Part 4

“How much have you sold today, Mrs. Hanley?” questioned the girl eagerly. “I had the biggest sale this month yet.” The sad-eyed one smiled pleasantly.

“Oh, I had a pretty good day, Florence. This is always a good time of year you know.”

“Yes, I know. Everybody getting new things.” She sighed, with a fierce longing that she too might have plenty of money to get new things. A sigh like that was easily translatable by her companion. For some reason Mrs. Hanley shrank tonight from the usual wail that the girl would presently bring forth about the unfairness of the division of wealth in the world, perhaps because she, too, was wondering how to make both ends meet and get the new things that were necessary. She roused herself to change the subject. They were passing the Van Rensselaer mansion now, well known to both of them. She snatched at the first subject that presented itself.

“Why do you suppose Madame is so anxious to please that young man when everybody says he doesn’t pay his bills?”

“Oh,” said Florence almost bitterly, “she knows his dad’ll pay ’em. It’s everything to have a name like that. He could get away with almost anything if he just told people who he was.”

“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Hanley almost sadly. “But I hope that girl doesn’t keep those clothes. She’s too fine for such as he is.”

“Yes, isn’t she?” said Florence eagerly. “I suppose most folks would think we were crazy talking like that. He’s considered a great catch. But somehow I couldn’t see a girl like that getting soiled with being tied up to a man that’s got talked about as much as he has. She’s different. There aren’t many like that living. That is the way she looks to be. Why, she’s like some angel just walking the earth because she has to, at least that’s the impression her face gave to me. Just as if she didn’t mind things us other folks think so much about, she had higher, wonderful things to think about. I don’t often see any one that stirs me up this way and makes me think about my mother. I guess I ain’t much myself, never expected to be, but when you see some one that is you can’t help but think!”

After which incoherent sentence Florence, with a gay good-night, turned off at her corner, and Mrs. Hanley went home to a little pent-up room high up in a fourth-rate rooming-house, to wash off her paint and get a tiny supper on a small gas stove, and be a mother for a few brief hours to her little crippled son who lay on a tiny couch by the one window all day long and waited for her coming.

VII

More than four hundred miles away a freight train bumped and jerked itself into the town of Marlborough, and lumberingly came to a halt. With its final lurch of stopping a hasty figure rolled from under one of the empty cars and hurried stiffly away into the shadows as if pursued by a fear that the train upon which he had been riding without a right might come after him and compel him to ride further.

The train was over an hour late. It was due at five. It had been held up by a wreck ahead.

It was the first time that Murray Van Rensselaer had ever taken a journey under a freight car, and he felt sure it would be the last. Even though he might be hard pressed he would never resort to that mode of travel again. That the breath of life was still in him was a miracle, and he crawled into the shadow of a hedge to take his bearings.

There were others who had stolen rides in that manner, for thousands of miles, and seemed to live through it. He had read about it in his childhood and always wanted to try it, and when the opportunity presented itself just in the time of his greatest need, with a cordon of policemen in the next block and his last dollar from the ample roll he started with spent, he had lost no time in availing himself of it. But he felt sure now that if he had been obliged to stay on that truck under that fearful rumbling car, and bump over that uneven roadbed for another ten minutes, he would have died of horror, or else rolled off beneath those grinding, crunching wheels. His head was aching as if those wheels were going around inside his brain. His back ached with an ache unspeakable, and his cramped legs ached as if they were being torn from his aching body. He had never known before how many places there were in a human body to ache.

He had eaten no breakfast nor dinner. There was no buffet in the private berth he had chosen, and he had no money in his pocket to purchase with if there had been. It was his first realization of what money meant, of what it was to be utterly without it. For the moment the fear that was driving him in his flight was obliterated by the simple pangs of hunger and weariness. He had started for the far West, where he hoped to strike some remote cattle ranch where men herded whose pasts were shady, and where no questions were asked. He felt that his experience in polo would stand him in good stead among horses, and there he could live and be a new man. He had been planning all the way, taking his furtive path across the country, half on foot and half by suburban trolleys, until his money gave out and he was forced to try the present mode of transportation. He had entertained great hopes of a speedy arrival among other criminals, where he would be safe, when he crawled on that dirty truck and settled himself for his journey. But now, with his head whirling and that desperate faintness at the pit of his stomach, he loathed the thought of going further. If there had been a police court close at hand he would have walked in gratefully and handed himself over to justice. This business of fleeing from justice was no good, no good in the world.

He stood in the shelter of a great privet hedge that towered darkly above him, and shivered in the raw November air, until the train had jolted itself back and forth several times and finally grumbled on its clattery way again. He had a strange fancy that the train was human and had discovered his absence, was trying to find him perhaps, and might still compel him to go on. He almost held his breath as car after car passed his hiding-place. Each jolt and rumble of the train sent shivers down his spine, and a wave of sickness over him, almost as if he had been back underneath that dreadful car above those grinding wheels. It was with relief unspeakable that he watched the ruby gleam of the tail light disappear at last down the track around a curve. He drew a long breath and tried to steady himself.

Down the road across the tracks some men were coming. He drew within his shelter until they were passed, and then slid round the corner into a street that apparently led up over the brow of a hill.

He had no aim, and he wondered why he went anywhere. There was nowhere to go. No object in going. No money to buy bed or bread with, nothing on him worth pawning. He had long ago pawned the little trinkets left in his pockets when he started. Eventually this going must cease. One had to eat to live. One couldn’t walk forever on sore feet and next to no shoes. Flesh and bones would not keep going indefinitely at command of the brain. Why should the brain bother them longer? Why not go up there on the hill somewhere and crawl out of sight and sleep? That would be an easy way to die, die while one slept. He must sleep. He was overpowered with it like a drug. If he only had a cigarette it would hearten him up. It was three days since he had smoked--he who used to be always smoking, who smoked more cigarettes than any other fellow in his set. It was deadly doing without! And to think that the son of his father was reduced to this! Why even the servants at home had plenty to eat and drink and _smoke_--!

He plodded on up the street, not knowing whither he was going, nor caring, scarcely knew that he was going. Just going because he had to. Some power beyond himself seemed driving him.

Suddenly a bright light shone out across the walk from a big stone building set back from the street. A church, he saw, as he drew nearer, yet it had a curious attachment of other buildings huddled around it, a part of the church, yet not so churchly. He wondered vaguely if it might not be a parochial school of some sort.

There were lights in low windows near the ground and tall shrubs making shelter about, and from the open doorway there issued a most delectable odor, the smell of roasting meat.

Straight to the brightness and appetizing odor his lagging feet led him without his own conscious volition. It was something that he had to do, to go to that smell and that comfort, even though it led him into terrible danger. A moment more and he stood within the shelter of a great syringa bush looking down into the open window of a long light basement room, steadying himself with his trembling hand against the rough stone wall of the building, and just below his eager hand was a table with plates and plates full of the most delectable looking rolls, and rows of wonderful chocolate cakes, and gleaming frosted nut cake.

He could hear voices in the distance, but no one was in sight, and he reached down suddenly and swiftly and with both hands and gathered two little round white frosted cakes and a great big buttered roll, and sliding behind the syringa bush, began to eat them voraciously, snatching a bite from one hand and then the other.

He had never stolen anything before, and he was not conscious of stealing now. He ate because he was famished and must eat to live.

Down in the basement a church supper was in preparation.

Great roasts were in the parish oven, potatoes were boiling for the masher. The water was on for lima beans, and a table stood filled with rows of salad plates, on which one of the church mothers was carefully placing crisp lettuce and red-ripe tomatoes stuffed with celery and bits of nuts. Another church mother was ladling out mayonnaise from a great yellow bowl in which she had just made it. A kettle of delicious soup was keeping hot over the simmerer.

They never did things by halves in the Marlborough Presbyterian Church, and this was a very special occasion. It was the annual dinner of the Christian Endeavor Society, and they had always made a great deal of it. In addition to this a new man was coming to town, a young man, well heralded, notable among young church workers in the city where he had spent his life, already known for his activity in Christian Endeavor work and all forms of social and uplift labor. They felt honored that he was coming to their midst. As teller in the bank he would have a good financial and social standing as well, and moreover his name was well remembered, as his father and mother used to live in Marlborough years before. There had been a letter commendatory and introductory from the city pastor to Rev. Mr. Harrison, the pastor of the Marlborough church, and the annual church affair had been postponed a week that it might be had on the night of his arrival, that he might be the guest of honor and be welcomed into their midst properly. Not a few of the girls in the Christian Endeavor had new dresses for the occasion, and the contributions for the dinner had been many and unusually generous. It seemed that all the girls were willing to make cakes galore, and each vied with the other to have the best confection of the culinary art that could be produced. Some of the mothers had offered of their best linen and silver to make the table gorgeous, and there had been much preparation for the program, music, speeches, and even a monologue. The Vice-president, who was poetically inclined, had written a poem which was intended as a sort of address of welcome to the stranger, and an introduction to their members, and many a clever hit and pun upon names embellished its verses. No one who had come to town in years had had the welcome that was being prepared for Allan Murray, the new teller in the Marlborough National Bank, and State Secretary of the Christian Endeavor Society in his home State.

The big basement dining-room of the church was all in array with tables set in a hollow square. Two girls were putting the finishing touches.

“Anita, oh, Anita! Has Hester May’s sponge cake come yet?” called the taller of the two, a girl rather given to much beads.

“Yes, it’s here, Jane, real gummy chocolate frosting on top. Ummm! Ummm! I could hardly keep from cutting it. It looks luscious. Is your mother going to get here in time to make the coffee?”

“Oh yes, she’ll be here in half an hour. You ought to put an apron on, Anita. You’ll get something on that lovely blue crêpe. My, but you look scrumptious with that great white collar over the blue. Did you make that collar yourself? It’s wonderful! Say, how did you embroider that? Right through the lace border and all? Oh, I see! My, I wish I was clever like you, Anita!”

“Oh, cut it, Jane! We haven’t time for flattery! I’ve got to finish setting this table. Are the forks over there? Where’s Joseph? Go ask him if we haven’t any more forks. He washed them after the Ladies’ Aid luncheon. Perhaps he put them away.”

“They’re in the lower drawer. I saw them when I got out the napkins to fold. Here they are. Wouldn’t it be dreadful if the guest of honor didn’t get here after all, when everything is coming out so fine? Did you know Mrs. Price was sending roses out of her conservatory? A great armful. I brought down mother’s cut-glass bowl to put them in, and we’ll put them at the speaker’s table, right in front of Mr. Harrison and the guest. Oh, dear, I hope he gets here all right!”

“Why, why shouldn’t he, Jane? What an idea? Didn’t he write and say he expected to arrive this afternoon? Mrs. Summers said she had his room all ready, and his trunk came last night, so of course he’ll be here.”

“But there’s been an awful wreck on the road. Didn’t you hear about it, Anita? Yes, it’s terrible, they say. Doctor Jarvis telephoned he couldn’t come to lunch. He went on a special relief train. It’s somewhere down around Smith’s Crossing. The rails spread, or something, and the express telescoped the way train, or else it was the other way round, and a lot of people got hurt, and some killed, or at least there was a rumor they did.”

“Mercy!” said Anita, stopping in her work. “Why that’s awful! Allan Murray might have been on the train you know.”

“No, I guess not,” said Jane. “He telegraphed last night he was arriving here late in the afternoon. That would mean he would take the train at Alton at noon. This wreck was the morning train. But then he might have been delayed by it. You know it takes a long time to clear the tracks. Oh, well, he’s likely at Mrs. Summers’ now unpacking, or we would have heard. We ought to stop talking and get to work. The celery has to be put in the glasses and the nuts in the dishes. One of those nut dishes is broken, too. Isn’t there another dish up on that high shelf that will do?”

“I brought over some silver nut dishes. They will do for the middle table. Did they say any Marlborough people were on that train?”

“Yes, Dick Foster and some college friend coming home for the week-end, but they phoned they were all right. They were in the last car and only a little shaken up. Mr. Foster took the car and ran down to Smith’s Crossing after them. Then there was that lame shoemaker from under the drug-store, that little shop, you know, and Mrs. Bly, the seamstress. Nobody knows anything about them. At least I didn’t hear.”

“Oh, Mrs. Bly,” said Anita sympathetically. “I hope no harm came to her, poor thing. She’s sewed for us ever since I was a child. Say, Jane, does your brother know this Mr. Murray? He went to the same college, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but it was after Allan Murray left. He saw him once though. He was just adored in college. He was a great athlete, though very slender and wiry, Bob says; and he was awfully clever. Made Phi Beta Kappa and all that, and was president of the Y. M., and head of the Student Gov., and stunningly handsome. Bob didn’t say that though. Bob is ashamed of a man being good-looking. It was Marietta’s cousin said that. Her brother was in Allan Murray’s class, and brought him home once, and she thought him just a perfect Greek god, to hear her talk; but when I asked Bob about it he said, oh yes, he was a looker he guessed. He never took particular notice. And I simply couldn’t get a description, though I tried hard enough. He couldn’t even remember the color of his eyes, said they were just eyes, and what difference did it make. But Marietta said he was dark, and had very large dark eyes, slender--no, _lean_, that was the word she used, and awfully tanned and fit. She said he had a smile, too, that you never could forget, and fine white teeth, and was careful about his appearance, but not much of a dresser. She said he had worked his way through college. His father had lost money and he was going in for thrift, and didn’t give much time to social things, but was awfully good company.”

“H’m! That’s just about what the minister said when he told us he wanted us to make him feel at home. I don’t really approve of it myself, this taking a stranger and carrying him around on a little throne before you’ve tried him out, but when Mr. Harrison asked us to arrange this Christian Endeavor banquet on the night of his arrival to give him a kind of welcome to our town, why of course it had to be done. And of course Mr. Harrison knows what he’s talking about, or he wouldn’t suggest it. But it makes it just a little embarrassing for us girls to seem to be so very eager to welcome another young man into our midst that we fall all over ourselves to let him know it right off the first night.”

“Now, Anita! You’re always so fussy and prudish! As if he would think anything about it at all. Besides, his having been an active Christian Endeavorer in his home church, and his father having been a member of our church years ago when he was a boy, makes it kind of different, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” said Anita thoughtfully, “only I do hope he won’t be stuck on himself. The young men are all so sure of their welcome anyhow these days, it doesn’t seem as if it was hardly necessary. And it’s enough to turn a young man’s head anyway to have the whole town bowing down to him this way. Teller in the town bank, taken in to board at one of the best houses in town just because Mrs. Summers knew his mother when she was a girl, and given a church supper on the night of his arrival. I’m sure I hope he will be worth it all, and that we sha’n’t spoil him right at the start.”

“Oh, Anita! You’re so funny! What do you care if he is spoiled anyway if we have a good time out of it? I’m sure I don’t. And it’ll be nice to have another fellow around, so many of our boys have gone off to college or to work in the city. And those that are left don’t care a picayune for the church affairs. I have to fairly hire Bob and Ben to come to anything we have here, and this Murray man, they say, is crazy about church work. If it proves true, I think the society will grow by leaps and bounds.”

“Well, what kind of a growth is that? Just following after a new man! That’s not healthy growth. When he goes they’ll go with him if that’s what they come for. Who is that outside? Perhaps it’s the man with the ice-cream. It ought to be here by this time. Go out and look. It may be some of those tormenting boys that live across the street. And the cakes and rolls are all under that window. I declare, I should think church members would teach their children better than to _steal_! Go quick, Jane. I don’t want to leave this butter now till I get it all cut in squares. But for pity’s sake, forget that new man, or you’ll be bowing down to him just like everybody else!”

“Oh, Anita! You’re perfectly hopeless,” giggled Jane as she fled up the basement stairs to the outside door to reconnoitre.

A moment more and Anita heard her friend’s voice ring out clearly in an eagerly hospitable voice among the syringa bushes outside the chapel window:

“Isn’t this Mr. Murray? Mr. Allan Murray? Won’t you come right in, we’re all expecting you--?”

Anita, cutting butter into squares in the pantry window in the basement, turned away with a curl of her pretty lip and slammed down the window. If Jane wanted to make a fool of herself with this stranger, she, Anita, was not going to be a party to it. And she carried the cakes to be cut to the far table in the kitchen quite away from the dining-room and went to work with set lips and haughty chin. The new man should not think _she_ was after him, anyway.

VIII

Outside the church Murray Van Rensselaer, somewhat fortified within by the stolen bun and the two frosted cakes, whose crumbs were yet upon his lips, started in astonishment.

Of the unexpectedly warm greeting he caught but one word, “Murray,” his own name, and as he took it in, thinking at first that he had been recognized, it came to him what it would mean. The whole careful fabric of his intricate escape was undone. Unless he disappeared at once into vacancy he would be brought speedily forth into the light and have to explain. Some dratted girl he had probably met at a dance somewhere and didn’t remember. But everybody knew him. That was the trouble with belonging to a family like his and being prominent in society and clubs and sports. His picture had been in the paper a thousand times--when he took the blue-ribbon at the horse-show, when he played golf with a visiting Prince at Palm Beach, on his favorite pony playing polo, smashing the ball across the net to a world champion tennis player; the notable times were too numerous to mention. She didn’t know. She hadn’t seen the city papers yet or hadn’t noticed. Probably didn’t think it was the same name--It wouldn’t take long for the news to travel, even four hundred miles. That was nothing. He must get out of here!

He made a wild dash in the other direction, but came sharply in contact with a stiff branch of syringa which jabbed him in the eye right smartly, and for an instant the pain was so great that he could do nothing but stand still.

The girl in the doorway was tall and slim, and she stood where the light from the chapel shone full behind her and silhouetted a very pleasant outline. Also she knew that the light caught and scintillated from her crystal necklace, which hung to her very long indefinable waist, and that she presented thus a trim appearance. But she might as well have been short and fat for all he saw of her as he stood and held his eye, and groped about with his other hand on what seemed an interminable stone wall behind him. Was there no way to get out of this?

Jane was not a girl to give up the vantage she had gained of being the first to welcome this new hero to town. He had backed off into the shrubbery, shy perhaps, and had not answered, but she was reasonably sure of her man. Of course it must be he. He was likely reconnoitring to be sure he was in the right place, and it wouldn’t do to let him slip away. He might be one of those who were shy of an open welcome, and needed to be caught or he would escape. So Jane proceeded to catch him.

With nimble feet she descended the three stone steps and was upon him before he knew it, with a slim white hand outheld.