“But I’ve bought—”
“Now, don’t argue about it. You heard what I said. Move along.”
The man’s tone was peremptory. Poor Harvey looked around as if in search of a single benevolent face, and then, without a word of protest, arose and moved quickly toward the door. His eyes were fixed in a glassy stare on the dancing, elusive doorway. He wondered if he could reach it before he sank through the floor. Somehow he had the horrible feeling that just as he opened it to go out some one would kick him from behind. He could almost feel the impact of the boot and involuntarily accelerated his speed as he opened the door to pass into the biting air of the now darkening street.
“I hate this damned town,” said he to himself over and over again as he flung himself against the gale that almost blew him off his feet. When he stopped to take his bearings, he was far above Longacre Square and still going in the wrong direction. He was befuddled. A policeman told him in hoarse, muffled tones to go back ten blocks or so if he wanted to find the theatre where Nellie Duluth was playing.
A clock in an apothecary’s shop urged him to hurry. When he came to the theatre, the newsboys were waiting for the audience to appear. He was surrounded by a mob of boys and men shouting the extras.
“Is the show out?” he asked one of them.
“No, sir!” shouted the boy, eagerly.“Shall I call up your automobile, mister!”
“No, thank you,” said Harvey through his chattering teeth. For a moment he felt distinctly proud and important. So shrewd a judge of humanity as a New York “newsy”had taken him to be a man of parts. For awhile he had been distressed by the fear, almost the conviction, that he was regarded by all New York as a “jay.”
Belying his suddenly acquired air of importance, he hunched himself up against the side of the building, partly sheltered from the wind, and waited for the crowd to pour forth. With the appearance of the first of those home-goers he would repair to the stage door, and, once behind the scenes, was quite certain that he would receive an invitation from Nellie to join the gay little family supper party in her dressing-room.
When the time came, however, he approached the doorman with considerable trepidation. He had a presentiment that there would be “no admittance.” Sure enough, the grizzled doorman, poking his head out, gruffly informed him that no one was allowed “back”without an order from the manager. Harvey explained who he was, taking it for granted that the man did not know him with his coat-collar turned up.
“I know you, all right,” said the man, not unkindly. “I’d like to let you in, but—you see—” He coughed and looked about rather helplessly, avoiding the pleading look in the visitor’s eyes.
“It’s all right,” Nellie’s husband assured him, but an arm barred the way.
“I’ve got strict orders not to admit you,”blurted out the doorman, hating himself.
“Not to admit me!” said Harvey, slowly.
“I’m sorry, sir. Orders is orders.”
“But my little girl is there.”
“Yes, sir, I understand. The orders are for you, sir, not for the kid.” Struck by the look in the little man’s eyes he hastened to say,“Maybe if you saw Mr. Ripton out front and sent a note in to Miss Duluth, she’d change her mind and—”
“Good Lord!” fell from Harvey’s lips as he abruptly turned away to look for a spot where he could hide himself from every one.
Two hours later, from his position at the mouth of the alley, he saw a man come out of the stage door and blow a whistle thrice. He was almost perishing with cold; he was sure that his ears were frozen. A sharp snap at the top of each of them and a subsequent warmth urged him to press quantities of snow against them, obeying the old rule that like cures like. From the kitchens of a big restaurant came the odours of cooking foodstuffs. He was hungry on this Merry Christmas night, but he would not leave his post. He had promised to wait for Phoebe and take her out home with him in the train.
With the three blasts of the whistle he stirred his numb feet and edged nearer to the stage door. A big limousine came rumbling up the alley from behind, almost running him down. The fur-coated chauffeur called him unspeakable names as he passed him with the emergency brakes released.
Before he could reach the entrance, the door flew open and a small figure in fur coat and a well known white hat was bundled into the machine by a burly stage hand. A moment later Annie clambered in, the door was slammed and the machine started ahead.
He shouted as he ran, but his cry was not heard. As the car careened down the narrow lane, throwing snow in all directions, he dropped into a dejected, beaten walk. Slowly he made his way in the trail of the big car—it was too dark for him to detect the colour, but he felt it was green—and came at last to the mouth of the alley, desolate, bewildered, hurt beyond all understanding.
For an instant he steadied himself against the icy wall of a building, trying to make up his mind what to do next. Suddenly it occurred to him that if he ran hard and fast he could catch the train—the seven-thirty—and secure a bit of triumph in spite of circumstances.
He went racing up the street toward Sixth Avenue, dodging head-lowered pedestrians with the skill of an Indian, and managed to reach Forty-second Street without mishap or delay. Above the library he was stopped by a policeman, into whose arms he went full tilt, almost bowling him over. The impact dazed him. He saw many stars on the officer’s breast. As he looked they dwindled into one bright and shining planet and a savage voice was bellowing:—
“Hold still or I’ll bat you over the head!”
“I’m—I’m trying to make the seven-thirty,”he panted, wincing under the grip on his arm.
“We’ll see about that,” growled the policeman.
“For Heaven’s sake, Mr. Policeman, I haven’t done anything. Honest, I’m in a hurry. My little girl’s on that train. We live in Tarrytown. She’ll cry her eyes out if I—”
“What was you running for?”
“For it,” said Harvey, at the end of a deep breath.
“It’s only seven-five now,” said the officer, suspiciously.
“Well, it’s the seven-ten I want, then,” said Harvey, hastily.
“I guess I’ll hold you here and see if anybody comes chasin’ up after you. Not a word, now. Close your trap.”
As no one came up to accuse the prisoner of murder, theft, or intoxication, the intelligent policeman released him at the expiration of fifteen minutes. A crowd had collected despite the cold. Harvey was always to remember that crowd of curious people; he never ceased wondering where they came from and why they were content to stand there shivering in the zero weather when there were stoves and steam radiators everywhere to be found. To add to his humiliation at least a dozen men and boys, not satisfied with the free show as far as it had gone, pursued him to the very gates in the concourse.
“Darned loafers!” said Harvey, hotly, but under his breath, as he showed his ticket and his teeth at the same time. Then he rushed for the last coach and swung on as it moved out.
Now, if I were inclined to be facetious or untruthful I might easily add to his troubles by saying that he got the wrong train, or something of the sort, but it is not my purpose to be harder on him than I have to be.
It was the right train, and, better still, Annie and Phoebe were in the very last seat of the very last coach. With a vast sigh he dropped into a vacant seat ahead of them and began fanning himself with his hat, to the utter amazement of onlookers, who had been disturbed by his turbulent entrance.
The newspaper Annie was reading fell from her hands.
“My goodness, sir! Where did you come from?” she managed to inquire.
“I’ve been—dining—at—Sherry’s,” he wheezed. “Annie, will you look and see if my ears are frozen?”
“They are, sir. Good gracious!”
He realised that he had been indiscreet.
“I—I sat in a draught,” he hastened to explain.“Did you have a nice time, Phoebe?”
&nbs
p; The child was sleepy. “No,” she said, almost sullenly. His heart gave a bound.“Mamma wouldn’t let me eat anything. She said I’d get fat.”
“You had quite enough to eat, Phoebe,” said Annie.
“I didn’t,” said Phoebe.
“Never mind,” said her father, “I’ll take you to Sherry’s some day.”
“When, daddy?” she cried, wide awake at once. “I like to go to places with you.”
He faltered. “Some day after mamma has gone off on the road. We’ll be terribly gay, while she’s away, see if we ain’t.”
Annie picked up the paper and handed it to him.
“Miss Duluth ain’t going on the road, sir,”she said. “It’s in the paper.”
He read the amazing news. Annie, suddenly voluble, gave it to him by word of mouth while he read. It was all there, she said, to prove what she was telling him. “Just as if I couldn’t read!” said Harvey, as he began the article all over again after perusing the first few lines in a perfectly blank state of mind.
“Yes, sir, the doctor says she can’t stand it on the road. She’s got nervous prosperity and she’s got to have a long rest. That Miss Brown is going to take her place in the play after this week and Miss Duluth is going away out West to live for awhile to get strong again. She—What is the name of the town, Phoebe?”
“Reno,” said Phoebe, promptly.
“But the name of the town isn’t in the paper, sir,” Annie informed him. “It’s a place where people with complications go to get rid of them, Miss Nellie says. The show won’t be any good without her, sir. I wouldn’t give two cents to see it.”
He sagged down in the seat, a cold perspiration starting out all over his body.
“When does she go—out there!” he asked, as in a dream.
“First of next week. She goes to Chicago with the company and then right on out to—to—er—to—”
“Reno,” said he, lifelessly.
“Yes, sir.”
He did not know how long afterward it was that he heard Phoebe saying to him, her tired voice barely audible above the clacking of the wheels:—
“I want a drink of water, daddy.”
His voice seemed to come back to him from some far-away place. He blinked his eyes several times and said, very wanly:—
“You mustn’t drink water, dearie. It will make you fat.”
CHAPTER VI
THE REVOLVER
He waited until the middle of the week for some sign from her; none coming, he decided to go once more to her apartment before it was too late. The many letters he wrote to her during the first days after learning of her change of plans were never sent. He destroyed them. A sense of shame, a certain element of pride, held them back. Still, he argued with no little degree of justice, there were many things to be decided before she took the long journey—and the short step she was so plainly contemplating.
It was no more than right that he should make one last and determined effort to save her from the fate she was so blindly courting. It was due her. She was his wife. He had promised to cherish and protect her. If she would not listen to the appeal, at least he would have done his bounden duty.
There was an ever present, ugly fear, too, that she meant, by some hook or crook, to rob him of Phoebe.
“And she’s as much mine as hers,” he declared to himself a thousand times or more.
Behind everything, yet in plain view, lay his own estimate of himself—the naked truth—he was “no good!” He had come to the point of believing it of himself. He was not a success; he was quite the other thing. But, granting that, he was young and entitled to another chance. He could work into a partnership with Mr. Davis if given the time.
Letting the midweek matinée slip by, he made the plunge on a Thursday. She was to leave New York on Sunday morning; that much he knew from the daily newspapers, which teemed with Nellie’s breakdown and its lamentable consequences. It would be at least a year, the papers said, before she could resume her career on the stage. He searched the columns daily for his own name, always expecting to see himself in type little less conspicuous than that accorded to her, and stigmatised as a brute, an inebriate, a loafer. It was all the same to him—brute, soak, or loafer. But even under these extraordinary conditions he was as completely blanketed by obscurity as if he never had been in existence.
Sometimes he wondered whether she could get a divorce without according him a name. He had read of fellow creatures meeting death“at the hand of a person (or of persons) unknown.”Could a divorce complaint be worded in such non-committal terms? Then there was that time-honoured shroud of private identity, the multitudinous John Doe. Could she have the heart to bring proceedings against him as John Doe? He wondered.
If he were to shoot himself, so that she might have her freedom without going to all the trouble of a divorce or the annoyance of a term of residence in Reno, would she put his name on a tombstone? He wondered.
A strange, a most unusual thing happened to him just before he left the house to go to the depot. He was never quite able to account for the impulse which sent him upstairs rather obliquely to search through a trunk for a revolver, purchased a couple of years before, following the report that housebreakers were abroad in Tarrytown, and which he had promptly locked away in his trunk for fear that Phoebe might get hold of it.
He rummaged about in the trunk, finally unearthing the weapon. He slipped it into his overcoat pocket with a furtive glance over his shoulder. He chuckled as he went down the stairs. It was a funny thing for him to do, locking the revolver in the trunk that way. What burglar so obliging as to tarry while he went through all the preliminaries incident to destruction under the circumstances? Yes, it was stupid of him.
He did not consider the prospect of being arrested for carrying concealed weapons until he was halfway to the city, and then he broke into a mild perspiration. From that moment he eyed every man with suspicion. He had heard of “plain clothes men.” They were the very worst kind. “They take you unawares so,” said he to himself, with which he moved closer to the wall of the car, the more effectually to conceal the weapon. It wouldn’t do to be caught going about with a revolver in one’s pocket. That would be the very worst thing that could happen. It would mean “the Island” or some other such place, for he could not have paid a fine.
It occurred to him, therefore, that it would be wiser to get down at One Hundred and Tenth street and walk over to Nellie’s. The policemen were not so thick nor so bothersome up there, he figured, and it was a rather expensive article he was carrying; one never got them back from the police, even if the fine were paid.
Footsore, weary, and chilled to the bone, he at length came to the apartment building wherein dwelt Nellie Duluth. In these last few weeks he had developed a habit of thinking of her as Nellie Duluth, a person quite separate and detached from himself. He had come to regard himself as so far removed from Nellie Duluth that it was quite impossible for him to think of her as Mrs.—Mrs.—he had to rack his brain for the name, the connection was so remote.
He had walked miles—many devious and lengthening miles—before finally coming to the end of his journey. Once he came near asking a policeman to direct him to Eighty-ninth Street, but the sudden recollection of the thing he carried stopped him in time. That and the discovery of a sign on a post which frostily informed him that he was then in the very street he sought.
It should go without the saying that he hesitated a long time before entering the building. Perhaps it would be better after all to write to her. Somewhat sensibly he argued that a letter would reach her, while it was more than likely he would fall short of a similar achievement. She couldn’t deny Uncle Sam, but she could slam the door in her husband’s face. Yes, he concluded, a letter was the thing. Having come to this half-hearted decision, he proceeded to argue himself out of it. Suppose that she received the letter, did it follow that she would reply to it? He might enclose a stamp and all that sort of thing, but he knew Nellie; she wouldn
’t answer a letter—at least, not that kind of letter. She would laugh at it, and perhaps show it to her friends, who also would be vastly amused. He remembered some of them as he saw them in the café that day; they were given to uproarious laughter. No, he concluded, a letter was not the thing. He must see her. He must have it out with her, face to face.
So he went up in the elevator to the eleventh floor, which was the top one, got out and walked down to the sixth, where she lived. Her name was on the door plate. He read it three or four times before resolutely pressing the electric button. Then he looked over his shoulder quickly, impelled by the queer feeling that some one was behind him, towering like a dark, threatening shadow. A rough hand seemed ready to close upon his shoulder to drag him back and down. But no one was there. He was alone in the little hall. And yet something was there. He could feel it, though he could not see it; something sinister that caused him to shiver. His tense fingers relaxed their grip on the revolver. Strangely the vague thing that disturbed him departed in a flash and he felt himself alone once more. It was very odd, thought he.
Rachel came to the door. She started back in surprise, aye, alarm, when she saw the little man in the big ulster. A look of consternation sprang into her black eyes.
He opened his lips to put the natural question, but paused with the words unuttered. The sound of voices in revelry came to his ears from the interior of the apartment, remote but very insistent. Men’s voices and women’s voices raised in merriment. His gaze swept the exposed portion of the hall. Packing boxes stood against the wall, piled high. The odour of camphor came out and smote his sense of smell.
Rachel was speaking. Her voice was peculiarly hushed and the words came quickly, jerkily from her lips.
“Miss Duluth is engaged, sir. I’m sorry she will not be able to see you.”
He stared uncertainly at her and beyond her.
“So she’s packing her things,” he murmured, more to himself than to the servant. Rachel was silent. He saw the door closing in his face. A curious sense of power, of authority, came over him. “Hold on,” he said sharply, putting his foot against the door.“You go and tell her I want to see her. It’s important—very important!”
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories Page 224