The Christmas Megapack

by Reginald Robert

  A note of anxiety in the child’s voice made Van Landing look at her more closely, and as she raised her eyes to his something stirred within him curiously. What an old little face it was! All glow and eagerness, but much too thin and not half enough color, and the hat over the loose brown curls was straw.

  “I don’t think it will be long.” His voice was cheerfully decisive. “That kind is usually soon over. Most of a wedding’s time is taken in getting ready for it. Did you say your father was over there?”

  The child’s head nodded. “They have a harp, so I know they are nice people. Father can’t give lessons any more, because he can’t see but just a teensy, weensy bit when the sun is shining. He used to play on a big organ, and we used to have oysters almost any time, but that was before Mother died. Father was awful sick after she died, and there wasn’t any money, and when he got well he was almost blind, and he can’t teach any more, and ’most all he does now is weddings and funerals. I love him to go to weddings. He makes the others tell him everything they see, and then he tells me, and we have the grandest time making out we were sure enough invited, and talking of what we thought was the best thing to eat, and whose dress was the prettiest, and which lady was the loveliest—Oh, my goodness! Look there!”

  Already some of the guests were departing; and Van Landing, looking at his watch, saw it was twenty minutes past six. Obviously among those present were some who failed to feel the enthusiasm for weddings that his new friend felt. With a smile he put the watch away, and, placing the child’s feet more firmly on the railing, held her so that she could rest against his shoulder. She could hardly be more than twelve or thirteen, and undersized for that, but the oval face was one of singular intelligence, and her eyes—her eyes were strangely like the only eyes on earth he had ever loved, and as she settled herself more comfortably his heart warmed curiously, warmed as it had not done for years. Presently she looked down at him.

  “I don’t think you’re a damanarkist.” Her voice was joyous. “You’re so nice. Can you see good?”

  “Very good. There isn’t much to see. One might if it weren’t for that—”

  “Old tunnel! I don’t think they ought to have them if it isn’t snowing or raining. Oh, I do hope Father can come out soon! If I tell you something will you promise not to tell, not even say it to yourself out loud?” Her face was raised to his. “I’m going to get Father’s Christmas present tonight. We’re going downtown when he is through over there. He can’t see me buy it, and it’s something he wants dreadfully. I’ve been saving ever since last Christmas. It’s going to cost two dollars and seventy-five cents.” The eager voice trailed off into an awed whisper. “That’s an awful lot to spend on something you’re not bound to have, but Christmas isn’t like any other time. I spend millions in my mind at Christmas. Have you bought all your things, Mr.—Mr.—don’t even know your name.” She laughed. “What’s your name, Mr. Man?”

  Van Landing hesitated. Caution and reserve were inherent characteristics. Before the child’s eyes they faded.

  “Van Landing,” he said. “Stephen Van Landing.”

  “Mine is Carmencita. Father named me that because when I was a teensy baby I kicked my feet so, and loved my tambourine best of all my things. Have you bought all your Christmas gifts, Mr. Van—I don’t remember the other part.”

  “I haven’t any to buy—and no one to buy for. That is—”

  “Good gracious!” The child turned quickly; in her eyes and voice incredulity was unrestrained. “I didn’t know there was anybody in all the world who didn’t have anybody to buy for! Are you—are you very poor, Mr. Van? You look very nice.”

  “I think I must be very poor.” Van Landing fastened his glasses more securely on his nose. “I’m quite sure of it. It has been long since I cared to buy Christmas presents. I give a few, of course, but—”

  “And don’t you have Christmas dinner at home, and hang up your stocking, and buy toys and things for children, and hear the music in the churches? I know a lot of carols. Father taught me. I’ll sing one for you. Want me? Oh, I believe they are coming out! Father said they wouldn’t want him as long as the others. If I lived in a palace and was a royal lady I’d have a harp longer than anything else, but Father says it’s on account of the food. Food is awful high, and people would rather eat than hear harps. Oh, there’s Father! I must go, Mr. Van. Thank you ever so much for holding me.”

  With a movement that was scientific in its dexterity the child slipped from Van Landing’s arms and jumped from the railing to the porch, and without so much as a turn of the head ran down the steps and across the street. Darting in between two large motor-cars, Van Landing saw her run forward and take the hand of a man who was standing near the side-entrance of the house in which the wedding had taken place. It was too dark to distinguish his face, and in the confusion following the calling of numbers and the hurrying off of guests he felt instinctively that the man shrank back, as is the way of the blind, and an impulse to go over and lead him away made him start down the steps.

  At the foot he stopped. To go over was impossible. He would be recognized. For half a moment he hesitated. It was his dinner hour, and he should go home; but he didn’t want to go home. The stillness and orderliness of his handsome apartment was suddenly irritating. It seemed a piece of mechanism made to go so smoothly and noiselessly that every element of humanness was lacking in it; and with something of a shiver he turned down the street and in the direction opposite to that wherein he lived. The child’s eyes had stirred memories that must be kept down; and she was right. He was a poor man. He had a house, but no home, and he had no Christmas presents to buy.

  CHAPTER V

  “Mr. Van! Mr. Van!”

  He turned quickly. Behind, his new-made acquaintance was making effort to run, but to run and still hold the hand of her father was difficult. With a smile he stopped.

  “Oh, Mr. Van!” The words came breathlessly. “I was so afraid we would lose you! Father can’t cross quick, and once I couldn’t see you. Here he is, Father.” She took Van Landing’s hand and laid it in her father’s. “He can tell by hands,” she said, “whether you’re a nice person or not. I told him you didn’t have anybody, and—”

  Van Landing’s hand for a moment lay in the stranger’s, then he shook the latter’s warmly and again raised his hat. In the circle of light caused by the electric lamp near which they stood the blind man’s face could be seen distinctly, and in it was that one sees but rarely in the faces of men, and in Van Landing’s throat came sudden tightening.

  “Oh, sir, I cannot make her understand, cannot keep her from talking to strangers!” The troubled voice was of a strange quality for so shabbily clothed a body, and in the eyes that saw not, and which were lifted to Van Landing’s, was sudden terror. “She believes all people to be her friends. I cannot always be with her, and someday—”

  “But, Father, you said that whoever didn’t have any friends must be our friend, because—because that’s all we can be—just friends. And he hasn’t any. I mean anybody to make Christmas for. He said so himself. And can’t he go with us tonight and see the shops? I know he’s nice, Father. Please, please let him!”

  The look of terrified helplessness which for a moment swept over the gentle face, wherein suffering and sorrow had made deep impress, but in which was neither bitterness nor complaint, stirred the heart within him as not for long it had been stirred, and quickly Van Landing spoke.

  “It may not be a good plan generally, but this time it was all right,” he said. “She spoke to me because she thought I could not see what was going on across the street, and very kindly shared her better position with me. I—” He hesitated. His name would mean nothing to the man before him. Their worlds were very different worlds. It was possible, however, that this gentle, shrinking creature, with a face so spiritualized by life’s denials that it shamed him as he looked, knew more of his, Van Landing’s, world than he of the blind man’s, and suddenly, as if someth
ing outside himself directed, he yielded to a strange impulse.

  It was true, what the child had said. He had few friends—that is, friends in the sense the child meant. Of acquaintances he had many, very many. At his club, in business, in a rather limited social set, he knew a number of people well, but friends—If he were to die tomorrow his going would occasion but the usual comment he had often heard concerning others. Some years ago he had found himself continually entertaining what he called his friends, spending foolish sums of money on costly dinners, and quite suddenly he had quit. As long as he entertained he was entertained in return, and for some time after he stopped he still received invitations of many sorts, but in cynical realization of the unsatisfactoriness of his manner of life he had given it up, and in its place had come nothing to answer the hunger of his heart for comradeship and human cheer. His opinion of life had become unhealthy. As an experience for which one is not primarily responsible it had to be endured, but out of it he had gotten little save what men called success; and that, he had long since found, though sweet in the pursuit, was bitter in achievement if there was no one who cared—and for his nobody really cared. This blind man with the shabby clothes and ill-nourished body was richer than he. He had a child who loved him and whom he loved.

  “It is true what your little girl has told you.” Van Landing took off his glasses and wiped them. “I have no one to make Christmas for, and if you don’t mind I wish you would let me go with you to the shops tonight. I don’t know much about Christmas buying. My presents are chiefly given in mon—I mean I don’t know any little children.”

  “And I know forty billion!” Carmencita’s arms were outstretched and her hands came together with ecstatic emphasis. “If I didn’t stop to blink my eyes between now and Christmas morning I couldn’t buy fast enough to fill all the stockings of the legs I know if I had the money to buy with. There’s Mrs. McTarrens’s four, and the six Blickers, and the ashman’s eight, and the Roysters, and little Sallie Simcoe, and old Mr. Jenkinson, and Miss Becky who mends pants and hasn’t any front teeth, and Mr. Leimberg. I’d get him specs. He has to hold his book like this”—and the palms of two little red hands were held close to Carmencita’s eyes. “Oh, Father, please let him go!”

  Hesitating, the blind man’s eyes were again upturned, and again Van Landing spoke.

  “You are right to be careful; but you need not fear. My name is Van Landing, and my office—”

  “You are a gentleman!” Two hands with their long slender fingers were outstretched, and swiftly they stroked Van Landing’s arms and body and face. “Your voice, your hands, tell me your class, and your clothes that you have money. Why—oh, why do you want to go with us?” Quickly his right hand drew his child toward him, and in terror he pressed her to his side. “She is my all, my light, my life! Away from her I am in darkness you could not understand. No, you must not go with us. You must go away and leave us!”

  For a moment Van Landing hesitated, puzzled by the sudden fear in the man’s face, then over his own crept grayness, and the muscles in it stiffened.

  “My God!” he said, and his mouth grew dry. “Have men brought men to this?”

  For another half-moment there was silence which the child, looking from one to the other, could not understand, and her hands, pressed close to her breast, gripped tightly her cold fingers. Presently Van Landing turned.

  “Very well,” he said. “I will go. It was just that I know little of a real Christmas. Good night.”

  “Oh, don’t go—don’t go, Mr. Van! It’s going to be Christmas two days after tomorrow, Father, and the Christ-child wouldn’t like it if you let him go!” Carmencita held the sleeve of Van Landing’s coat with a sturdy clutch. “He isn’t a damanarkist. I can tell by his eyes. They are so lonely-looking. You aren’t telling a story, are you Mr. Van? Is it truly truth that you haven’t anybody?”

  “It is truly truth,” he said. “I mean anybody to make Christmas for.”

  “No mother or father or a little girl like me? Haven’t you even got a wife?”

  “Not even a wife.” Van Landing smiled.

  “You are as bad as Miss Barbour. She hasn’t anybody, either, now, she says, ’most everybody being—”

  “Miss who?” Van Landing turned so sharply that the child jumped. “Who did you say?”

  “Miss Barbour.” The eyes which were so like those he could not forget were raised to his. “If you knew Miss Barbour she could tell you of plenty of people to make Christmas for. She’s living right now with Mother McNeil, who isn’t really anybody’s mother, but just everybody’s. But she don’t live there all the time. Most of her people are dead or married and don’t need her, so she came to Mother McNeil to see how children down there live. What’s the matter, Mr. Van?”

  To hide the upleaping flame in his face and the sudden trembling of his hands Van Landing stooped down and picked up the handkerchief he had dropped; then he stepped back and out of the circle of light in which he had been standing. For a moment he did not speak lest his voice be as unsteady as his hands, but, taking out his watch, he looked at it, then put it back with fumbling fingers.

  “Her first name—Miss Barbour’s first name,” he said, and the dryness of his throat made his words a little indistinct. “What is it?”

  With mouth rounded into a little ball, Carmencita blew on her stiff finger-tips. “Frances,” she said, and first one foot and then the other was stamped for purpose of warmth. “The damanarkist says God made her, but the devil has more to do with most women than anybody else. He don’t like women. Do you know her, Mr. Van?”

  “If your friend is my friend—I know her very well,” he said, and put his hands in his pockets to hide the twitching of his fingers. “A long time ago she was the only real friend I had, and I lost her. I have wanted very much to find her.”

  “Oh, Father, if he knows Miss Barbour he’s bound to be all right!” Carmencita’s arms were flung above her head and down again, and on her tiptoes she danced gaily round and round. “We can show him where she lives.” She stopped. “No, we can’t. She told me I must never do that. I mustn’t send any one to her, but I could tell her of anybody I wanted her to know about.” Head uplifted, her eyes searched Van Landing’s, and her words came in an awed whisper, “Was—was she your sweetheart, Mr. Van?”

  “She was.” Again Van Landing wiped his forehead. It didn’t in the least matter that he was telling to this unknown child the most personal of matters. Nothing mattered but that perhaps he might find Frances. “You must take me to her,” he said. “I must see her tonight.”

  “I can’t take you to see her tonight. She wouldn’t like it. Oh, I know!” Carmencita made another rapid whirl. “We can go downtown and get”—she nodded confidentially to her new-made friend and pointed her finger in her father’s direction—“and then we can come back and have some toast and tea; and then I’ll send for Miss Barbour to come quick, as I need her awful, and when she comes in you can say: ‘Oh, my lost and loved one, here I am! We will be married right away, this minute!’ I read that in a book once. Won’t it be grand? But you won’t—” The dancing ceased, and her hands stiffened in sudden anxiety. “You won’t take her away, will you?”

  “If she will come with me I will not take her where she won’t come back. Can’t we start?”

  But the child was obdurate. She would do nothing until her purchase was made, and to her entreaties her father finally yielded, and a few minutes later Van Landing and his new acquaintances were on a downtown car, bound for a shopping district as unknown to him as the shops in which he was accustomed to deal were unknown to them.

  Still a bit dazed by his chance discovery, he made no comment on the child’s continual chatter, but let her exuberance and delight have full play while he tried to adjust himself to a realization that made all thought but a chaotic mixture of hope and doubt, of turbulent fear and determined purpose, and of one thing only was he sure. Three years of his life had been wasted. Another hour
should not be lost were it in his power to prevent.

  CHAPTER VI

  When the store was reached Van Landing for the first time was able to see distinctly the faces of Carmencita and her father, and as for a moment he watched the slim little body in its long coat, once the property, undoubtedly, of a much bigger person, saw her eager, wonder-filled eyes, and the wistful mouth which had learned to smile at surrender, the strings of his heart twisted in protest, and for the “damanarkist” of whom she had spoken, for the moment he had sympathy of which on yesterday there would have been no understanding. She could not be more than twelve or thirteen, he thought, but condition and circumstance had made her a woman in many matters, and the art of shopping she knew well. Slowly, very slowly, she made her way to the particular counter at which her precious purchase was to be made, lingering here and there to gaze at things as much beyond her hope of possession as the stars of heaven; and, following her slow-walking, Van Landing could see her eyes brighten and yearn, her lips move, her hand outstretch to touch and then draw back quickly, and also every now and then he could see her shake her head.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Why do you do that? Is there anything in here you would like to get, besides the thing you came for?”

  “Anything I’d like to get!” The words were repeated as if not heard aright. “Anybody would know you’d never been a girl. There isn’t much in here I wouldn’t like to get if I didn’t have to pay for it.”

  “But not rattles and dolls and drums and pop-guns and boxing-gloves and all the other things you’ve looked at. Girls of your age—”

  “This girl wasn’t looking at them for herself. I’m ’most grown up now. But everybody on our street has got a baby, and a lot of children besides. Mrs. Perry has twins and a baby, and Mrs. Latimer always has two on a bottle at the same time. I’m just buying things in my mind. It’s the only way I can buy ’em, and Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas if you couldn’t buy some way. Sallie Simcoe will go crazy if she don’t get a doll that whistles. She saw one in a window once. It was a Whistling Jim and cost a dollar. She won’t get it. Oh, here it is, Mr. Van! Here’s the counter where the jewelry things are.”