and suppressed a smile.
“She is quite happy here with you, I suppose,”he said, taking a chair.
“Yes, sir-ree.”
“Does she never long to be with her mother?”
“Well, you see,” said Harvey, apologising for Nellie, “she doesn’t see much of Miss—of her mother these days. I guess she’s got kind of used to being with me. Kids are funny things, you know.”
“She seems to have all the comforts and necessities of life,” said the big man, looking about him with an affectation of approval.
“Everything that I can afford, sir,” said Harvey, blandly.
“Have you ever thought of putting her in a nice school for—”
“She enters kindergarten before the holidays,”interrupted the father.
“I mean a—er—sort of boarding school,”put in the big man, uneasily. “Where she could be brought up under proper influences, polished up, so to speak. You know what I mean. Miss Duluth has often spoken of such an arrangement. In fact, her heart seems to be set on it.”
“You mean she—she wants to send her away to school?” asked Harvey, blankly.
“It is a very common and excellent practice nowadays,” said the other, lamely.
The little man was staring at him, his blue eyes full of dismay.
“Why—why, I don’t believe I’d like that,”he said, grasping the arms of his chair with tense fingers. “She’s doing all right here. It’s healthy here, and I am sure the schools are good enough. Nellie has never said anything to me about boarding school. Why—why, Mr. Fairfax, Phoebe’s only five—not quite that, and I—I think it would be cruel to put her off among strangers. When she’s fifteen or sixteen, maybe, but not now. Nellie don’t mean that, I’m sure.”
“There is a splendid school for little girls up in Montreal—a sort of convent, you know. They get the best of training, moral, spiritual, and physical. It is an ideal life for a child. Nellie has been thinking a great deal of sending her there. In fact, she has practically decided to—”
Harvey came to his feet slowly, dizzily.
“I can’t believe it. She wouldn’t send the poor little thing up there all alone; no, sir! I—I wouldn’t let her do it.” He was pacing the floor. His forehead was moist.
“Miss Duluth appreciates one condition that you don’t seem able to grasp,” said Fairfax, bluntly. “She wants to keep the child as far removed from stage life and its environments as possible. She wants her to have every advantage, every opportunity to grow up entirely out of reach of the—er—influences which now threaten to surround her.”
Harvey stopped in front of him. “Is this what you came out here for, Mr. Fairfax? Did Nellie tell you to do this?”
“I will be perfectly frank with you. She asked me to come out and talk it over with you.”
“Why didn’t she come herself?”
“She evidently was afraid that you would overrule her in the matter.”
“I never overruled her in my life,” cried Harvey. “She isn’t afraid of me. There’s something else.”
“I can only say, sir, that she intends to put the child in the convent before Christmas. She goes on the road after the holidays,” said Fairfax, setting his huge jaw.
Harvey sat down suddenly, limp as a rag. His mouth filled with water—a cold, sickening moisture that rendered him speechless for a moment. He swallowed painfully. His eyes swept the little room as if in search of something to prove that this was the place for Phoebe—this quiet, happy little cottage of theirs.
“Before Christmas?” he murmured.
“See here, Mr.—ah—Mr., here is the situation in a nutshell:—Nellie doesn’t see why she should be keeping up two establishments. It’s expensive. The child will be comfortable and happy in the convent and this house will be off her hands. She—”
“Why don’t she give up her flat in town?” demanded Harvey, miserably. “That’s where the money goes.”
“She expects to give it up the first of the year,” said Fairfax. “The road tour lasts till May. She is going to Europe for the summer.”
“To Europe?” gasped Harvey, feeling the floor sink under his feet.
He did not think to inquire what was to become of him in the new arrangement.
“She needs a sea voyage, travel—a long vacation, in fact. It is fully decided. So, you see, the convent is the place for Phoebe.”
Fairfax was getting tired of the argument. Moreover, he was uncomfortable and decidedly impatient to have it over with. He cut in rather harshly on the other’s lamentations.
“If you think she’s going to take you to Europe, you’re very much mistaken. Why, man, have you no pride? Can’t you understand what a damned useless bit of dead weight you are, hanging to her neck?”
It was out at last. Harvey sat there staring at him, very still; such a pathetic figure that it seemed like rank cowardice to strike again. And yet Fairfax, now that he had begun, was eager to go on striking this helpless, inoffensive creature with all the frenzy of the brutal victor who stamps out the life of his vanquished foe.
“She supports you. You haven’t earned a dollar in four years. I have it from her, and from others. It is commonly understood that you won’t work, you won’t do a stroke toward supporting the child. You are a leech, a barnacle, a—a—well, a loafer. If you had a drop of real man’s blood in you, you’d get out and earn enough to buy clothes for yourself, at least, and the money for a hair cut or a shoe shine. She has been too good to you, my little man. You can’t blame her for getting tired of it. The great wonder is that she has stood for it so long.”
Words struggled from Harvey’s pallid lips.
“But she loves me,” he said. “It’s all understood between us. I gave her the start in life. She will tell you so. I—”
“You never did a thing for her in your life,”broke in the big man, harshly. He was consumed by an ungovernable hatred for this little man who was the husband of the woman he coveted.
“I’ve always wanted to get a job. She wouldn’t let me,” protested Harvey, a red spot coming into each of his cheeks. “I don’t want to take the money she earns. I never have wanted to. But she says my place is here at home, with Phoebe. Somebody’s got to look after the child. We’ve talked it over a—”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” snapped Fairfax, hitting the arm of his chair with his fist. “You’re no good, that’s all there is to it. You are a joke, a laughing stock. Do you suppose that she can possibly love a man like you? A woman wants a man about her, not the caricature of one.”
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories Page 220